PART 5

Michael woke early in the morning, long before Maria. Quickly taking a shower and making coffee, he dressed and called Max. They needed to get an early start considering they had a funeral to go to, and leads to follow. It was only Friday, and he had met Maria DeLuca on Tuesday. Why did it already feel like a lifetime? Going up the stairs one last time, he looked down at her sleeping form, her hand resting on the warm spot he vacated mere minutes before, almost like she was searching for him in her sleep. The sight of her long thin beautiful hands made him breathe harshly out of his throat.

Michael frowned at the thin white line circling her side, and noticed a few more over her back. He never noticed them in the early morning light. Sitting next to her on the bed he traced one of them with his finger. Noticing the red mark of whisker burns on her back also, and the redness of her mouth, he smiled and leaned down to brush the hair from her face and kissed her gently on the mouth. Taking a card with his cell number on it, he put it under her hand just in case she had misplaced the other one he gave her.

Walking down the stairs and putting on his shoulder holster, he noticed Sean was up, no doubt following the smell of coffee. Both men stared each other down, still uncomfortable with the situation, but neither ready to yield or talk about it. Maria and Michael had woken Sean up just before the early morning light. It was hard to miss the sounds coming from upstairs in the quiet loft, the laughter and the groans. Sean turned over and covered his head with a pillow, realizing that he was going to need to find a new place to sack out and soon. Either that or go up the stairs one night and shoot Michael Guerin dead between his eyes.

No, he realized that neither Michael nor Maria wanted his input in their relationship, and it was easy to guess that Maria wouldn’t take any advice in the spirit it was meant. Damn, Sean rubbed his head remembering the huge erection he woke with. He really needed to go out and find some other type of relief than himself and the shower. For a second his thoughts turned to Liz Parker, but no, what he was needing was definitely a much wilder ride, not with so many complications. It was for the best because he suspected Guerin had no intention of leaving the loft until after the case was over, and maybe not even then. But then again, neither did Sean. He wasn’t leaving his cousin’s side until he knew she was out of danger.

“Max is on his way. Are you going to be around to cover Maria while she goes to the funeral today, or do I need to get her some protection?” Michael asked as he poured them both a cup of coffee, and passed Sean his.

“I’m around, so I’ll shadow her,” Sean said taking a drink of his coffee, his eyes narrowing, “ and tell her all the reasons you’re a bad lay.” Michael smiled at that, a little too smug for Sean’s taste. Without thought Sean actually reached for his gun until he realized that he was only standing there in his boxers. Dammit, one day he was going to shoot Michael Guerin dead. The knock came interrupting their pissing stares, and Sean sighed and turned away to answer the door, to let Max in. Someday, things between him and Michael Guerin would come to a head, and then they would know.

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It wasn’t until later in the morning that Michael and Max finally took a break to go to the funeral. It was a standard procedure. Scanning the crowd of people he finally found Maria standing in a crowd of other University people respectfully coming to lay Chris Delaney to rest. She looked stark and pale, all in black, but her eyes remained dry, distant, almost like she was willing herself away, to another place where this never happened.

The museum crowd was there, and within their ranks stood both Liz Parker and Cassie Welsh. He should have known they would come to show their support for their new acquaintances. Maria and her friend, Dianne stood together close with Dianne occasionally wiping away tears that Maria couldn’t cry. He wondered why. And the man with the answers to Maria’s past stood a few feet away up on the hill scanning the crowd, looking carefully at them all. Sean DeLuca, who at times scared even him, not for any other reason than the look in his eyes looked too familiar, too much like the one he saw in the mirror every morning shaving.

Michael and Max went over to Sean as the funeral was breaking up and the guests were talking to Delaney’s family and fiancée. They needed Sean to keep at Maria’s side. She was going to the reception afterwards with the rest, but they also needed her help.

“DeLuca.” Michael said dark and deadly. Max looked at the two men as Sean answered back in a tone laced in acid.

“Guerin?”

Michael smirked at the tone. “I need you to bring Maria to the station after the reception. We need her input about the Professor. Can you do that, or do I need to send a squad car.”

“Done.” Sean barely spared them a glance as he walked away.

Max watched the man, not liking the stiffness of his back, the wave of deadly intent. Looking at his partner, he worried that someday he was going to find Sean DeLuca standing over Michael’s body with a smoking gun. “What the hell is going on with the two of you?”

Michael just shrugged. It wasn’t that difficult to understand, but even Michael knew there was more to Sean’s protectiveness of Maria, something thicker than just blood and being cousins. “I think it’s self explanatory. Sean doesn’t want me near his cousin.”

“This is f-ucking more than you doing his cousin and him worrying about her, Michael.” Max remembered Sean’s eyes and the look made his blood run cold. They were the eyes of a stone cold killer, one that killed without remorse.

“I’ve got no incest vibes, or even a hit that he loves her more than he should. I think it has to do with something in the past, something in her past that made him her protector.” Michael was confused about the extent of Sean’s hostility. There were too many damn puzzles in this case, too many loose ends.

“Well you better find out soon, and find a way to diffuse the situation before I’ve got another homicide case on my hands. I don’t want to watch you being zipped up in a body bag, brother.”

“Understood.”

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Maria walked into the Roswell PD, not bothering to look at either side, but keeping her eyes straight ahead. Sean told her that they needed her help, that they needed to ask her about the Professor. Maria shut her eyes and prayed to a God she didn’t believe in anymore, or trust, that she could weather this latest storm. She needed her life back.

Sean quickly signed her in at the front desk and escorted her upstairs to Major Crimes. Jim came out of his office and smiled across the room at her, trying to lend her some support. Sean watched Michael and Max lead her into an interrogation room before he looked over at Captain Valenti’s office and then went over to talk to Jim.

Max placed a cup of hot coffee in front of her, trying to lend her strength, but already knowing that this was going to be hard for her, and regret was warring inside his body. Max felt the need to rush her from the room, to hide her, protect her from this, but he couldn’t. Not him, nor Michael, or any other member of the team. They needed to find a thread, a common reason for the deaths of a night watchman and a Professor of Anthropology. Michael stood in the corner of the room quiet trying to control his need to protect her, to shoot Max and himself for what they were going to do.

Max held her hand tight. “Maria, we know this won’t be easy, and believe me, if we could spare you, we would. Meg, the Professor’s secretary told us that you and Professor Kovitch were the best of friends, that you knew about his research and his work more than anyone else in the department, that you helped him catalogue his books and manuscripts.” Max paused and looked over at his quiet partner, still and watchful. Holding out his hand, he waited as Michael passed him the book in an evidence bag. Slowly pulling it out, Maria’s breath caught in her throat.

It was the mournful sound of her voice thick with tears she couldn’t shed that cut Michael the deepest, “Oh God!” She stood up and backed away from the manuscript covered in Janhie’s blood, and hand covering her mouth, her eyes so wide they dominated her face. Michael swore violently no longer able to take anymore. Rushing to her, moving her up against the wall to keep her upright when she would’ve fainted, he put his body between her and the book moving his hand to hold her head against his breast.

“Maria, concentrate. We need to know what this manuscript’s importance was to the Professor.” Maria nodded at Michael’s voice, commanding her, controlling her, forcing her to get it together. Max quickly put the manuscript away. The Professor chose that manuscript knowing death was coming for him. It had to be a clue, or hold some meaning.

“It’s an ancient tome, one that tells of the history of Caesar’s troops as he crossed the Rubicon in 69 BC. When Rome went to war with Pompeii, and all of Europe bled. It was the crossing of the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and the Roman Republic. The manuscript holds accounts of Caesar’s brief runs across the Channel beyond Calais to the British Isles.” Maria paused remembering the pride in Janhie’s voice as he held the ancient book, read the accounts of a historical civilization long since dead. There was much crossover between the History Department and the Anthropology Department especially in the areas of dead languages and manuscripts. “He discovered it on a dig in his early years in Italy. It was the basis of his thesis and his pride and joy.”

Max admired how hard this was for her to talk about, how little time she had to mourn her lost friend. He was more amazed at the sight of his partner holding her strong, muttering encouraging words to her. They were moving fast, almost too fast to even recognize from one moment to the next. He doubted either of them realized what they looked like to others, how close.

