“Roman?”

It was her- the dreams hadn’t done her justice. “Marlena?”

“Thank God, you’re all right,” she whispered, closing the distance between them, her arms wrapping gingerly around his waist.

He sagged against the bar, letting the cold marble take his weight. He couldn’t face her, couldn’t tell her of his lies. God! She felt so right in his arms. He ran his fingers through her hair and closed his eyes, content to let this moment last forever.

Dimera frowned, concerned by John’s reaction. He rarely worried. He kept too tight a reign on his world for worry to ever intrude. Marlena threatened his control, she threatened his world. For once, Dimera knew worry and he fervently hoped that he wouldn’t regret the decision to arm John.

She pulled slowly back from him, needing to see him, needing to know that her nightmares had not come true. Her fingers trailed down his side, feeling the bandages beneath the soft cotton of his T-shirt, feeling the rough leather of the holster. A gun. He carried a gun.

“Roman?” She stared up at him in confusion, noticing for the first time the patch covering his left eye and half his cheek. “What has he done to you?”

John simply stared back, the words refusing to come to him. He would not tell her. He would not be the one to destroy her world.

“I believe you know my other guest, though in a somewhat different role,” Stefano cut in, the confusion on John’s face all the opening he needed. “I would like to introduce you to John Black, my best agent and right-hand man.”

“No,” she stated flatly, hazel eyes never leaving John’s face. “Roman, he lies. You are Roman Brady! Don’t let him do this to you- to us.”

“It’s not a lie,” John finally forced himself to admit. He stepped away from her grasping hands, his head shaking regretfully from side to side. “It’s not a lie, Marlena. Stefano took nothing from me. I was never Roman Brady. It was an assignment, a job. I never remembered my past as Roman because it was never mine to remember.”

“Marlena, Roman Brady is dead,” Dimera said. “He has been dead for over a decade. He died on the island- I buried him myself.” John shot him a startled look which he ignored. This wasn’t what he had planned, but he could make it work. When this was over and done, Marlena would be his. If John did his part, Marlena would be his.

This could not be happening, she would not let it happen. Marlena’s head snapped around, hatred on her face. “You liar! You think I wouldn’t know my own husband?”

“Oh, I think you knew your husband only too well,” Stefano replied with an ugly grin. “In your grief for him, you remade a John into his image. I had planted the seeds of Roman’s memories in John so that he could get close to you, watch over you for me until I was free to come to you. You took those few memories and remade John into the husband you so desperately wanted. He didn’t know any better- he had wandered away from my men before the conditioning was complete. He was a walking wound, a man with no place to call home. You offered him all any man could want and he took it out of desperation. If he became Roman Brady, it was because you taught him how, Marlena. No wonder you couldn’t tell him from Roman! You made him over into your version of Roman Brady.”

Marlena paled, all the old doubts rushing back full force. “No! Nothing you say can be trusted, Stefano. This is Roman Brady. I know him as I know my own soul.”

“You know nothing, Marlena- nothing of who and what he really is. He is no more Roman than is the fantasy man you created from your own memories and desires. But believe as you will- it makes no difference to either myself or John. Now, the cook is holding dinner. If you still care to join us, your presence is always welcome.”

With an ironic bow in Marlena’s direction, Dimera walked quickly from the room, relieved to find John following closely on his heels.

Damn! His ribs were on fire, the whisky churning in his gut like molten lava. The last thing he wanted to do was sit across the table from her and make polite conversation. John looked everywhere but at her face, but he knew that she was watching him, waiting for some sign it was all a trick, a plan.

flashes her a sly wink and she grins in sudden understanding. She never doubted him, not for a moment. Her love is too strong, too pure to have been wrong.

“I love you, Roman. I knew that he lied....”

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! His trembling hand knocked against a crystal glass, red wine spreading across the white lace of the table cloth. He stared stupidly at the growing stain, wondering whose blood he had spilled this time.

“John? John, are you feeling up to this?” Stefano’s deep voice growled out, jarring him back to the present, back to his new reality.

“Yea. Yea, I’m fine,” John replied, trying to make his back straighten, his left hand pushing hard against his screaming ribs.

The drugs were wearing off, whatever John had taken, whatever was keeping him on his feet. Stefano could see it in the sweat dripping off his forehead, could sense it in the way every breath seemed to cause pain. The man had to hold on a little bit longer, just a little bit longer and Marlena would know the truth.

“John, I was going to let this wait, but I have a little gift for you.”

John looked up wearily, not liking it when Dimera turned his attention to Marlena.

