Have you got something on your mind? Say it
Johnny: I thought we agreed Sonny has to die.
Claudia: He will, tonight. It’s all been arranged.
Johnny: Yeah, why bother me with the details, right?
Claudia: John, I told you I will take care of it. All you need to do is worry about finding an alibi.
Claudia: Go and find someplace to hang out where there’s a bunch of people around for a couple of hours, and I will call you when I get confirmation that Sonny’s dead.
Johnny: Sounds a lot like an order, Claudia.
Claudia: I don’t want this coming back on you, John. Who do you think the cops are going to go to first when Sonny turns up dead? You need an airtight alibi.
Johnny: Don’t worry about me. I’ll find some place to be and someone to be with.
Claudia: Yeah, I bet. Your girlfriend? Oh, that’s right, Lulu’s not your girlfriend. She’s just some girl you bought a casino to stay in touch with.
Johnny: It was a good investment. Besides, it never hurts to keep the options open.
Claudia: I hope Lulu Spencer is worth the trouble, not to mention the money you’re spending to bankroll her father.
Johnny: More than likely, nothing will come of it. Lulu’s pretty determined to keep her distance. It’s probably better for both of us if she does anyway.
Claudia: Too bad you can’t help playing with fire.
Claudia: Glad to see the bar is up and running ahead of schedule. When will the casino open?
Luke: Well, why do you care? I was under the impression that I’m in partnership with your brother.
Claudia: John and I work as a team.
Luke: Well, then you should have no trouble holding to his agreements.
Claudia: Depends. Let’s hear them.
Luke: Well, they’re simple. He pays the bills. I pour the booze. I take his money, and I retain complete control of the casino.
Claudia: No, John may prefer to be a silent partner, but I plan on taking a very active role in this particular business venture.
Luke: Do you?
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Luke: Revise your plan.
Claudia: What would be the point of owning a casino if I can’t enjoy it? There’s just one little problem.
Luke: Only the one?
Claudia: It seems my brother has a thing for your daughter. If it goes much further, it could be disastrous for both of them.
Luke: This is not a conversation I care to have.
Claudia: With me?
Luke: With anyone. When it comes to my daughter’s love life, I have no opinions. If she cares to date a mob boss or a popcorn salesman, it’s all the same to me.
Claudia: I’m not surprised that you want to shove your daughter in John’s direction. After all, he is plenty rich, and he just used a big part of that money to bail you out of a mountain of debt.
Luke: Let me say this slower. Lulu’s love life is none of my concern. I am completely neutral. Think Switzerland.
Claudia: Hmm, okay, fine. You don’t want to weigh in, that’s your prerogative, but let me explain something to you. John’s situation is complicated. Not to mention dangerous. I hate to see your daughter get hurt.
Luke: Don’t even think of threatening my kid.
Claudia: I’m going to level with you. When my father was in charge, he made a lot of enemies. Now John’s running things, and he’s dealing with the fallout. It’s just a word of caution. These people, they don’t play nice. Now if Lulu is around, she could get caught in that crossfire.
Luke: Okay, here’s the deal as I see it. Anything happens to Lulu, and your brother is dead. If that causes you any kind of concern, maybe you should go to him and tell him to stop sniffing around my daughter.
Claudia: Why would he? Now, he said she wasn’t interested.
Luke: Oh, she’s interested. And so is he. Otherwise, why would he invest in this joint?
Claudia: This was a business decision.
Luke: Mainly, but it’s also an opportunity for him to be around Lulu. So like I said, you know, I got no trouble taking your brother’s money. But if anything happens to my daughter, I got no trouble killing him either.
Claudia: Well. This has been a very enlightening conversation.
Claudia: I thought you went to find an alibi.
Johnny: I’m a lot more concerned with how this is going down tonight.
Claudia: John, I told you. I got it. Sonny is going to be dead in a couple of hours.
Johnny: You keep telling me that, but nothing more.