“Maria, I need you to look at this symbol and tell me if it means anything to you?” Max pulled the artist rendition of the etching found carved in the old man’s chest from the file, but not before spilling the contents on the floor. Maria looked around Michael to see the symbol, but instead only saw the crime scene photos spread out on the floor like a nightmare too hideous to wake from. Pushing Michael away, she ran from the room barely making the bathroom, not caring it was the men’s room. Michael seeing the pictures too, shot Max a dark look and, with a stream of profanity, followed after Maria.

“Get out!” Michael ordered the men in the bathroom staring at the young woman in the stall being ill. Michael looked over his shoulder at Max, “get Liz.” Michael quickly wet a paper towel and pressed it to the back of her neck, holding her head against him as she was violently ill. He worried that she would never be through as it seemed to go on for hours, despite only being moments. Seeing Liz standing in the door looking unsure, he quickly wiped Maria’s mouth and flushed the toilet. Searching her eyes, shaking her a little trying to make her focus on him, he frowned at the faraway pinpoint pupils that didn’t see. Swearing under his breath and standing, he picked her up off the floor, into his arms, and went through the door as Liz back out of his way. “Come with me.” Liz just nodded rushing to keep up with Michael and Max as they went to the elevators carrying Maria out of there.

When they got Maria back to her apartment, Max couldn’t stop looking back in the rear view mirror at his partner’s stony face, or the silent body of Maria hard up against his chest holding onto him for dear life. Liz just sat next to him twisting her hands, looking back at them, and then forward again. When they entered the loft Michael ordered them to make hot tea and walked up the stairs with her. Not even stopping in the bedroom he went straight into the bathroom and turned on the shower, hurrying as he felt the first tremors hitting her body. Stripping off her clothes and his own, he stepped into the shower not even bothering to close the door. Holding her under the hot running water, he used one hand to lift her face, cussing as he saw her pupils still constricted, the faraway look and the pale skin. She was shivering so hard he was having a hard time keeping her upright in his arms.

Liz and Max walked into the room, both paused at the door taking in the two nude bodies in the bath, and Michael reached out his hand for the hot tea. Taking it from Max, he forced her to drink it. Liz and Max left the two alone, as Maria started sputtering, coughing up the tea. Downstairs they stood silent, helpless, looking up at the room, then at each other and away again. Maria should have never seen those photos.

It was the door slamming open as Sean DeLuca rushed into the loft. He looked at Evans and Parker, and then upstairs and took them at a dead run. Stopping at the foot of the bed he saw Maria and Michael in the middle of the bed wrapped in blankets, and Michael still feeding her tea. She looked bad, like death, the pallor of her skin shocking and her teeth chattering. Sean groaned remembering the last time he saw her this way, as shock settled in. Moving to a closet he quickly grabbed even more blankets and covered the two of them, taking the empty cup from Michael’s hand, he rushed downstairs to get more hot tea while Michael continued to rub warmth back into her skin, rocking her against him as her body shook apart with one tremor after another. He continued to talk to her in low tones, running his hands over her face and body, keeping her with him.

Sean mounted the bed, straddling the two of their legs as he helped Michael feed her more tea. “Maria, drink it. You have to drink it, baby.” Michael held her tight and Sean did the same. She was sandwiched between them as the tremors finally backed off, and her eyes closed, too tired to resist the lull of sleep. Michael could feel the fatigue in his own body, the pain in his muscles from the strain of trying to hold her together as the worst of the shakes hit.

It was awhile before Max and Liz noticed the lack of movement upstairs. Slowly mounting the stairs Max paused at the top seeing the three of them in bed, asleep. Michael on one side holding Maria almost fully across his body, and Sean on the other also holding her, laying across her back. Maria finally seemed to be over the worse of it, and now was sleeping off the last effects of shock.

It was a short while later that Sean came down the stairs leaving Michael and Maria still sleeping. Max felt for him, and couldn’t stop blaming himself for spilling those photos, letting Maria see her friend slaughtered and lying in his own blood. Pouring yet another cup of hot tea, Max passed it to Sean. None of them spoke as they waited for the others to wake. Sean couldn’t see anything but the nightmare, the nightmare that he, Amy, and Maria shared. Today she remembered, touched it, and Sean was terrified that she would descend back to that dark place, again.

Michael came downstairs reluctant to leave her, but needing to check on the others. Seeing the three of them quietly making dinner he was shocked to see it was after six PM. Clad only in his jeans, Michael sat on a bar stool and accepted the hot coffee Sean pushed his way, barely acknowledging him. Sean’s eyes narrowed in scrutiny and noticed that Maria hadn’t been the only one to suffer a shock. He could still see it in Michael’s eyes, the very eyes that avoided his. He suspected that at that very moment Michael would’ve let him pull the trigger and shoot him or pulled it himself. The last thing he wanted to harm Maria or cause her that kind of pain, and for the first time since he met Michael Guerin, Sean felt some of his protective anxiety letting up. Okay, so Guerin walked away again, but hardly unscathed.

“How did you know?” Sean was curious how Michael recognized the early signs of shock, that Maria was going to drop out on life, and that taking her to an emergency room would have been worse for her than just letting her body break apart from the tremors.

Michael finally looked at him. “I recognized the signs. I’ve seen them enough up close and personal.” Michael didn’t mention the day that he suffered the same.

Max was equally quiet remembering it like it was yesterday. It was a year after Max met Michael. He was still a patrolman, and Michael was in Vice. Mikey Guerin, Michael’s father was a veteran Desk Sergeant working the front desk when a gang member high on too many drugs to classified including a few designers entered the PD with a shot gun and started blasting away. Michael and a few other officers drew their weapons and took out the young man, but not before Mikey Guerin took a gunshot to the gut that literally cut him in half. Michael held his father in his arms as he bled to death already too far gone to save, demanding someone call an ambulance. Max never heard such inhuman sounds in his life as Michael Guerin in despair, and from the moment on, Michael hardly allowed himself to be touched. After they took his father’s body to the morgue, Max watched as the first tremors hit Michael, he lost his stomach, and then his eyes became unfocused.

It was the first time he ever saw anyone shake apart with shock. But in Michael’s case they had transported him to the hospital, shot him up with drugs not knowing the devastating effects that narcotics had on him. It took Max and Isabel over two months to get him back, for him to find himself again.

There was no way anyone could convince Michael that the hospital was the way to go, or that being so drugged into oblivion was a good alternative. After that Michael worked the streets, living there, barely coming in from the cold, and he had held other victims equally wracked with shock. It was after those last two years that Max finally got Michael off the streets, and talked him into moving to Roswell, a nice quiet town.

Michael looked up from his drink and ignored the plate of food Liz placed in front of him. Making eye contact with Sean, he finally asked what before he had been willing to wait for. “You’re going to have to tell me. Now would be as good a time as any. I’ve seen the scars.”

Sean recognized what Michael was asking, what he wanted to know. Looking up at the quiet loft, Sean just shook his head no. She deserved some privacy, some peace. He could tell part of the story, but not all, and especially not tonight. “No. Not right now. I can’t.” Michael clenched his hands into fist, but had to respect Sean’s right to privacy, his and Maria’s. It occurred to Michael that he might have a better way to find out what he needed to know.

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Max let himself into his apartment. He had driven Liz Parker home because her car was still at the PD garage where she left it earlier. She said she would call Cassie to give her a ride to the Museum in the morning. He was surprised to see that she lived above a restaurant, the CrashDown Diner, and that her family owned and ran it. It was strange to realize that she still lived at home at the age of twenty-six.

The apartment seemed very quiet, so Max knew that Isabel wasn’t home. For a few moments he worried about what she was getting into. Taking a beer from the refrigerator, Max opened it and poured half into a small glass, and used a special cap to reseal the bottle. Half a cup of beer was his personal limit, and hard liquor was completely out. Michael could actually drink an entire beer and even a shot of liquor before he reached his. It didn’t seem fair that of the three of them, that he was the most intolerant. And Isabel was the antithesis of the two of them.

It wasn’t always that way. At first she was the same as they were, one drink and she was gone. But after their parents died, she went on a binge doing hard drugs and liquor, losing herself in the numbing effects, until as soon as she recovered from one high she hit another one. It took years before they realized that she had grown tolerant to the amounts so that to achieve a numbing high she had to ingest five times what would have felled a two hundred pound wrestler.