“You see, my dear,” Stefano continued, smiling over at Marlena from his place at the head of the long table, “one of my men objected to John’s return. He is the one responsible for the damage done to my lieutenant. I’ve been holding him, knowing that John would wish to deal with him… personally.”

Marlena simply glared back at Dimera, wondering what he was getting at. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw John’s face darkened, his visible eye icing over. John had never taken a physical challenge to his person lightly and Stefano had expected this time to be no different. It was gratifying to know he could still read the man so easily. With perfect timing, a knock sounded at the door and he indulged himself in a pleased smile. “Care to get that for me, John?”

Adrenalin surging, John eased from his chair, hardly noticing ribs that had constrained his every movement just moments before. He reached the door, breathing deeply, oxygenating his body in unconscious contemplation of the violence he felt building. He could taste it in the air, the metallic bite of fear. The fear wasn’t his.

From her seat at the table, Marlena watched him, uncertain of what was happening, but attuned to the rising tension in the room. Something was wrong with Roman- something in the way he moved, the hunger in his stride. A cold sense of dread shot through her and she knew she should look away. Her eyes never left his dark form.

Two guards flanked Davies, shoving him forward through the now open door. The man looked fearfully around, trying to scuttle back from John’s fast approaching figure.

boot smashes into his back, grinding him down against the cold concrete floor. A sneering face, a hard fist, the sting of a needle. The needle brings the memories and the memories are all bad.

The smile was on his lips, lending no warmth to the blue of his eyes. John crashed into Davies, grabbing him by his collar, shaking him as a terrier would a rat. Davies’ feet nearly left the floor and he lashed out in panic. A lucky blow, it took John in his blinded eye. The grate of bones was so loud he could hear it and he found himself on his knees, shaking his dazed head. White fire seared his vision, the exhilaration building. He wanted his fucking knife, it took a knife to do this right. Thighs drove like pistons and he shoved the ground away. His hands found that thick neck, the move instinctive. He forced Davies back, an awkward dance across the Parque floor. Hands tore ineffectively at his grip as he slammed his prey against the table, bending him over until his back pressed into the fine wood. Dimly, he heard a woman screaming and he released the neck, rained his fists down into the face before him. The force of the blows echoed through the room, a beautiful counterpoint to the screams. This was the poetry of hell.

No resistance left and through the white-fire haze he watched blood flowing over pristine lace. “Fucker,” he whispered, his hand gliding up from his thigh bearing steel- blue and silver and cold. “Mess with the bull, boy...”

He shoved the barrel into the screaming mouth and pulled the trigger. Pulled and pulled and pulled, backing away from the spraying fountain of blood. He emptied the 11 shot clip and when he was done they’d need a sponge to get what remained of Davies’ face off of the table. He thought it unlikely that anyone would want to use that table again anyway. The laughter shrieked inside his head, Godhead again achieved.

John balanced on the balls of his feet, acrid gunsmoke holding him in a lover’s embrace. The feral grin was still on his face, the muscles rippling beneath his skin as icy fire flickered in his synapsis. He turned, hunting for more meat on which to vent the power that pulsed through his veins and found her, staring up at him with wounded eyes.

The strength drained as quickly as it had come and he had to lean against the table in an effort to keep his feet. Memories again. Always the wrong memories, always at the wrong time.

d, come on! You promised you’d teach me how to throw a curve ball. What are you and mom doing in there, anyway?”

“I could never leave you, Marlena. Never. I’ll be back. I swear it.”

He holstered his spent weapon, rubbing his hand against the tough fabric of his pants in a futile attempt to remove the blood. She stumbled from her chair, hazel eyes never blinking. As pale as death, she backed slowly away from him. There was nothing for him to say, the proof of what he was spread across the table in the gore of flesh and blood. Turning away from those accusing eyes, he stalked from the room, wishing he had saved one last bullet for himself.

Two guards supported his weight, half-dragging him back to his room and he dimly remembered collapsing upon leaving the dinning room. The men carrying him were respectful, but he could feel their fear. He briefly considered killing them- just for the hell of it, the escape. Escape for him always seemed to come in the form of spilled blood- his own, someone else’s- it didn’t really matter. Blood wouldn’t help him now. He couldn’t wash himself clean, not in an ocean of it. Not after what he’d done to her.

He had raped her. Oh sweet Jesus, he had raped her. Raped her mind, her body- all of those years taking her through a lie. Taking her in the form of the man who now rotted away, locked in a cell floors below. Damn Stefano, for letting him do this to her. Damn him for making him stop.

