Luggage in hand, Johnny felt like he was walking through a sick and twisted nightmare as Sonny's giving him and Francis the tour of his newly redesigned estate. The moment he walked through the door, Johnny tried to run back out the door, but was swiftly stopped by Marco and Ritchie. When Sonny had ordered them to his house with their luggage, Johnny assumed that they were being sent on assignment. Seeing the state of his place, however, Johnny had a sick feeling in his stomach that they were being forced to live in the nightmare from hell.

"Now that you've had the grand tour, time for room assignments." Sonny says firmly. "Corelli, you'll be staying in the guest bedroom while O'Brien will take the master bedroom. Don't worry, I had one of the bed's brought in from storage."

"You want me to stay in the clown room?" Johnny blurted out in disbelief. "Why can't I take the game room? Why does it have to be clowns?"

"You two are responsible for all of this!" Sonny snaps, gesturing to the current state of his home. "Now, unless either of you are able to pull an interior design firm out of your asses, you will be staying in this hell until its back to normal. Do I make myself clear?"

"How about the kitchen?" Johnny pushes further. "I'll sleep under Taggert's picture if I have to. Boss, please don't make me stay in the clown room."

"You're sleeping where I say you're sleeping." Sonny states. "You have an hour to settle in before you get back to work. Go."

"Quit while you're behind, kid." Francis clasps one hand on Johnny's shoulder to stop his pleading. "Come on. Lets get settled."

"Why clowns?" Johnny mutters as he walks up the stairs with Francis. "I hate clowns. Those big ugly red noses...creepy painted on smiles...ugh! I hate clowns."

"Shut up and lets get it done."

Unpacking their stuff in less than an hour, Francis and Johnny part from Sonny's place with a hanging threat that he'd send the trackers after them if they even tried to duck out of staying there. Knowing just how good their trackers are, both assure their boss that they'll follow through and return that night in time for dinner.

Instead of going to the warehouse, however, the two head off in the direction of Elizabeth's studio. If she was gutsy enough to do that to Sonny's estate, there's really no telling just what lengths she'd go to with them. Sonny's estate is his sanctuary. For her to go in and do what she did, her anger level is higher than either of them anticipated.

"We're here to see Liz." Francis voices when Jason opens the door sporting his blank mask once he notices its them. "Is she here?"

"Is there a guard on the door?" Jason counters. "Drop the stupidity. Its unbecoming."

"Do you know where she is?" Francis pushes further, still unsure of the man standing before him.

"Out." Jason states. "You want specifics, call someone that works for you. I'm done."

"Wait." Johnny stops the door from shutting. "You want the truth?"

"Depends on who's truth it is." Jason says plainly as he pulls the door open again. "Your truth or the real truth?"

"Liz is mad, we know that." Johnny says seriously. "We just want to know how bad it is. Can you help us with that?"

"No." Jason says plainly. "You done?"

"Look, I get that we're probably not your most favorite people in the world at the moment, but this is important." Johnny stops Francis from stepping in. "As hard as it may be for you to understand, we really were just trying to protect her. Sure, our methods go against almost everything she stands for, but it gets the job done."

"Even if I wanted to help you, I can't." Jason relents. "Liz and I made a promise to each other. She stays out of my business with the Quartermaines and I stay out of hers with you."

"You can really do that?" Francis questions. "Just stay out of it no matter what."

"Unless her life's in danger, which is really possible with you two, yes. I can stay out of it." Jason says seriously. "Unlike the both of you, I do what she asks. Are you done?"

"Yes, we're done." Johnny sighs before shaking his head. "For what its worth, we never meant you any real harm."

"Speaking of which, how's the mouth?" Jason counters, noticing the swelling just along the jawline.

"Sore." Johnny says seriously. "You pack one hell of a punch."

"I know." Jason says simply. "Use that as a reminder when you decide to come after me again."

"Excuse me?" Johnny steps back up to him. "Was that a threat?"

"I don't make threats." Jason says plainly. "Let me just clear something up right now. I didn't need Elizabeth to save me. If I had wanted to, I could have easily escaped."