Max looked up surprised when the door opened and in walked a smiling Isabel. His eyes narrowed as he took in her condition, surprised that she seemed sober and clean. But the smell of sex was still hanging off her, but hopefully since she was sober that meant she used precautions. Isabel found years ago that adding sex to chemical abuse gave her a higher high, a normally unreachable plateau, and when she wasn’t high it still gave her a rush. So she basically overdosed not only on drugs, booze, but sex, lots of sex. Self-respect was a concept lost on his sister long ago as the addiction ruled all aspects of her life.

Max said hello and watched her taking out the other half of his beer and sit at the table. He had the case file for Professor Kovitch spread out before him making notes and going over the case lab results. Isabel reached over and picked up the artist drawing that he tried to show Maria earlier, and Max smiled to himself as Isabel moved it around and around, turning it upside down.

“What’s this from?”

“A murder case. It was cut into the body. We’ve been trying to chase its meaning down, but so far no luck.” Max sipped his beer and looked at his sister. He knew she was trying hard to stay clean to make a change. So far she went to every meeting, suffered through another detoxification, but nothing would ever be this hard again.

“Well that’s absolutely ghastly, thanks for sharing.” Isabel’s eyes narrowed as she tried to recall where she saw that symbol before, why it looked so familiar. “I know I’ve seen this before.” Max looked at her with interest.

“Really? Can you remember where?” Isabel nodded and got up to start some dinner.

“I’ll try. You hungry?” Max just shook his head no. He had already eaten and it had been good.

“Naw, you go ahead. I ate at Maria’s.” Max missed Isabel looking at him with a strong speculation in her eyes.

“Maria?” Damn, they had been so busy that he missed telling Isabel about what was going on in their lives. She was essentially out of the loop, including the strange feeling vibes he and Michael picked off Tess Hardy.

Max wondered how Isabel would take the news of someone new in Michael’s life. She never seemed able to find anything good about his many different relationships, and hated his last one with a passion. “Maria is a professor at the University, she found the first victim, and was friends with this man.”

Isabel looked at Max knowing he wasn’t coming completely clean. “Unlucky girl, she must’ve had bad karma in her last life.” Max smiled at that but didn’t commit. “Spill it Max, what is so special about this Maria girl that has you all smiling.”

“Nothing except she has Michael wrapped around her pretty finger, and is f-ucking him into another time zone as well.”

Isabel’s mouth opened in shock. “No! Not our "I was crazy to get involved with some dizzy chick" Guerin? He’s fallen?” Isabel moved closer resting her elbows on the table. “How fallen we talkin' here?”

Max made a gesture of a man falling off a cliff with sound effects and everything. Isabel just laughed in delight. Oh my, how the mighty scream timber. It would be nice to see Michael a slave of his biological urges. Maybe it would help him start to feel some compassion for her plight. “Okay, you’ve got to tell me all. God, I hope she’s nothing like that last bitch with her hard greedy little eyes.”

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Maria woke the next morning before Michael, and because it was Saturday, and she didn’t have to be anywhere for a while, she lay on her elbow and watched him sleep. He woke her in the early morning when she was having nightmares, and it was nice having someone there. It was strange to think that she had had him in her bed since Wednesday night, and already he knew the best spot to sleep, how to hog all the space and covers, and how to look so perfectly innocent while he slept that she didn’t get mad. Reaching over, Maria gently traced the features of his face thinking it was ridiculous for a man to look so breathlessly beautiful.

It was the flicker of his lashes that clued her in that he was awake and watching her just as intently. Smiling she slowly opened the short top she was wearing that went with matching panties surprisingly missing. He just sat back never taking his eyes off her, but kept watching. Feeling her nipples tighten under his intense gaze, Maria moved in to rest on his chest rubbing her hardened nipples against him. Liking the stuttering of his breath she reached up and kissed his Adam’s apple nipping it playfully and following a string of kisses to his ear she whispered hotly, “always the voyeur, Detective?”

Michael laughed and rolled her under him, happy to see the color back in her cheeks, the life back in her smile. She scared the crap out of him yesterday, as he watched her slip from him, knowing he would rather cut off his own arm than take her to the hospital so they could shoot her up to forget the pain. Drugs never did anything for anyone he knew. Feeling nothing or feeling pain? He would choose pain any day. At least you knew you were alive. Isabel has chosen to feel nothing and it had become a trap so deep that she looked to never get out.

“With you? The way you touch yourself? Always Professor, always...” Michael kissed her deeply, pulling back to gently sweep the golden blond hair from her face and stick some behind her ear. “You scared me to death yesterday, Maria. I didn’t do very well with it either.”

Her small sounding, “I’m sorry,” touched his heart, left it aching in a spot he never felt.

“Don’t...” Kissing her mouth shut, keeping the apologies where they belonged. “It’s not your fault. You were never supposed to see that, to know. I’m sorry, and Max is sorry that we opened you up to such pain and horror.”

“It’s okay, because now I know. Now I understand.” Maria held him close. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to help you end this, to stop this horror.”

“I know, but Maria, I want you out of this. I need you out of this.” Michael sat up a little to look down on her. “If you want to help, then stay safe, keep out of harms way and it’ll make my job easier.”

She understood what he was saying, what she was costing him. It would be selfish to expect him to keep giving up so much time to watch over her, to protect her, because the victims remained undefended. They needed him as much as she did. Her need of him scared her, made her want to run away and think, but she had already promised herself never to run again. “Okay, Detective, for you I can do that.” Maria moved in and kissed him hard. “But what can you do for me?”

Michael laughed in delight. Oh yeah, his girl was back and in fighting trim! Just when he thought they were going to tumble into a discussion riddled with heavy emotions and confessions of general mushiness, she turned the tables and demanded something else. “What is it you want exactly?”

Maria moved closer, moving him onto his back and straddling his hips. “Hmm, an early morning ride?”

Michael laughed, but then remembered a sleeping man downstairs that most of the time would rather shoot him than look at him. If they woke him up, the tension would just climb. “Sean.” Maria followed his quick glance downstairs.

Maria sighed and leaned down folding her arms across his chest and resting on them. “I guess we could be concerned about Sean if you like.”

Michael looked down at her, her naked breasts flattened against his chest. “F-uck Sean, he needs to get his own place anyway. We could consider this incentive to convince him.”

Maria laughed and leaned up to kiss him hard, “Oh goody, does that mean you’ll make me scream?” Oh yeah, he could work on that until he got it right...

Michael caught the warm fluid in his hand as he reached down to stroke her, lubing a finger with it and sliding easily inside. He didn’t even question why she was so easy to set on fire at his touch, but as his finger eased into the tight passage he kissed her neck licking the corded muscles. No matter how many times they went at it she remained small and tight, and he was learning to love the sensation of her muscles clamping down on him, holding him firm. He thrust easily with the one finger and withdrew to add another to increase the tightness and pressure.

"Mm...Oh, yeah...you’re getting good at that..." Maria moved against the fingers, pressing downward. Moving her own hands down she explored his nipples, feeling them tighten under her fingers.

"You like that, don't you?" Michael moaned the words low, leaning in to nip at Maria's nipple hard than soothing it with a lick as he continued to move his fingers in and out, finding himself almost on the edge from the sounds in her throat.

"Oh yeah, but Michael, sweetie? I’d like it better if we’d stop being so chatty and just go for straight f-ucking." Michael laughed and withdrew both fingers suddenly, shifting so that Maria's legs fell to either side of his hips, but he used his hands to hold her up.

He was laid out under her, his erection straining forward, blindly seeking. "Take me in your hands," he whispered hoarsely. Maria reached farther down his body and wrapped her hands around him running a finger across the trembling, weeping c-ock then spreading the moisture around the head.

"Straddle my legs on your knees," he commanded in a rough voice. Maria moaned and would have fallen forward if his hands weren’t still holding her up. Straddling his hardened c-ock she tried to sink down on him and take him inside, but he was controlling her, controlling how much she could have of him at once.

"Oh, god!" The cry had a surprised ring to it. “Michael, please!”

Michael smiled as he buried his face in Maria’s neck as she fell forward on him, her hands releasing him. Slowly working more of his c-ock into the tight passage, twisting and spreading, loosening the muscles there so she could easily take the larger girth.

