Work Text:
Red watched the flickering images.
Whatever titillation that might be possible seeing Lizzie in various stages of undress and in intimate situations was completely overwhelmed by rage.
He sat very still and continued to watch, moving past fury straight into ice. Betrayal was something he understood all too well. But this kind of personal emotional violation by someone who professed to love her would leave deep and abiding scars. He understood those kinds of invisible scars all too well, too.
His first instinct had been to eliminate Tom Keen. He wanted to hunt him down and kill him in as slow and as painful a method as he could devise.
He wanted to justify it, but was forced to admit that as appealing as the idea was emotionally, it simply wasn't a viable option. For now Liz was safer with Tom in the picture. Better the devil they had identified than strangers who would be sent to fill the void if Tom disappeared from the face of the earth.
Stay the course.
He could hear his father’s voice saying the words. They were repeated time and again while he was growing up and faced with what had seemed then to be impossibly difficult decisions. Later, when the decisions became a matter of life and death, the words – and his father’s voice - still came to mind.
For the past twenty years, he made it a point not to worry too often or too much about how he lived his life. He arranged, controlled and enjoyed the power of it. And the profit. Information and money were necessary tools and he had a talent for manipulating both.
When he became aware that certain of his activities were being monitored, and that whoever was doing so had made the connection to Lizzie he moved ahead with plans that had been in the works for years.
He had been prepared to meet Elizabeth. He had not been prepared for Lizzie. As much as he appreciated that she was intelligent and beautiful, he found the darker workings of her mind more … alluring. He had never thought he might find a partner; never thought he could form such an allegiance.
As he studied the screen he wondered if Liz was even aware that Tom was not the only one playing a role. In the day-to-day interactions with the man she believed to be her husband she kept much of her real self concealed behind a mask of domestic bliss.
For her to continue to live with Tom as his loving wife would be hell. But she would stay the course no matter how difficult. So would he. The endgame was, as it always had been, to keep her alive.
He admired her loyalty and resolve, however many bad moments it had given him. He knew that she would face what was ahead with the same tough, terrifying, courageous, pig-headed, determination that she’d possessed in fighting for the illusion of her marriage.
But his Lizzie was not the gullible doe-eyed innocent the man calling himself Tom Keen believed her to be. Of all the mistakes Tom and his handlers had made, underestimating her would be the most costly.