He groaned aloud as the men shifted him gently into the bed, the anguish more mental than physical. He opened his eyes to see Stefano leaning worriedly over him and realized that he must have passed out for a time. The anger flared and he roughly grabbed Stefano by the collar. “You set me up, didn’t you? You knew exactly what would happen when I saw Davies. Why in the hell did you have to hurt her like that?!”

“And what exactly would you have had me do, John?” Dimera replied, tugging free of the weak grasp of the man in the bed. “Do you really think you could have hidden the truth from her now that your mind is clear? Would you have wanted to try? Which would have hurt her more?”

John closed his eyes and turned away. He had no right to be mad at Dimera, the blame for this was his own. The way she had looked at him as he had walked from the room… “What now, Stefano? What are you going to do to her? To my… to the kids?”

“Marlena needs time, I plan to give her that time. Once she comes to understand her situation, to adjust to it, we will leave here. Perhaps Paris, a fresh start. I will make her a queen, John. Eventually, she will come to me. She will see that it is her only choice. You know I always get what I want in the end.”

“Yea, you always do,” John replied with a bitter laugh.

“Stefano, I’ve got to get out of here,” he said, looking up with eyes gone dead. He was no longer willing to think about this. It was over, it was done. Nothing to do but move on. “I gotta get my head back together. I can’t be around her- I don’t even want to see her. Give me a mission, something to do. Something ugly.”

Dimera smiled, the words pleasing him as nothing else could have. “John, I won’t make you see her, but the only thing I’m going to give you right now is at least a month of laying around, flat on your back, healing up. I know you were as high as a kite in there. We’ve got to get the drugs out of your system. Let your body repair itself.” Stefano shook his head at John’s stupidity. He was too inherently unstable to be playing with chemicals, he always had been. Dimera still didn’t know what happened in the child’s past to create such a seething rage and had long since given the inquiry into the issue up as too dangerous. But one thing was certain, a mind as twisted as John’s did not need the addition of pharmaceuticals.

“Now I want you to take it easy. I have to go to the mainland in the morning- a minor emergency. Tomorrow night, we’ll have dinner and I’ll fill you in on business. Until then, you’ve got the run of the place. But take it easy- and I’ve ordered that you receive no drugs. If you can’t move without them, take it as a sign that you probably shouldn’t be moving. Agreed?”

“Whatever you say, Stefano,” John replied, too bone weary to fight anymore. Closing his eyes, he tried to forget the way she had looked at him.

Marlena huddled in the center of the bed, her eyes closed in an attempt not to see the evidence of his lies. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. She would have known. After all these years, she would have known if she shared her bed with a stranger. She would have always known- even at the beginning....

m going to take a shower. A cold shower.”

He leans in close, the knife at her throat almost as an afterthought. The knife isn’t necessary, but it’s a natural appendage to his hand. She watches as his eyes turn black and she knows that he has to fight to keep the knife from drawing blood. She feels the heat pouring off of him, the need and the desire and the rage. It takes everything she has not to scream.

“Damn him!” Marlena curled herself into a ball in the center of the bed, cursing Dimera, cursing herself, cursing Roman. It couldn’t be true. She had gone through this once before. She had laid all doubts to rest. Roman was her husband. He was alive. Dimera was playing his sick stupid games again and she would not let him win. It was a lie. It had to be a lie. She would have known....

She has always loved watching him as he sleeps. It has been too long since she has had the chance. Ever so gently, she runs her fingers across the clean planes of his face, her touch drawing a smile from his lips. Moonlight from the window reflects back at her as one blue eye slowly opens.





“I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep,” she whispers, brushing her lips across his.

She listens to the even beating of his heart, letting him drift back down into the world of dreams. ‘You’re the man I love. That’s all that matters,’ she thinks, as sleep comes to claim her too.

It had been 14 years. The differences were small, insignificant. In 14 years, he would have given her a sign. In 14 years, she would have known if the man she loved was Dimera’s trained killer.

Wow! Marlena, you should have seen this guy! The man is a machine!” Abe storms through the kitchen door, a 12-pack of beer in one hand a bag of chips in the other. Lexie is on his heels, smiling apologetically and carrying a platter of dip.

Abe’s grin is carefree, and Marlena can’t understand why she feels so unsettled. She glances at Roman, sees his quick wink, and smiles back. Really, she has to stop overanalyzing things!

Roman was a cop. It was what he had trained for. He was supposed to be good. He had always been good. It didn’t make him a killer. She would have known.