"Am I making you hot again, Maria? Do you want me? Want me to f-uck you until you come screaming?" Michael asked watching her eyes, seeing her tongue come out and lick her dried lips. She was becoming frustrated by all the talking, the holding back, the slow torture, and him drawing it out, denying her.

"Dammit Michael stop teasing or I’ll shoot you with your own gun!” The words were exchanged in heated whispers, breathed against hot skin. Maria moved herself on Michael's body as much as he would allow her to have, her own fingers playing with his hard, tight nipples. A particularly vicious twist and Michael groaned, his c-ock twitching.

"Stop that. I want to come inside you, not on you. C'mere..." Michael leaned back against the pillows and watched her move in his hands. He slowly removed the force he was using to hold her in place, and using his legs moved her legs further apart so she was forced to sink downward on him.

"Oh f-uck, Michael..." Maria breathed out as she felt herself being impaled slowly on Michael's engorged c-ock.

"Christ, Maria..." Michael swallowed heavily as he was engulfed by the hottest, tightest passage he'd ever been in, and no matter how many times he entered it, it remained the same. He could feel himself throbbing inside of Maria, felt her smaller body throbbing around him as he lodged himself deep inside. It was incredible as the rush of blood through the thin walls of skin caressed and massaged him, heating him almost like a furnace. Maria's pulse felt like staccato beats pounding along his sensitive c-ock, the heat of her body seemed to sear him, branding him. "You're mine. All mine..." he whispered hoarsely as he inclined his head to claim Maria's mouth with his. Arms came around his neck as his lover settled her weight more comfortably, rocking to take the rest of his penis in.

"Yours...okay, yes. But only if you’re mine, Michael." Maria slumped over him as a wave of pleasure almost unseated her. “Damn you, Guerin, who taught you to tease!” Michael laughed to himself, not feeling the need to tell her that she was responsible, as his hands ran down her naked back to settle at her hips helping her to move faster and harder into him, to ride him into submission.

They rocked together gently for a long moment, lips and tongues searching, tasting, reassuring. He was enjoying the pace, liking how it was drawing the fire up his spine. Then the hunger that had engulfed both of them began to rise again and movements became more urgent, more frantic.

Maria tore her mouth from his, panting, rocking her body forward. Michael shifted so that he had a better anchored position, and cupped Maria's cute ass more firmly in his hands, spreading the cheeks. She gasped and steadied herself with hands on his shoulders and began moving over him, sliding up and down the heated shaft piercing her flesh. Michael groaned when Maria flexed her internal muscles, thrusting up into that moist, welcoming heat. He leaned forward and bit her gently on the neck, sucking on the pulse point. Maria moaned low in her throat and Michael did it again, biting a little harder this time. Maria's answer was to flex her muscles again, holding him as tight as a vice.

"You're killing Me...God, you feel so goodsotightsohot... You’ve got me already, finish me."

"No...you can take more. I can feel you throbbing inside me...” Maria gave a small scream as Michael picked her up and moved forward tumbling her off his lap, onto her back hard on the mattress. And before she could protest he was in her again, nailing her hard against the mattress. “OH! Oh, yeah...again, Michael, again.” She was holding him tight moving herself up into him, demanding more and more of him. Michael angled his penetration and pushed her legs further apart, gripping them, and lifting them over his shoulders, the tip of his c-ock leaving her body, to suddenly thrust back in, slamming home up against silken walls. The shivers and shudders that racked her body were echoed through his own when Maria tightened around him. Their movements became faster, harder. Michael slammed hard into Maria; Maria lifting up taking more and more of Michael in.

It became a battle of sorts, players changing sides, working for the same team. Michael sought Maria's mouth in a ravenous kiss, thrusting his tongue into her like he was thrusting with his hips. Maria reached between them to stroke her body to touch her clit, but Michael brushed her hand away and did it himself, pumping faster and faster to match the frantic pace their bodies were following, sliding his finger along the nerve endings, stroking her higher. He watched Maria's face, the changing, restless expressions and whispered encouragingly, "That's it...cum for me...I want to see you cum, Maria."

Maria convulsed, her body stiffening and contracting as she felt him shoot his load into her as he followed her orgasm. He continued to thrust hard into her willing body, holding his thrust as Maria's body tightened around him, muscles clenching, milking him. He shuddered for long moments, shaking from the intensity as the orgasm moved up and down his body, activating his skin in long shudders causing her to scream his name as she was caught up in it too. He collapsed on her, afraid to move in case it shattered them, broke them to pieces as the electrical impulses continued to move up and down their bodies, moving between them almost like a live wire of an electrical current. He could feel her, feel every nerve from her head to her toe, and back again. That never happened before. He snickered softly in her skin when he heard her say breathlessly, “Damn voyeur...”

They rested for a while liking the feel of each other’s sweat drying on their skin. Closing their eyes, they both drifted under the covers, still feeling the rippling effects of the electrical charge. It was the sounds of the door opening downstairs, and then the shutting front door that made Maria turn on her stomach causing Michael to protest at the movement. Looking down at the now empty room, and knowing Sean was probably jogging his usual morning run, she turned to look at Michael.

“Oh Detective, you’re so good. He left the loft. I think this is the beginning of the end.” Maria said smiling at him as she resettled in his arms, not really minding that Sean was there, but not really interested in having a third party around. There were so many possibilities she had in mind, and having a houseguest was making some of them impossible. Sean didn’t know it, but he was probably saving Michael’s life, because some of the things she was thinking of would probably kill him.

Michael just fixed her firmly into his arms and kissed the top of her head. Oh yeah, he was going to feel the heat later for this morning’s escapade, “To serve and protect, ma’am...” Michael drifted off to sleep to the sound of Maria's lovely soft laughter. So what if Sean took his gun and shot him dead, he really couldn’t say it wasn’t worth it...

***********************************************************************************

Maria looked up from a sea of invoices and smiled at the loud crowd of workers, both University staff and members of the Roswell PD. Even Sean had volunteered his Saturday off, and already they had caught up on the destroyed work and were now working on deliveries that hadn’t been unpacked and catalogued. Three or four people had already asked if they could volunteer some hours a week when the museum finally opened. It was hard not to feel gratitude to the kindness shown, and the group had talked about creating a special display in memoriam to Professor Janhie Kovitch and his lifework. It was sad, but therapeutic.

Glancing down at her hands, Maria was upset to see them shaking. Putting away her work, she quickly got up and went to get a cup of hot tea to help with the shakes. Leaning against the wall with her back to her office door and the others, she didn’t see Sean enter the room while she closed her eyes for a moment trying to block out the pictures of Janhie’s death. Maria promised herself to never slip back into that world. The nightmare, the nightmare made it worse.

Sean frowned as he put his hands on Maria’s shoulders feeling her jump under his hands. Quickly wrapping his hands around her shoulders from behind and crossing them around her front holding her tight to him, he hugged her hard wishing he could take away the horror.

“It’s okay to cry, M. This is a good reason to cry.” Sean felt her deep sigh and as she leaned back into his putting her head against his shoulder, her hands coming up to hold his crossed arms.

Maria’s voice was low and sad. “I know. It’s just, I don’t think I can anymore. It’s when you cry that they hurt you more.” Sean growled his anger and held her even closer closing his eyes to rest with her.

Michael stood in the doorway watching them for a moment. His face dark and unreadable as he understood that there was so much between them that he didn’t understand. It was hard to admit feeling jealous of a woman’s cousin, but he did. It bothered him that there were secrets, dark ones, that held Maria separate from others, and Sean was the only one who knew them. He knew that his secrets and his past were things he guarded as well, but he couldn’t stop wanting to know her. Neither figure noticed him leaving the doorway.

Max and Michael looked over at Maria and Sean as they emerged from her office. Sean was playing nursemaid to Maria while Michael and Max caught up on some leads. The PD officers reported and Michael took a few moments to hear Liz’s report, but he couldn’t help but watch Maria DeLuca as she wandered around the room talking to people.

“Well hello, Detective.” Michael swore under his breath at how his body responded to that breathy purr her voice got when she called him "Detective".

“Professor. Are my people working out okay?” Maria smiled at his cute authoritive voice.

