Part 2

Michael Vaughn was sitting on the porch of his house and had been staring into nothingness for what seemed like hours, but in reality maybe an hour had passed since he first sat down. The thought of never seeing his daughter again was slowly, but surely sinking in and the pain was something he had never imagined, it cut deeply and felt unbearable.

The day had been as normal as every one of these days and nothing had given any indicator on the tragedy what was coming later. He had returned home a little later than he had told Lauren and fully expected to find Audrey playing with her toys and his wife either playing with her or cooking, but instead he found his home ransacked and filled with blood spatter with no sign of Lauren and Audrey. The blood was every where and a logical, CIA agent rationale told him that there was no way someone would survive after so much blood loss, but the father and husband side of him hoped and prayed that she would have been able to get away with their daughter and was now waiting for him to come and get them. He needed to believe that to survive the night.

Weiss, Nadia, Sydney, Jack, Dixon and even Marshall had turned up to console and offer support and love, but he didn't want to face any of them. If he let himself to be consoled, it would mean Lauren and Audrey were really gone and this wasn't all a bad dream he would awake from in the morning.

"Vaughn, I think you should come inside, we've got something!" Weiss said, coming to the porch and disrupting his thoughts. Vaughn stood up immediately, hoping some kind of breakthrough, some kind of explanation for all of this had been found.

"This phone call came a couple of minutes ago, it's for you Agent Vaughn," Dixon said as Michael walked to the living room where forensic guys were taking samples and a command post had been set up. Dixon pressed a button and a familiar voice could be heard loud and clear.

"Well Mr. Vaughn, I suspect you are having quite a rough day. You must be asking to yourself are they dead and why would someone do this to your beloved family. The answers are simple, I wanted to make you suffer and believe me, and this is just the start. Your wife was a fighter, she never gave up no matter what I did to get her to break, you should be proud. She loved you so much to sacrifice her life for you, even thought you never loved her the way she should have been loved, it's a shame; she was one of a kind," said the calm and taunting voice of Sark.

"Listen to me you son of a bitch, where is my wife and daughter? I will kill you slowly and painfully if you've done anything to hurt them. There is no place on earth where you can hide from me if something has happened to my family," Michael yelled to the speaker in his most dangerous voice.

"I'm sure we'll meet again Mr. Vaughn. If you are a good, loyal boy scout, I might just tell you where they are so you can bury them with a little bit of dignity. I'll be in touch." Sark finished the call with a teasing promise of something that was never going to happen.

--

"Who were you talking to?" Lauren asked as she was soothing a crying Audrey inside the limousine, which had picked them up from the airport. He had stepped out for a minute to make a phone call, not telling her who he was calling.

"All in good time my darling. You don't need to worry about anything any more, I will take care of everything you might ever need." Sark said stepping inside the car and signaling the driver to start driving again.

"Don't patronize me, Sark. I will never be your damsel in distress; you need to get that. I was a double agent for the Covenant and CIA; I can take care of myself. Only reason why I came to you for help, is because of my daughter." Lauren said with righteous indignation that merely amused Sark.

"Where is your statue?" Sark said with a wink and took Audrey from her mother's arms, the girl calmed almost instantly, which bothered Lauren greatly.

"What statue? I don't want to play your games," Lauren fired back and watched as Sark placed her daughter in his lap without even thinking about it.

"I just thought that someone as high and mighty as you would have a statue built in their honor. Your attitude is very unattractive darling, remember I'm doing you a favor, not the other way around." Sark said in that very Sark-esque way that could disarm a person within minutes.

"Sorry that I'm not all-sunshine and happy thoughts. I left my husband today, in
case you haven't noticed you selfish son of a bitch." Lauren huffed and took Audrey from Sark's lap. Too bad, the girl didn't like that one bit and started wailing in a manner that was unbearable.

"Shush, mommy's here. You don't need to cry, everything's fine," Lauren soothed her baby girl, who wasn't having any of it. She wanted to go back to Sark's arms and wasn't stopping until that happened.

"Give her to me, you're obviously not doing that right," Sark countered and smirked in quite a telling way when Audrey immediately stopped crying when he picked her up in his arms.