"Why didn't you?" Johnny questions, having suspected as much. He had purposely did a basic knot on the tying to teach Francis a lesson and was surprised he never once tried to untie himself.

"I'll let Liz know you stopped by." Jason states as he takes a few steps back to shut the door. "And don't try to stop the door again unless you want to lose a couple fingers in the process."

Watching the door shut, Johnny knows he should be pissed off by the way Jason's handling them, but it was just too damn entertaining to watch. In all his life, he has never met a guy like Jason, which says a lot. He's handled his fair share of thugs and wannabes, all around bad guys, but Jason was in a league of his own. Call him crazy, but he could actually picture becoming friends with the guy.

"You think he was for real?" Johnny questions as they walk back down to the car. "Do you think he stayed tied up on purpose?"

"Wouldn't put it past the guy." Francis shrugs. "Hell, from what Sonny tells me about their dinner together, it kind of makes sense."

"How so?" Johnny questions with intrigue.

"He spent the entire night trying to get to know Elizabeth from every angle." Francis explains. "If you remember, he only shut down completely when we started talking about Liz."

"He was milking us for information?"

"Basically."

"So, instead of pulling information out of him, we were the ones giving up the information." Johnny chuckled at the thought. "Damn, he'd make one hell of an addition to the organization."

"Yeah." Francis agrees. "He really would."

Heading to the warehouse, Johnny and Francis both try to figure out just how deep they're in it with Elizabeth at the moment. She's never got to such great lengths to get back at them like this. With no point of reference, Johnny and Francis both have to assume that they would feel the brunt of her anger. Knowing that all they had left to do was wait for it to come down on them, they get to work on fixing up the warehouse for the next shipment.

:::who we are:::

Sitting crisscross on a park bench with her sketch set, Elizabeth feels the most relaxed she's felt in a while doing what she loves more than anything else in the world. Before she found her passion in art, Elizabeth had felt trapped in her life, in her circumstances. With no real voice to speak out, she just didn't have much faith in what the future held for her. Then one day she met a woman that opened her eyes to the talent that laid beneath the surface and she learnt the true meaning of freeing your soul.

"At the risk of you biting my head off for cutting into your sketch time, I need you to clear something up for me." Cody voices as he sits beside her. "This thing you got planned for the guys, why are you going to such lengths for something they've been doing since they met you?"

"I have my reasons." Elizabeth says plainly as she focuses on her sketch. "Reasons that have nothing to do with you so drop it."

"Look, if I'm gonna have to stand by while you pull all this off, at the very least you owe me answers." Cody pushes further. "Just tell me why you're pushing this so hard."

"I can't." Elizabeth sighs, setting down her charcoal pencil. "Look, there's so much to what's going on in my head that I can't put it into words. Just know that I have my reasons, relevant or not, and that's all I can say about it."

"You have to understand that I can't take that as an answer." Cody counters. "You're taking this way too personally and way too hard for me to just let it go at that. So, whether you want to or not, we're not leaving this bench until you tell me what's going on with you."

"After I got Jason out of there, I got him to tell me exactly what happened." Elizabeth explains after a long moment. "He told me how Johnny grabbed him, how he was sedated, and it brought back bad memories, okay? It reminded me of what I went through and it made me angry."

"So this is about your attack?"

"No. Its not that simple." Elizabeth shakes her head. "Yes, I'm angry because it brought me back to the darkest time in my life, but its mostly about Jason. Forget the fact that they took him against his will for a second, okay? Johnny injected him with a sedative. Can you even imagine the kind of damage that could have done to Jason? There was no telling what it could have done to him. He's suffering from brain damage for crying out loud. They're lucky that it didn't cause him to have a setback or they'd have more problems on their hands than just me."

"You have to know that neither of them meant to harm either of you." Cody points out. "They do this to protect you. If they knew that it would hurt you like this, they never would have done it."

"All I know is that I asked them not to do this and they did it anyway." Elizabeth says plainly. "Whether it was intentional or not, they hurt me and they could have done some real damage to Jason. Come on, I want to go home."

"Liz..."

"No. I'm done talking about this." Elizabeth states as she packs up her things. "Lets go."