“Absolutely. This has been so helpful. I’ve got more deliveries waiting at the mailroom, but I asked Dickie to hold them.” Maria turned to look at the group. “I don’t want any more artifacts or relics added to the menagerie. This is a large enough task as it is.”

“How much longer?” Michael looked at the chaos around them and couldn’t believe that this was actually neater than what it was when they started.

“Three days, tops. I’m planning to stay late tonight, and work all day tomorrow, and some on Monday. I’m hoping that once we confirm nothing is missing, it will help you to look at other possibilities.” Maria moved closer to him and ran her hand up his shirt, ignoring Max.

Michael tried to pretend he didn’t know that she was attempting to rattle him. She had too much confidence in her ability to affect him, and he didn’t like it. He was working, dammit! “You sound confident that it’s not the museum pieces.” Michael swore and looked at Max who was laughing under his breath at the husky sound to Michael’s voice.

“Hope springs eternal, Detective! I’m nothing if not full of hope.” Michael swore at her knowing she meant that in more way than one, and Max laughing his ass off didn’t help. Michael handed over a few bucks. She was not helping his cussing problem much. Then she did it again. She changed the subject. “You stop to see Kyle today?”

Michael just stared at her lips that somehow seemed even closer than before. Max smiled and took pity on Michael. The Professor was a little out of Michael's league. Michael’s experience ran to women that were easy to control and ignore, and Maria DeLuca was a horse of a very different color.

“Actually, yes we did.” Maria turned to give Max some of her attention. Max saw the speculation in her eyes and before she could verbalize her question, he answered it. “He’s doing fine. Restless, but your assistant Tess is helping with that. She hasn’t left his side.”

The group hearing Tess’s name started asking Max questions. Normally Tess would have been at the museum with the group of the other graduate students working hard. Her absence was felt by all of them. Maria had smoothed things over for her, getting her excused absences for a family emergency. They were all curious of this mysterious person in Tess’s life that none of them had heard of.

Michael took the opportunity of Max answering questions and stopping to talk to the students and workers to grab Maria by the arm and drag her off a few feet, behind a support column. He looked around, ignoring the interested glances of the other people, and looked down at her with her back plastered up against the column. She looked good. Real good! She was wearing casual clothes, a short skirt, and a tight halter top, with her golden blond hair haphazardly pinned up in a loose bun, with wisps falling down along her neck in soft curls. Damn her! He could feel his body heating up just from the look of her.

Maria watched expression after expression run over his face, and almost felt sorry for him. Okay, not really. She did think almost. Smiling and liking the pressure of him against her, she tried to give him an out.

“You coming over tonight?”

Michael looked at her. Of course, he was coming over. What the hell did she expect him to do? Leave her alone unprotected? Michael ignored the fact that Sean would more than likely be home, too.

Maria saw the look come over his face and decided to not make him verbalize what he couldn’t do at this time. For some people it was hard. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what he was doing. It was that he just didn’t always know why. It was too vulgar to suggest that he was interested in only f-ucking her, and of course he would be over, so he was struggling for some reason that didn’t sound like a commitment or building false expectations.

“I, um...”

“I was hoping you would. Cooking isn’t my greatest talent, but I can produce something passable. I think Sean is on duty tonight. And I don’t want to be alone.” Maria watched his expression lighten. They both remembered their act of possessiveness last night, and even through they both committed the heinous crime of telling the other that they belonged to each other, those words didn’t mean in the light of day that they couldn’t step back a little, back it up and take it slower. Neither of them was ready to really look at the harsh reality of what last night meant.

“You want to cook for me?” Michael scratched his eyebrow and looked past her at the sounds of laughter. Sean was sitting with Cassie Welsh making her laugh, teasing her about something, and leaning into her. What surprised him the most was Liz Parker was watching with a frown on her face. Damn, and Max was watching Liz watching Sean! These damn DeLucas just corrupted the entire gene pool with their charismatic bodies, charming the hell out of people left and right! “I might have to work late.”

“That’s okay. If you were expecting food before ten at night, you’re living in a dream world. I don’t plan to finish here until after eight.” Maria pulled Michael to her, her tongue gently licking his lips, waiting for him to let her in. He never disappointed. Maria loved the way his mouth took over everything, took control. But somehow despite the heat and pressure, he was surprisingly gentle. Maria was breathing harshly when he backed off. “I’ll save you some food if you can’t make it until late.”

”Maria?” Michael cleared his throat, and tried again. “Maria, where are we going...”

Maria just smiled. What the hell was Liz Parker talking about? He wasn’t unkind. He was just struggling to not be an abuser. “Where we’re going, Detective, is yet to be determined. I sure as hell refuse to make any decisions about it until this mess is over, when I can breathe again. But I can tell you, that I like you in my bed...want you there.” Maria reached over and kissed him again, slowly and softly, tasting his mouth with extra care to emphasize her point. “Can you handle that, Detective? Can you handle a woman who wants you for your body?”

Michael pulled her away from the column and into his arms, burying his mouth in her neck, nipping her hard, but not breaking the skin, liking the sound of her gasp. “I think I handle that very well, Professor.” Pulling away he looked at her, and feeling more than he wanted to admit to, but not wanting to leave it all physical, he muttered, “It’s not just about sleeping with you, Maria. I want...”

Maria stopped him with a hand over his mouth. “Later. This is enough for now. Okay?”

Michael licked the palm against his mouth and smiled at the darkening of her eyes. “Okay.”

“Good. So, you want a key in case you’re late and I’m asleep? Or do you prefer to break in?” Maria’s voice took a mischief sound to it. “Oh, I know--break in.” Maria hit him lightly on the chest. “You can be the burglar again, and I’ll be the innocent homeowner, unaware a sexual deviant is loose in her neighborhood.” Michael started to laugh at her antics. “I can do the whole maiden in distress bit, and I’ll even leave an upstairs window open so you can climb in...”

Michael’s eyebrow went up at the word “maiden” and Maria catching his amusement immediately and hit him again. “I’ll call when I’m on my way. Save the key for later, but do not,” Michael moved in threatening to emphasize his point. “Do not leave any windows open. Promise?”

“Implicitly, Detective. Geez! Down boy! Are all you protector types so uptight?” Maria kissed him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “No matter. I took the opportunity to enter you into my security system. Just enter by the garage. There’s a keypad. Just type in your access code.”

“I’ve got an access code?”

“You do now. Hope you can remember it. It’s “Stud” . Think you can remember that, Detective?” Maria laughed at his expression and moved away quickly before he could grab her again. Michael followed rubbing the back of his neck wondering when exactly did he lose control. In truth, he wondered if he ever had any in the first place.

As he followed her back to the others, his phone rang, the same time as Max’s did. Both knew what that meant. Max quickly said goodbye to the others, and stopped to give Maria a kiss on the cheek. Following Michael out of the building he laughed at Michael's acidlaced, “Get your own!”

Both Detectives missed Sean’s phone ringing soon after theirs. Sean quickly took the call, stopped to squat next to his cousin, and talked to her seriously.

********************************************************************************

As they entered Major Crimes, Valenti’s secretary pointed down a hall. “He wants you in the conference room, Number 2B.” Max nodded as he followed Michael on the way. Opening the door they were surprised to see a few other people there, including Simon from the ME’s office.

“What’s up, Cap?” Michael asked as he and Max entered the room, Max automatically heading for the coffee machine on the table. Before Jim could answer, the door opened behind Michael to admit Sean DeLuca into the room. “What the hell is he doing here?” Who the hell was watching Maria? Michael frowned swearing under his breath. She gets into trouble when left alone for long. Max came up and handed him his coffee, and held out his hand for a dollar.

“Sean is now on your team, Guerin. He’s temporarily assigned to Major Crimes. So take a seat.” Michael and Sean both sat down on opposite ends of the table, but still kept eye contact.

“Gentlemen, I’m far from happy. This is an unhappy man before you. I need results on this University thing and I need it yesterday, and before any more incidents!” Valenti held up his hand as Michael started to comment. “Does anyone else here see the new a-sshole I’ve been chewed by the Police Commissioner? It seems his “good” friend the Chancellor of UNM Roswell called to express his complaints. They’re concerned that no one will want to send their children to a University with a murder run rampant and unchecked.”