"If you wanna play nursemaid, go ahead. She's me and Michael's daughter, nothing is going to change that." Lauren commented and watched the slight twitch appear in the corner of his mouth. That had a hit a nerve and she was glad about that.

"She will grow up in this paradise island with me and you. Sweetheart, who do you think she will call dad when she's old enough to speak? I'm sure it's not your beloved Agent Boy Scout, who she won't recognize in a years time." Sark said with a certainty that Lauren didn't like. Audrey was her daughter, she was her responsibility and all decisions about her life would be made by her, without Sark's input.

They remained quiet until the limousine stopped in front of a large and beautiful beachfront property that was now their home. It was breathtaking, Lauren thought and the first time since making the decision to leave Michael, she felt like the end of the world hadn't arrived.

"I see you approve, I knew you would. You can take Audrey now, she's asleep." Sark said handing the sleeping girl to its mother. She followed Sark to the front door and the house was even more beautiful on the inside.

"This house is designed to fulfill every dream you've ever had. Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a Jacuzzi tub in our master bedroom, Italian marble everywhere, 250ft of white sandy beach, a terrace overlooking the ocean with no pesky neighbors to bother us and a changing room for you equipped with a wall-length mirrors and a fridge," Sark explained studying Lauren's expression's closely. She didn't do that good of a job pretending to be indifferent.

"Come with me, I'll show you our bedroom and Audrey's. You can thank me for all of this later, when we are alone," Sark winked in a manner that Lauren didn't find all that sexy, it was more disturbing if anything.

Audrey's room was across the hall from their bedroom. It was the dream come true for any little girl: teddy bears, dolls, stuffed animals and a giant, gray arm chair, almost identical to the one Lauren had at home in her bedroom. That detail affected her strongly and she carefully put Audrey in her new crib and sat down on the chair.

"How did you know about the chair? You have never been at my house," Lauren asked when Julian Sark entered the room and was leaning casually against the doorframe.

"Because I know everything about you. I know you get all weepy for a gray armchair, because it was the first piece of furniture you and Agent Courageous bought for your home. I also know that you love Cherries Jubilee ice cream, figure skating, Roederer Cristal champagne and your daughter," Sark said as if it was normal for someone to know things about her that Michael would have trouble knowing.

"Let's go see our room," Sark said and gestured the blonde woman to follow him which she did. The room was specious, with a large mahogany four-poster bed that was the centerpiece of the room and huge windows with an ocean view. There was two doors in the room, one took you to the bathroom with Italian tile and a Jacuzzi while the other to Lauren's spectacular changing room filled with priceless couture.

"I took the liberty to order clothes that you'll need here. You can't wear black or mousy CIA suits, so in my estimations that doesn't leave anything suitable in your closet." Sark sneered, taking a pink summer dress from the hangar and dangling it in front of Lauren who didn't look impressed.

"I'd rather go naked than wear something like that. Besides what's wrong with black?" Lauren said taking the dress from Sark's hands and going to the nearest window where she threw the item unceremoniously out of the window.

"You are in the Bahamas honey; you will look more out of place than David Beckham in a library if you parade the beaches decked in all black. I'm sure I am in the majority when I say that you can gladly go nude, I won't complain." Sark winked to which Lauren responded with a unenthusiastic face and left the room. She moved swiftly and found herself standing in a magnificent terrace overlooking the ocean.

"This is for you. Wear it," Sark said placing a 4 carat, cushion shaped diamond ring in her hand. It looked like it had cost more than her and Michael's home. "Just take it. I have a certain reputation in the island and people will think you are my wife, this is what I would give to the woman I was marrying."

Lauren took the ring and removed the simple, golden band Michael had placed in her ring finger at their Virginia nuptials and put Julian's larger than life diamond in its place.

"It's just you, me and Audrey in a Paradise Island. We are a family, the kind that sticks up for each other. CIA isn't going to find you, I'll give you my world," Julian said placing his hand on her shoulder as they watched the sun set in silence.

The End

I'm already planning on writing a sequel called "Let Me Love You" which will take us to the lives of Sark, Lauren, Sydney and Vaughn a year after she left everything behind. Tell me guys what do you think. Should I write the sequal?