lucky's relationship with elizabeth falls apart due to their financial problems, lucky’s addiction, their infidelity, and lucky's discovery in 2007 that elizabeth's son jake is jason's son. meanwhile, lucky's misfortune continues as his best friend emily quartermaine (then livingston) is murdered the same night his father has a heart attack. vaughan described lucky's state of mind to the "new york daily news" in 2007: “words cannot define the rage and the fury. this beautiful thing, that has completely altered his life and given it new meaning, is a lie. (...) he's bitter. he's also in a very weak place, emotionally and physically.” accompanying the fallout of lucky and elizabeth's marriage, jason's jealous ex-girlfriend sam mccall (monaco) manipulates lucky into a relationship with her as revenge on elizabeth, although her feelings eventually turn genuine. monaco described the pairing to "soap opera digest" in 2008: "sam and lucky's romance was nice. it was sweet. it was friendly. it was innocent. i mean, gosh, sam did do a lot of manipulating and crap (to land lucky), but he was teaching her a lot."