Simon looked up from his reports and felt bad for his old friend. “Granted, I can see your problem here, Jim, but in truth it was the mucking up on the first murder scene that has made it damn near impossible to connect the two physically, except for both of them being on University soil. That destruction was due to the University Cops and the Chancellor not closing the site and calling us in immediately.” Simon turned red in the face. “Dammit, Jim! They moved the body!”

Valenti rubbed a hand over his eyes, and sunk back into a chair. Damn he was tired. “I know. I know that we lost some valuable information, but we need to get on this fast. I’m concerned here people, and not just professionally. This is personal. They can take my badge if they want it. But I’ve got a bigger concern.” Valenti looked over at Michael and then Sean. “What type of connection we got, Detective, between the first murder, the break-in, and the second murder?”

Michael knew. Sean knew. Moreover, Valenti sure as hell knew. Michael had little to no option, but to voice it. “Professor Maria DeLuca. She’s our common thread.”

Jim stood up and looked at his people. “That’s my daughter, gentlemen. I don’t think that there is a person in this room that wants to have to tell me that something has happened to my daughter, now do you? I could give two farts about the damn enrollment at UNM Roswell. Maria DeLuca is a major concern here-both she and the victims. I already have one kid down in the hospital and I won’t stand for another one! Not her. I want this worked around the clock! Is this clear gentlemen?” The group of them nodded and left the room to go rework what they had for evidence.

“Not you, Guerin. Stay.” Max looked at Michael, and then he and Sean left the room.

Michael looked at the tired man. “Sean shouldn’t be in on this. He’s too involved. A loose canon.”

Jim looked at the clenched muscles in Michael’s jaw. “And you’re not, Michael?” Michael conceded the point, but there was no way in hell he was walking away from this case. Resting his hip against the conference table, he waited on Valenti to get on with it.

“This thing between you and Sean. I need it buried, and I mean deep. There’s no time for two alpha males fighting over the same piece of meat or turf, and I’ll shoot you both if you start pissing on my walls in the bullpen trying to mark territory!” Michael smiled at the image of Sean taking a whiz on the walls. Yeah, he could see that. “You’re the primary on this, but Sean is close on your heels. He stays in the know, an equal. He’s protective of Maria, and including him is better than having him mucking around on his own. Am I making myself clear?”

“Aye, Cap.” Michael sat down firmly on the table and looked at Valenti with his dark hard eyes. “But I need to be in the know, too.”

”What do you mean?” Guerin was making him uncomfortable. He couldn’t allow that.

“Maria. I want to know about the scars, the nightmares, and why she had a total meltdown yesterday.” Sean wouldn’t tell, but Valenti might. Michael didn’t know why it was so important to him to know about her, but he needed it.

Valenti sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I meant to thank you for getting her out of here quick. Maria...she’s special to me. A hospital would’ve been a bad place for her. Her memories of hospitals are almost as bad as anywhere else.”

”Jim.” Valenti was shocked at Michael’s use of his given name. Michael kept himself apart, but this obviously meant something to him.

“Okay, cool it here. I’ll be right back.” Jim left the room and caught Max by the arm before entering his office. “Get your liaison officer down here, immediately. I need them to take charge of this situation with the University, and the Commissioners Office. Who is it?”

“Cassie Welsh.” Max smiled at Valenti’s cursing as he went into his office to open a drawer in his desk and taking out a huge file. Captain Valenti and Cassie had had a few run-ins. Cassie had mucked up a few of their cases and then went directly to the Captain to report.

Valenti came back out carrying a folder and pointed it irritably at Max. “Well then, hell! Tell her to get down here and report to me, immediately!” Jim walked back to the conference room rubbing the back of his neck. Who the hell assigned Cassie to a Guerin case? It had to be a joke!

Opening the door to the conference room, he saw Michael looking out a window drinking a cup of coffee, patiently waiting. It was obvious that Guerin wasn’t going anywhere until he got the full story. Turning to shut the door, Jim looked across the bullpen and made eye contact with Sean DeLuca, and with an almost indistinguishable nod of his head, Sean acknowledged what Valenti was about to do.

Jim put the file on the conference table as Michael turned to join him, and pushed it across to Michael. Michael quickly sat down and opened the folder. Going for coffee and keeping his head turned, looking out the window, Jim waited, mentally reading along with Michael every word, looking at every picture. He could feel the temperature of the room dropping as Michael read, with an occasional swearword muttered under his breath.

“None of this was in her record that we ran.” Michael couldn’t take his eyes off the crime scene pictures. The blood was everywhere. No wonder she went into shock! It was like the past coming back, reopening and swallowing her alive! Small wonder she felt she was cursed.

“It wouldn’t be, none of it. It was suppressed and closed by IA.” Michael looked across the table at Jim with his hands pressed together fingertip to fingertip. “Sean DeLuca almost lost his badge over it.”

Michael didn’t care why or how, but he knew suddenly that he owed Sean DeLuca a lifetime debt. “So her father was Franco DeLuca of the Laegastini Family?”

“Yes, Franco, Sr.” Jim watched as Michael quietly put the file back together and then put his hands on top of it looking at Jim. “Franco, Jr. was her brother. He was older than she was by about four years. He was...cruel.” Michael nodded still unable to remove those pictures from his mind.

“So she never cries because...”

“Because when they were children, Frankie, Jr. would burn her, tie her up, or lock her in a dark closet. And crying just made him too happy--made him abuse her more.” Michael’s eyes turned dark, dark brown, and Valenti was glad in some ways that Frankie was dead, because if he weren’t already in hell, Guerin would have put him there.

“Sean’s connection?”

“Sean is the son of Marco DeLuca, Franco Sr’s younger brother. When Franco, Sr. died, Frankie, Jr. took over as the head of the family business. The DeLucas are Wiseguys, hitmen for the Laegastini Family, the best. Frankie, Jr. was called “The Butcher” because he liked using a knife--a boning knife.” Michael closed his eyes to the remembered crime scene photos he had just seen of Maria DeLuca sliced to pieces and bleeding to death. Her scars. The darkness inside grew, the rage, and he didn’t know what to do with it or where to put it. “When Frankie, Jr. died, Marco rose to power, became head of the family business.”

Michael stood and nodded to Valenti. There was nothing left to say. Maria DeLuca had protectors because she needed them. There was something about her. It drew people to her, made them want to take care of her. Perhaps it was the sense that she was a survivor, that despite her small delicate body, there was an iron-will. A person who refused to die. So she charged on, refusing to yield, and those around her stepped in front of her trying to spare her. Maria DeLuca was the rock that those who loved her best, broke themselves upon. Michael didn’t know whether to feel afraid that he had joined the others, or honored. He knew one thing. Maria DeLuca scared the sh-it out of him!

When Michael emerged from the room, the first person he saw was Sean DeLuca, who quickly moved through the door into the stairwell. Michael motioned to Max that he would be back, and quickly followed Sean through the door. Stopping, he could hear the footsteps above him and followed up the stairs to the roof. On the roof, sitting on the side of the building looking around Roswell, and smoking a cigarette, sat Sean DeLuca.

“Want one?” Sean asked not bothering to look back at Michael. He knew who it was.

“I don’t smoke.”

Sean laughed bitterly. “Neither do I. Today? Today I smoke.” Sean searched the landscape thinking of the unknown monster that was stalking his family, again. This time it was something he didn’t know, something he couldn’t understand. “You know about Maria?”

“I read the file, but I don’t really know do I? No one really knows but you, Maria, and her mother.” Michael went closer and stood beside the man wondering how he survived it.

“My father wasn’t a nice man, but he was better than my Uncle Franco. Big Frankie was cruel, silent, and lacking in color. All his life he was raised to be what we are. Who we are.” Sean looked at Michael with the eyes that scared Max. They were the eyes of a killer, a stone cold killer. “That's who I am and where I stemmed from.” Sean laughed ironically. “I never had a doubt that I’d be who they wanted, what they sired. Until one day, when I was twenty-two, my father gave me an assignment, one that was to be my first. I was told to kill my friend, Johnnie. We were best friends since childhood, grew up together, and lost our virginity at the same time with the same hooker. He was...” Sean paused and took another long draw from the cigarette, “the only brother I ever knew.”

“Why did they want him killed?”

“Why? Who knew? His family fell out of favor. They failed where they shouldn’t have. It was retaliation, a lesson to be learned.”

“You didn’t kill him.”