Case File: Roman Brady


Subject was involved in an on-duty shooting. After a short foot pursuit, officer shot and killed a robbery suspect. Suspect was shot 4 times at a range of approximately 40 feet. Suspect was DOA. This officer appears indifferent to the incident.

Case File: Roman Brady


The officer opened fire and both men were killed, suffering from multiple gunshots at close range. I am coming to suspect that his indifference to the consequences of such violence is real and not due to repression of such feelings or a reluctance to discuss them. I have my doubts that the current shooting incident was justified. Given the lack of witnesses, no one but the officer involved may ever know what really happened.

After 14 years, she would have known....

He stands in the center of the room, bruised and battered and triumphant. He sucks up every molecule of air until there is nothing left for her to breathe. She watches as he slams the screaming man down, bending him back across the table. Her own cries are lost beneath the high-pitched wail of fear. He is smiling, his fist falling again and again, splattering blood and crunching bone.

The gunfire cracks out, over and over and over. She can feel it echoing in her soul. A red mist rises from what used to be a living human being. He stands within the crimson haze, eyes burning, teeth bared- reveling in the destruction. He is not Roman. He never has been.

After 14 years, she would know.

“Marlena?” The soft click of a switch, and artificial light filled the room.

“Get away from me. You are a monster. A hideous twisted monster.”

She refused to look up, refused to face him. If she ignored him long enough, perhaps he would go away. The feather mattress sank down, his heavy weight making its presence known. Feeling sick, she scooted away. Finally, she forced herself to meet his eyes.

“I need to know you’re all right,” Stefano said, making no move to close the distance she had put between them.

Marlena’s laughter came out as a sob. “How can I be ‘all right’? You just showed me my whole life has been a lie. How can you possibly think that I am ‘all right’?!”

Her eyes were red and tears streaked her face. It wasn’t fair that she was still the most incredible woman he had ever known. With a sigh, Dimera shook his head. “I’m sorry you found out this way. I told you before, it was not what I wanted.”

“Bullshit!” she spat at him. “It was exactly what you wanted! But then, everything that happened was because you wanted it. You did this. You planned this! It was no ‘accident’ when Roman died. You did that to him. You wanted it to happen! Just like it was no ‘accident’ when John Black came to town- with my husband’s memories, my husband’s feelings, my husband’s desires! All of this is because of you.”

“Marlena, be reasonable. Why would I have wanted John to take Roman’s place? That was not my doing. Nor was it my fault that John shot that man down in front of you. It’s his nature, Marlena. Don’t blame me for that.”

“You bastard,” she snarled, kicking out at him with one long leg. She wanted him gone. She wanted everything he had ever touched gone.

Her bare foot caught him in the ribs, the blow hard enough to make him gasp. His temper flared, and he clamped down on her ankle, jerking her to him across the slick surface of the satin comforter. Sharp nails cut into his face, her frantic hands pounding at him. “Stop it!” he shouted, pushing her down on the bed, using his bulk to make her be still. “Marlena, stop it!”

She struggled beneath him, her blond hair flying about her face, the warmth of her body driving away his ability to think. “If you want to blame someone, blame yourself,” he continued, his voice gruff with need and anger. “The battle with Roman was always a battle over you. And John chose to be with you because it was what you wanted. It was ‘who’ you wanted him to be. Everything that has happened is because of you, Marlena. Roman fought for you. John fought for you. I fought for you. All of this, for you!”

“I don’t want you,” she said, staring up at him with golden eyes.

“You will. Before this is finished, you will.”

She flinched, the pain in her arm sharp and hot. Her eyes blinked slowly, Dimera moving further and further away though his body still lay on top of her, weighting her down, making it hard to breathe. Dimly, she could her Sarte’s southern drawl, the words too faint to understand. She blinked once more and then she faded away.

“Feisty!” Sarte said, twirling the syringe between his fingers. He suppressed a chuckle as Dimera slowly rose to his feet, his arousal plain to see.

“Your commentary is both unneeded and unwanted, Sarte. I’d suggest you shut up.”

Sarte merely grinned. “At least she didn’t pretend John was her husband. It appears your little exhibition was successful. You must be pleased.”

“I will be more pleased in the morning,” Dimera replied, straightening his tie and finally managing to bring his breathing under control. His hooded eyes swept over her unconscious body. Perfection. Sheer perfection.

“You know what I want you to do?” Stefano asked, not bothering to look in Sarte’s direction.

“Oh yes, I know exactly what to do.”

“I will have it all, Sarte. Everything I have ever dreamed of. I will have it all.”

-----