If you wanted just a little bit of advice, lose the guilt
Claudia: I don’t know what you are talking about.
Nikolas: Well, they’re your own words.
Claudia: Well, I don’t know what I said, but I had just been stabbed, and I was floating in the water for hours –
Nikolas: I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you. You hired Ian Devlin to shoot Sonny Corinthos, but that idiot shot Michael instead. So essentially because of you, an innocent child is in a coma for the rest of his life. So, what, am I supposed to just let you get away with that?
Claudia: Look, I don’t know what you think you heard, but you –
Nikolas: Oh, come on, come on, come on, Claudia. Cards on the table, save us both a lot of time here. Now earlier you were rambling on quite a bit. But you thought you were safe, because you thought I was your brother. Now it seems to me that Johnny has been carrying around a significant amount of guilt, since you kept assuring him that it wasn’t his fault. But it wasn’t his fault, was it? It was your fault, because you hired Ian.
Claudia: That didn’t happen.
Nikolas: No?
Claudia: No.
Nikolas: No, okay, well then, I guess I have no problem with just, uh, telling my brother the cop. We’ll leave it in his hands and see what he says.
Claudia: Nikolas, listen to me, you can’t do that.
Nikolas: You have two choices here, okay. Now, either I go to the police and tell them that you were responsible for Michael’s shooting, or I go to — Jason Morgan.
Claudia: You can’t go to Jason.
Nikolas: Sure, I can, and I will — he’ll believe me.
Claudia: You have no idea what you will set in motion. Jason won’t wait for proof; he’ll just come and kill me. And then he’ll go looking for my brother John, and he’ll take him out just for good measure. Look, Johnny had nothing — you hear me? He had nothing to do with Michael’s shooting. Do you want that on your conscience, can you live with that?
Nikolas: Yes — you are so quick to defend your brother, but I have yet to hear any grand protestations of innocence on your behalf.
Claudia: Do you want to know what happened? Because I will tell you, if you agree that you won’t do anything.
Nikolas: Okay, I mean there’s no phone service here, so we’re basically prisoners in this house until after the storm. But, captive audience or not, you are going to have a really difficult time convincing me there are any good excuses for putting a child in a coma for the rest of his life.
Claudia: We weren’t trying to hurt Michael; we were trying to kill Sonny.
Claudia: When Kate Howard was shot and Michael went missing, Sonny assumed that Johnny was behind it. So he had my brother grabbed off the streets and he locked him in a padded room in a mental ward, without food and without water, and beat him. Sonny was threatening to cut Johnny’s fingers off and send them home to me in pieces.
Nikolas: Yeah, I guess I can see how that would make you angry.
Claudia: It didn’t make me angry, Nikolas, I couldn’t see straight.
Nikolas: Well, why didn’t you call the police?
Claudia: Because that’s not how we do things. Not the Zaccharas, not my family, not Sonny. And when Michael came back, and Sonny came around looking for a truce, me and John agreed to a truce. We agreed to it, but then I immediately found somebody to take Sonny out without it getting back to me and John.
Nikolas: Ah, ah yes, enter Ian Devlin, right?
Claudia: I had done some work with Ian before, in Italy. And he was anxious to get a drug shipment into town. So I told Ian that I would help him out if he would take Sonny out. You knew Ian Devlin, didn’t you? Didn’t you, Nikolas? Because the night Michael was shot, I met with Ian Devlin in your office. And when he walked in, thinking that he was talking to you, he was already furious. He must have been furious at you, so how do you fit into this whole scenario, Nikolas? Because I know that you do, and I can see it on your face.
Nikolas: Are you insinuating that I bear some kind of guilt by association over what happened with Michael? Just because I know Ian, I am somehow culpable?
Claudia: No, of course not. I am just — I’m not saying that at all. I’m just wondering why you are so defensive suddenly.
Nikolas: You probably already know this, but I paid Ian $10 million to gain access to an experimental drug that is illegal in this country. And he obviously used that $10 million to finance a drug shipment that he wanted you to land. So if you connect those two damning dots, my money helped put Michael in that coma. So, hey, I guess I’m guilty, too.
Claudia: If you wanted just a little bit of advice, lose the guilt. It’s a useless emotion. I mean, what you did wasn’t premeditated, it wasn’t even unusual. Really, people with money and power, they use it to get what they want all the time, and why shouldn’t they? I mean, look, we could all backtrack every single action we’ve ever made if we really wanted to. I’m sure, I guarantee, that we could find our place in the chain of circumstances that led to somebody’s misfortunes somewhere.
Nikolas: I’m sorry, but that was one of the most fascinating philosophical insights into the perils of being rich I have ever heard. Thank you, I feel so much better.
Claudia: I just — look, all I’m saying is that you had a legitimate reason to do business with Ian. It’s not like you were trying to get rich or high.
Nikolas: Well, that’s just great, I off the hook. Are you trying to make excuses for me hoping that I will return the favor?
Claudia: No, I wanted Sonny dead. I told you. I hired Ian to kill him. What I never meant to happen was for a little boy to end up getting shot in the head. Just like you never meant for your money to go to Devlin for him to play Dr. Drug lord.
Nikolas: It doesn’t matter; we all had our part in destroying that kid’s life.
Claudia: Well, look, maybe Michael’s going to wake up.
Nikolas: In what? Five, 10 years? Come on, that kid was robbed. Don’t you think we should pay for that in some way?
Claudia: I pay for what I did to Michael with a little piece of my soul every single time that I think of him. Maybe that’s not as much as I deserve — definitely. But it hurts a lot, trust me. I don’t want my brother to go down for this, to be dragged down with me.
Nikolas: That’s a convenient spin. Spare your brother, you spare yourself as well.
Claudia: You can throw me right back into the harbor right now. I’m dead serious. Or I’ll save you the trouble, I’ll dive in myself.
Nikolas: You’d dive for your brother’s life, you would?
Claudia: In a heartbeat, yeah. What would you do for yours?
[Knock on door]
Alfred: Mr. Cassadine, the phone lines are working again.
Nikolas: Would you like to go to a hospital?
Claudia: I think I’m fine. What do you think?
Nikolas: I think you are going to be okay, too. Thank you, Alfred, but I won’t be needing to make any of those phone calls.
Alfred: Very good, Sir.