Sean laughed and shook his head. “No. No, I went to him, got him out, and helped him turn over evidence and be placed in witness protection.” Sean turned and sat on the wall looking at Michael fully now. “My family suspected I was the one who tipped him off, but they couldn’t prove it. It was enough suspicion for my father and uncle to cut me off, disown me. So I went.”

“What about Maria? How does she figure into this?” Michael watched the man light another cigarette. “It started before Maria. My Uncle Franco came from a world that was black and white, no color. He met Aunt Amy, and she was like life-- color, and spring coming to a world of endless winter. They were in love. That was until Franco learned that he wanted her to change, to become like other women in the family and be subservient, obedient, and colorless. Amy couldn’t be that, ever. They fought, and fought. He would hit her...she would leave...he would bring her back. Then Frankie, Jr. was born. Amy was horrified that he was the image of Uncle Frankie, but worse, much worse. He was cold and vicious. There was nothing human in him. Amy never tried to leave again, but she refused to have anything to do with Uncle Frankie.”

“Then how did Maria...” Michael asked curious how a child be conceived by two people who spent no time together. He couldn’t imagine any person related to Maria being the monster he knew Frankie “The Butcher” DeLuca to be. Her brother was accused of over fifty slaughters, but nothing that he could be convicted for, or even accused. That was in the space of time of his first twenty-five years of life.

“In my family a woman is a servant. Less than nothing. Property. Aunt Amy may have never wanted anything to do with Uncle Frankie, but that meant nothing. He took what he wanted when he wanted. And it was in that type of circumstance that Maria was conceived.” Michael swore under his breath. Oh God, Maria! She was a product of rape. How could she learn to live with that? “The thing was that from the moment Maria was born things changed. She was...life. Not just to Amy, but all of us. She was blond and bright, laughing and sweet, and my Uncle adored her as much as Amy did. They tried to make her life safe, but they couldn’t protect her from Frankie, Jr. who saw her as his victim, a source of fun and torture.”

“Franco DeLuca, Jr. was her brother! I can’t reconcile the concept of them being both born to the same parents.” Michael’s jaw clenched and he rubbed his face.

“Maria was tortured and traumatized by him for most of her young life. Her home life was full of screaming and fighting. She worked hard, very hard to finish school early, to graduate two years before her class. Maria once told me that she wasn’t smart, just driven. She knew that as long as she lived at home, Amy was a hostage too.”

“So she left home? She ran away?”

“No, she graduated and then without the family knowing, applied for schools as far away as possible. She could’ve gone to Harvard, Yale, or even Brown, but all that mattered to her was being far away, in an obscure location, to live free and hidden. She picked New Mexico’s University in Las Cruces. The summer before she was scheduled to start, she left home and headed towards New Mexico on her own. Her father cut off her money and threatened her if she didn't return. Once Maria left, Amy packed her bags and disappeared for the next three years.”

“So she was basically all alone.” Michael couldn’t imagine a sixteen-year-old girl, a small girl that Maria had to have been, taking off across America without anyone.

“Yeah, but she made it. She showed up at Las Cruces with a full scholarship, and started school. She was so tiny and young that people took her under their wings, and treated her like their little sister. Men, and big men, like football jocks...Maria found her own protectors.” Michael didn’t doubt that. It seemed to be a gift of Maria’s. But the thought of her out there all alone made his blood run cold.

“So how did you meet up with her again?” Michael’s eyes narrowed at Sean’s obvious discomfort at the question. “Sean?”

“Maria was twenty. I had run into Aunt Amy in a health spa in Sedona of all places. She and Maria had remained in contact via personal ads in national newspapers. Finally, after they felt safe, they began to send each other letters. Anyway, Maria was twenty, getting ready to graduate, and she was accepted in the masters program in Roswell. I was sort of drifting, getting in trouble, nothing bad, but avoiding my family. I went to find Maria in Las Cruces and walked in on a football player trying to rape her. By the time Maria was twenty she was beautiful, sweet and unspoiled. So many of her protectors were still around, but new students didn’t have the same regard for her, and she was suddenly a target.”

Michael could tell from Sean’s voice that it didn’t go well. There was more to his saving Maria than just pulling a hormonally driven jock off his small young cousin. “So exactly what did you do?”

“I pulled him off and then almost killed him. I beat him within an inch of his life. The campus police took me into custody, and I was turned over to Las Cruces police for assault. The jock was hospitalized for broken facial bones, a bruised kidney, six broken ribs, an arm cracked in three places, a crushed wrist, six broken fingers, broken nose, a cracked orbit and damaged eye, dislocated shoulder, and a crushed kneecap. Oh, and retracted testicles somewhere around his throat.”

”Sh-it!” Michael looked at Sean in amazement. “You did all that damage?”

“Actually, no. Maria had already cracked his nose, driven his balls up into his throat, and cracked his skull with her hard head, fracturing the orbit of his eye. This was followed by a finger gouge. She is a DeLuca ya know! We teach our women practically from birth to protect themselves from everyone, but us. Maria had learned to protect herself, to hide and avoid pain dealing with her brother. I did the rest.” Sean shrugged and smiled sarcastically. Michael understood that Sean was feeling some pride in his cousin, and no sense of remorse over the damage he had done.

“You took the blame for all of it, didn’t you?” Sean just shrugged.

“I was always in trouble, but Maria, she had a scholarship to a graduate program and her whole life to live. Time to put the past behind her. She was surprisingly resilient and untouched by everything, except that she wouldn’t cry.” Sean threw the smoke on the ground and stomped it out, knowing that the worst was to come, that Michael wouldn’t stop until he heard the full story. Having read the file he knew the basics, knew how bad it was, but no one had any real idea. They couldn’t.

“But you somehow came through to become a cop.”

“Yeah, well I had some help. When I was arrested, a cop who sort of understood what was going down...took care of things. He talked to the “boy” and his parents about dropping charges. Later I entered the Police Academy at his urging and to the horror of my hippy Aunt Amy.” Sean smiled at the thought remembering how horrified Amy was that her favorite nephew was going to be a “Pig”, but it couldn’t be anything like the horror felt by his family in Miami.

“Did you keep in touch with this cop that helped you, changed your life?” Sean nodded and searched his pockets for the last bummed cigarette he had.

“Yeah, you could say that. It was Jim Valenti.” Michael looked at Sean sharply. Connected, they were all interconnected somehow. Coming from all around the country, Miami to New Mexico and Albuquerque to Roswell, somehow they all found each other. Dammit, Valenti was involved with the DeLucas for awhile. “He was in Las Cruces on a special training program. It was before the PD here became so large, but at the time, there was a real need. Members of the PD went to be specially trained, to learn to run larger departments. Jim came back to Roswell and became the Captain of Major Crimes. A few years later, I moved here after graduating the Police Academy and doing a year as a rookie Vice cop. I applied for a position with Vice in Roswell, and have been here ever since.”

Michael knew there was more to Sean’s personal story, but since he had worked Vice too, he was curious. “Why Vice?”

Sean just shrugged. “It’s what I know. I lived that word. Also by the time I finished the Police Academy, I needed to fix things, repair some of the damage my family caused others...especially Johnnie.”

“Johnnie? Your friend that went into witness protection, right?”

”Yeah, he was finally assassinated the year I graduated. Frankie, Jr. took the contract. He sliced him up into little pieces, and sent them to each member of Johnnie’s family. I got an eye.” Sean looked at Michael and smiled a smile with no humor. “They destroy everything and everyone they touch. Someone has to stop them, make them pay.”

Michael just nodded, understanding that some demons raged inside for years, that for some people there is no rest. Sean was equally a product of his childhood as Maria, and just like Michael, they walked out of the destruction and survived. Thinking of Max and Isabel, and the damage ravaged on their lives, it wasn’t hard to respect the road Sean had chosen, and yet be afraid at the same time.

“Well, I better get back, Guerin.” Sean tried to walk away, but Michael stood in front of him.

“I need to know it all. The scars, they aren’t just on her skin. She had a nightmare last night. The shock...it wasn’t the first time was it? She was reliving her own nightmare.” Michael couldn’t back down. He needed it all.

“Dammit, Guerin, leave it! This isn’t something that you need to know. You read the report. It was all there.” Michael just cocked his head to the side and held his ground. Sean wore under his breath and sat back down. The bastard was as stubborn as Maria. They were going to have an interesting relationship.

