In a small countryside village, Victor was sitted in front of his TV in a little cottage. He quietly listened to the news about Richard's shooting and watched the accompanying video of the shooting displayed by the news channel, in the same chair he had sat down and listened to the news of Chris Bolton's kidnap about two weeks back. Things certainly didn't look so good. Whoever had shot Richard had the worst possible timing. Victor knew Thomas Bolton well enough to be worried that the raging lunatic might plan to do something really dangerous to Michael Bolton and his young son and Victor wondered if it was finally the moment himself and Michael had spoken about all those years ago? Victor could still clearly remember and give an accurate account of that day and the events that had led down to it. He saw himself at that moment, in his minds eye as he had been about 29 years ago; a raging teenager full of so much anger, spite and hatred and begging a gang to allow him in as their membe

"I'm telling you ladies, something about this affair of Richard being shot definitely sets off warning alarms in my guts," Chris Bolton said as he slid of his stool at the kitchen counter in the Kitchen of the Bolton's Mansion where himself and the three ladies had agreed to meet up the next day. He walked up to the freezer and retrieved a bucket of ice-cream then he grabbed four spoons and headed back to his stool. He passed the spoons around and Rose and Sarah calmly accepted theirs but Monica declined taking hers with a wave of her right hand and a tight lipped smile. No one seemed to see it as odd though because the conversation went on smoothly."I don't know," Sarah said with her eyes squinted as if she was trying hard to focus on getting her thoughts together. "I do get what you mean about the shooting being off. I mean, anyone who watched the video could tell that, whoever the shooter was, they had most certainly not shot at Richard with killing him being their end game," she

Thomas Bolton ended a call and hurried out of his lounge and headed straight to his room where he hurriedly changed out of his indoor clothes of a grey T-shirt, a pair or black sweatpants and a black robe and into a pair of black pants, a black dress and wjdb a navy blue blazer then he hurriedly attended to his hair and put on some perfume and hurriedly walked to his door where he paused for a moment to try to compose himself and school his features into their normal state of not giving away his emotions. When he was sure he had everything under control he calmly opened the door and walked out calmly like he wasn't in any sort of hurry whatsoever. I'm the same manner he walked downstairs and out the door and straight into his vehicle which was waiting in the middle of six escort vehicles then the convoy pulled out of the driveway and joined the stream of vehicles on the road. It had been four days since Richard had been shot and Thomas had just been called almost an hour ago with the

ABOUT AN HOUR AGO...Monica walked away from the kitchen quietly and feeling a little gloom. She hadn't really been ready to go to bed, but since her little outburst the other day she had always felt embarrassed around the others and had always looked for ways and excuses to escape hanging out with the group or being around them for too long. Yes, she had apologized to them and they had said it was fine and they had even done their best to let her see that all was cool but she still felt so silly and embarrassed around them because of the real reason behind her outburst. Yes, Chris might be clueless about the real reason behind her outburst but the other two ladies were most likely not. If Sarah had walked in on Chris' call to Mabel the other day, then she certainly was aware and if Sarah was, the chances of Rose being aware were way above fifty. Although neither of them had mentioned it or let on that they knew, she still felt stupid about it. She bit her lip and slapped her forehead

Chris Bolton walked up to the doors of the Bolton's Mansion's medical quarters with a smile on his face and pushed the doors open and the sight that greeted him immediately wiped the smile clean off his face. At a corner Monica and Mrs. Yvonne held each other as Monica let out gut wrenching sobs and Sarah stood off in another corner looking pale and shellshocked as she stared after a doctor as he walked away. No. No. No. Chris didn't like the scene at all. Wait. Maybe they were tears and reactions born of joy. Maybe Monica was crying out of relief and joy and maybe Sarah felt relieved enough to finally register and acknowledge her emotions of fear and worry. Maybe that was it. That had to be it. The surgeries carried out on his father and Rose had been successful and they were now stable and on the path to recovery and everyone was relieved and happy. That had to be it. Rose had said it herself that no one out of the six of them would lose their lives to the battle and he had believed