The Legends Daughter

Controlled Pandemonium

The minute Roman walked through the door with Melanie everyone converged on her at once. She was hugged and comforted by every one of the people in the room. Each of them just as furious as the next about what SJ had done. Come to find out it wasn't as much of a surprise to many people in the room at all that SJ was jealous of Roman, they just never thought that he would do something as reprehensible as forcing himself on Melanie.

After the room finally began to settle down Joelle freed herself from her Aunt Nessa and hightailed it over to where Melanie and her father sat on the bench. Both of them sitting with their legs on either side of the bench, Melanie with her back pressed to Roman's chest while he held her tightly around the waist.

Joelle crawled into Melanie's lap folding her legs and nestling into her chest. She wrapped her arms around Joelle's little body kissing her on the head before leaning further back into Roman's arms who removed one of his arms from her waist and wrapped it around Joelle pulling the two deeper into his embrace.

Leaning so that his head was near Melanie's ear and tightening his grip along her waist he whispered

"I will protect my family at all cost.... you and Jo are my family. I will do whatever it takes to eliminate a threat to you, and SJ is a threat, so I need you to understand that the person you will see in the ring is the person who is willing to go to the ends of the earth and back to make sure that you are never hurt. I won't apologize for what I am going to do to him." He said as he raised his hand to caress her cheek "But I will say sorry if what you see scares you because that is a part of me that I wish you would never have to see."

Melanie turned her body slightly and leaned back so that she could look into his face. Taking the back of her hand she lifted it to his cheek and stroked along his jawline. Waiting until he made eye contact she said softly but firmly.

"I don't care what you do to SJ in that ring; all I care about is that you come back to me."

Roman nodded and dipped his head kissing Melanie below the ear. "I will always come back to you bellissima" (gorgeous)

Melanie bit the corner of her lower lip "What happened to Lalelei?"

Roman shrugged nonchalantly but he couldn't fight the corners of his mouth from turning up ever so slightly. "I figured I would try something new."

Melanie smiled at him and chuckled but that was cut short the minute she heard the shrill ring tone coming from her phone that was sticking up from the corner pocket of her gear bag. She closed her eyes and sighed. She knew the call was coming, in all honesty she was shocked that he had restrained himself as long as he had, but even with his restraint that didn't mean that she wanted to have this conversation. She gently moved Joelle who made a small grunting noise letting Melanie know she was less than pleased to have to move, and then went to retrieve her phone. Slowly removing it from the pocket she made eye contact with Sasha who gave her a look of sympathy followed by a small encouraging smile. She took a deep breath and swiped right.

"Hi Daddy"

The instant she spoke those two words she noticed the murmurs and side conversations all ceased, putting her even more on edge.

The reply she received was a tone she knew all too well, it was the tone her father used when he was barely holding on to the last shred of sanity he had left before exploding. "Angel"

"Yes Daddy" she said as she shoved her hand through her hair, saying a silent prayer that she could talk him off of the ledge that she knew he was teetering on.

"You want to tell me why you agreed to a story line like that?"

"I didn't"

"What do you mean you didn't?" he asked