“When Uncle Frankie died, they thought it was over.” Michael could feel a sense of dread hitting him. Sean continued. “They were wrong. We all were. Maria was just in graduate school, and she was happy, really happy. She was dating, meeting people, going on trips, and for the first time she actually felt free. Then one night she went out to dinner with Amy. Maria was dating a nice young guy. He stayed at her place studying for his tests. When they got home he was there, tied to a chair, and gagged, with Frankie, Jr. waiting for them.”

“Oh god!”

“Yeah, he never got over the desertion of the women in his family. He was nothing if not possessive. They belonged to him to use and abuse.” Sean quickly lit the last cigarette and looked out over Roswell seeing something else, something darker. “Maria knew. She just knew. Her cell phone was in her pocket. She hit my number on autodial before he grabbed her.”

Michael heard the thickening of Sean’s voice as he cleared his throat. “I was busy. I heard the phone...the ring. And ignored it.” Sean’s voice lowered. “I was busy. I was on nights and this was my day off, so a female friend of mine was over.” Sean rubbed his neck. “I was busy, so I didn’t answer.”

Michael swore under his breath. No wonder Sean was so possessive and protective of Maria. He failed her once. He wouldn’t do it again. “Tell me the rest.”

“Well, Frankie beat up Aunt Amy and tied her to a column in the apartment. Then with her watching, he beat up on Maria. While Maria lay on the floor, he made sure she was watching. He tortured and murdered her boyfriend. Both Amy and Maria were already starting to suffer shock. However, that wasn’t enough for our Frankie. No. He needed a fix, something denied him in the past five years that Maria had left home.” Sean’s voice became graver and quiet. “He needed her to cry and beg.”

“She wouldn’t do that!” Michael didn’t know how he knew, but he did. Maria DeLuca didn’t understand surrender.

Sean looked at him with a dawning respect. Michael Guerin didn’t seem the type to understand or pay attention to anyone, but here he was doing that very thing. It worried Sean, that there was more to the relationship than he had considered.

“No. She didn’t cry or beg...not even when he cut her.” Michael swore, feeling the bile rising in his throat, remembering the pictures of her bloodied body. “Not deep cuts mind you...but shallow ones. They were long and shallow letting her slowly bleed to death, and feel the cutting pain. When torturing someone, it’s important not to let the pain overwhelm. If you control it, gage it to such a level that it remains just tolerable, then you can really drag it out...”

Michael was appalled at how cold and matter-of-factly Sean spoke. It was almost as if he was reciting a training manual or some lesson drilled home, repeatedly. In his mind, all he could see was Maria’s small body lying in a pool of blood, her open expressionless eye staring off somewhere, to a place far away, untouchable. “Sean...”

“He got excited and made a few mistakes. Frankie cut her too deep in some places on her back and side. She still wears those scars today. Maria started to bleed out too fast, and she refused to beg or cry. When he realized his mistake, he started screaming at her, demanding she beg, but she was already slipping away into shock. The blood loss was already too great.” Sean rubbed a hand of his eyes trying to erase the memory. “After I was finished...being busy, I checked my phone and saw her number on the Caller ID. I tried to call her back, but there was no answer...it was late and there was no answer. I don’t know why I didn’t just go back to bed, but...something...I don’t know, just something wasn’t right.”

Sean turned and looked at Michael directly for the first time in a while, his eyes cold and dead. “You just ever know things for no reason? It’s like a coldness moves in...a sense of dread? And all you know is that, if you don’t check it out, that you’ll never forgive yourself?

Michael nodded. He had felt it many times. It was that sense that led him into the alley the night he found Isabel. At first he almost walked away when he noticed two obvious adults f-ucking, up against a trash receptacle outside a player’s club, but something made him stay...something beyond being a voyeur wanting a peepshow. The moment the man started beating her...he knew why he had to be there. To save Isabel. It was his job.

“When I got there I found the door unlocked. Maria never had a chance to lock it when she got home. I slowly entered with my gun drawn, because I could hear a man’s voice screaming...yelling. When I walked in he was kicking her, screaming at her, and then Amy. He was angry because she was dying...escaping him again.” Sean paused for a second. “I shot him, and shot him. I emptied an entire clip into his evil f-ucking body, and then I calmly dropped the spent clip, reloaded and shot him again until that clip was done.” Sean absentmindedly searched for another cigarette, but he had only bummed three. “A neighbor heard the noise, the gunshots and called the police. When they found us, Amy was crying hysterically calling to Maria. Maria was already gone...shaking in shock, too cold. And I, like some worthless f-uck, just kept shooting, my gun clicking over and over, because I had spent all my rounds.”

Michael didn’t say a word, or offer any comfort. He would have done the same. Frankie DeLuca would have died a thousand deaths, and burn in hell for all eternity, if he had his way. It was hard to see Sean as anything but a hero.

“They almost took my badge for use of excessive force.” Sean laughed a humorless laugh. “I didn’t care, because I failed. I failed those who meant the most to me. I failed to protect and serve. They could have it.” Sean’s voice broke, and his head went into his hand. He broke. “Oh god! I was f-ucking a woman whose name I can’t even remember, while he was destroying my family! She lay there, lost...in the horror. She called me! Dammit! She called, and I didn’t answer!”

Michael watched the man break down and cry. Not knowing what to say or how to say it, or even if it would be welcomed; he just sat silently next to Sean. Looking at the man, knowing that there would never be any words to take away the guilt, or remove the pain, Michael felt sick. These DeLucas, how could they survive this? The Evans both let the pain of loss of their parents shape their lives. Isabel checked out, but here were the DeLucas living through unimaginable pain and torture, and they survived...went on.

“What happened Sean? What happened to get Maria back?” Michael scrambled to find a question that would distract Sean, bring him out of his grief.

“She didn’t talk for a year, not really. Only whispers, almost like the sound would break her apart. Amy and I took her money and bought her the loft. We wanted her to have a place free of painful memories. So we had it built with lots of windows and sunshine. Everyday Amy would take Maria out into the garden and work on the plants. I was working nights, and I’d come home in the morning and find her awake, just sitting there. We had gotten her a leave of absence from her graduate program. So we all just sat and waited.” Sean smiled at Michael with humor for the first time. “I would make her breakfast everyday when I came home. I made the same thing for a year...scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage links. She sat there in the dark with a blanket covering her, shivering, too timid to speak or raise her voice. Until one day, a year later, something snapped. She threw her breakfast at me! And started ranting and raving about yogurt and fruit, and how she hated scrambled eggs and sausage, and what the hell was wrong with a bagel every once in a while.”

Sean laughed and got himself under control as Michael snickered. Now that sounded more like the Maria DeLuca he knew! “We never knew why she came back, or how it happened. It was as if she took off a year to heal in her mind...to come to some understanding of her life. Anyway, Amy came running in the room at the sound of Maria’s angry voice, and she wept. It was so good to have our Maria back. I think that a part of her, a large part of her realized that dying, giving up was letting Frankie...the monster...win. So she healed herself enough to go on living. She survives to spite him.”

“Is that when she began to feel that she’s cursed?” Sean looked over sharply at Michael in surprise, and a sense of awe. Michael had gotten closer to Maria than he thought.

“Yeah.” Michael just nodded. “Understand this Guerin! I’ll kill any person who harms her or hurts her, without a moment's hesitation. Hell! I should just shoot you now and get it over with. Your reputation with women sucks, and I hate that she wants you, that you might be the one thing she can’t get over.”

“I’m not going to hurt her.” And Michael didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. Suddenly it seemed that to him, Maria DeLuca had more internal walls and protection than even he did. If anyone was in danger of having his or her heart trampled, it was Michael. “How do you do it Sean? How do you live with this anger towards Frankie DeLuca? I want to kill something!”

“I don’t know what you do, but me...I shot the bastard full of holes, and spit on his grave, and prayed to God that his black soul would rot in hell!” Sean looked at Michael with dark angry eyes full of emotion hardly suppressed. “It wasn’t enough.” Michael nodded his agreement. How could it be? “Just know that I’ve got a bullet with your name on it.” Sean stood up and started back towards the stairs. Michael shrugged and followed him.

“Understood.”

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