Claudia: Have you got something on your mind? Say it.
Johnny: Yeah, I don’t like how secretive you’re being with this hit. Hiding all the details from me? It’s almost as if you don’t want it to go down.
Claudia: I don’t want you getting blamed for it.
Johnny: Or maybe you don’t hate Sonny as much as I do, as much as you say you do. You’re the one that slept with him.
Claudia: That’s nice.
Johnny: I need to know if you have feelings for him. If you actually want him to live, you need to let me know. I’m not going to like it, but I’m going to accept it. I’m a lot more concerned with you and I being honest with each other than I am with him dying.
Claudia: I’m being honest with you, John. I have every reason to want Sonny dead. With Sonny out of the way, we can take over his territory and expand into Port Charles, and even if he was willing to make a deal, I would still want him dead for what he did to you. Keeping you locked up so he could mess with your head, beat you down. That’s something Daddy would do. That’s something Daddy did to both of us.
Johnny: How do you think I was able to handle Sonny so well? Years of experience. I learned that in situations like that, it’s best to just have no reaction. You know, shut down and pretend to be calm like I was with Dad.
Claudia: You didn’t seem very calm when Sonny came into my hospital room and you stuck a gun under his chin.
Johnny: That wasn’t for what he did to me. That was for how Sonny treated you.
Claudia: Yeah. That’s another reason that I want him dead.
Claudia: You know, when Daddy sent me to live in Italy, I should’ve been relieved. I was finally away from all of his madness — all the yelling and the violence. But all I could think about was you, that you were still here and that you were scared and alone. It killed me to leave you here with him, John.
Johnny: It’s not like you had a choice.
Claudia: I was planning on coming back for you. From the minute that I left, I wanted to come back for you. I just didn’t think that I had the power to help you. It took me a while to figure out that the way a woman looks, mm — that’s a lot of the power that she needs. You know, not only does being sexy influence men and distract other women, but people tend to underestimate someone who puts their sexuality right out there. They think that you have no brain, that you’re stupid, that you’re not to be worried about. And when people underestimate you, they’re a lot easier to take down. Why do you think that I went after Sonny? I heard that he was messing with you, and I did my research. I found out what kind of woman Sonny likes, and I set out to give it to him. I pretended to meet him by accident, and let him pick me up in that bar. That was part of the plan, John. The way he treated me wasn’t. He was insulting and dismissive from the start. But I didn’t know all of his weaknesses, so I had to come back with him. You know, I’d come back at him with the same, pretend like I enjoyed being treated like a whore. When it really made me hate him. I had to follow him all over town, pretend like I was being turned on, I was attracted to him, when I really just wanted to spit in his face. There’s nothing worse to me than a man that treats a woman badly and pretends that she asked for it, that she wanted it.
Johnny: I hate that Sonny hurt you.
Claudia: Yeah, well, after tonight, he’ll never have the chance to do it again.
Trevor: Stay focused, people. We need to find a way to neutralize Sonny Corinthos permanently.
Johnny: Sonny and I agreed to a truce.
Trevor: Only on the condition that those Alcazar waterfront properties stay in neutral hands. But ever since Richard handed them over to me, Sonny saw that as an aggressive act, and he is going to retaliate. We need to strike first.
Johnny: The situation seems stable to me. Why disrupt it?
Trevor: Oh, Johnny. You really let your sister get into your head, don’t you? That’s Claudia speaking, not you. How many times do I got to tell you? Claudia is only going to be concerned with herself, number one.
Claudia: Oh, yeah? As opposed to you, Trevor, huh? Who has John’s best interests at heart?
Trevor: I am simply warning you that we have to make a move, and that move better be soon.
Claudia: How did you ever last so long around here? My father hates cowards. He always has. Were you just too busy hiding in his shadow for him to notice?
Trevor: Claudia, something stinks. It doesn’t add up. Because you two should be way more concerned with this Corinthos situation than you apparently are.
