Billie returned from Paris during this time, and newcomer Franco Kelly came to town. Kate hired Franco to break up Bo and Hope so Billie could have Bo to herself. Kate got wind that Franco was involved with the mob and held it over his head. Franco got involved with Sami so he could get a green card. On the day of his wedding to Sami, Franco was about to hit Kate with a poker. Lucas bursted in the Kiriakis mansion living room and shot Franco dead as a means of protecting his mother. Kate managed to frame Sami for the murder. Sami made it to death row, but at the last minute Lucas burst into the prison confessing to Franco’s murder. Kate soon claimed that Roberto, Franco’s old mob friend, confessed to killing Franco, and the murder charges against Sami were dropped.
Nicholas Alamain soon came to town and fell for the much older Kate. The two began seeing each other, but never fully consummated their relationship because Kate felt guilty for betraying Victor. Nicholas soon left town and Victor was soon released from the nursing home and given a clean bill of health. She attempted to reconcile with Victor, but he was cold and calculating towards her due to her past as a prostitute and her fling with Nicholas Alamain. To further matters even worse, Victor cut Kate out of his life for good when he caught her in a compromising position with Vincent Moroni. Kate vowed revenge on Victor and conspired with Vincent to kill him.
At Greta’s Coronation, Kate attempted to stop the hit she put out on Victor. Vincent’s daughter Angela was killed, which prompted Vincent to commit suicide. Victor was presumed dead and Titan Industries was all hers, thanks to Kate previously forging a codicil in his will. Victor faked his death and came back to haunt Kate, pretending to be a ghost. Kate was unnerved by his “ghost” and torched the Kiriakis mansion. Tragically, Lucas was severely burned as a result of Kate’s actions and fell into a coma. Victor came out of hiding and kicked Kate out of Titan, leaving her with nothing. Kate was left penniless and forced to find work at a diner. She manipulated Philip into convincing Victor to give her money so she could get back on her feet. Kate got a job at Basic Black, Titan’s main competitor.
Lucas soon came out of his coma and returned to Salem. Nicole Walker, Lucas’s ex-wife, began stealing clients for Titan from Basic Black. Kate teamed up with enemy Sami in an attempt to bring Nicole down. The high-powered businesswoman became involved with Roman Brady, Sami’s father. She revealed her past as a prostitute to him when she was arrested as the Salem Stalker. They fell in love and got married on New Year’s Eve in 2003. Their happiness was short lived when she made the horrifying discovery on their wedding day that he was killed by the Salem Stalker.
Kate turned her focus to ridding Sami from Lucas’s life permanently by luring Sami’s former flame, Brandon Walker, back to town. With the help of former nurse Eugenia, Kate drugged Brandon and Sami and set it up so that Lucas found them in bed together on the morning of his wedding to Sami.
After John Black’s wife, Marlena, was presumed dead, Kate became closer friends with him and helped him through his drug addiction. Unbeknownst to them, their presumed dead spouses were being held captive by Andre DiMera, who was posing as Tony. Andre tormented Roman and Marlena by forcing them to watch a surveillance video of John and Kate making love. John and Kate soon became engaged, but their happiness together was short lived when Roman and Marlena came back from the dead. Kate reunited with Roman, but still had lingering feelings for John. Kate ended up alone again after her union with Roman ended. She later exposed Sami as Stan during her second wedding to Lucas.
Kate was delighted when Philip married Belle, but made the shocking discovery that baby Claire couldn’t possibly be Philip’s biological daughter. She kept this a secret for many months along with Victor. When the truth came out, Philip left town heartbroken.
Kate soon became business partners and lovers with EJ Wells. She convinced EJ to seduce Sami in order to lure her away from Lucas. After Sami helped save Lucas’s life with EJ’s help, Kate set up Sami by hiring private detectives to pose as a producer and a director for a fake reality TV show so Sami could re-enact her heroic saving of Lucas. Sami soon smelled a setup and turned the tables on Kate by exposing a video of EJ and Kate having sex at a Mythic press conference. Kate and EJ luckily managed to turn the humiliating situation around in their favor.
Needless to say, Kate refused to give up in her quest to destroy Sami and rid her from Lucas’s life. She discovered a picture of Sami and EJ together in Lexie’s car the night Sami supposedly saved Lucas’s life. She exposed the picture at their wedding, but her plan to break up Lucas and Sami for the hundredth time still failed. Sami revealed the awful truth to Lucas, that EJ forced her to succumb to his sexual advances in exchange for lifting the beam off Lucas’s leg. Lucas forgave Sami and soon cut his mother out of his life permanently.
Kate turned her attentions towards blackmailing Nick Fallon after discovering his crimes. She forced him to fake a DNA test so it would look as though EJ was the father of Sami’s twins. He complied and forged a blank report stating that EJ was the father of Sami’s twins, although Nick was determined to run a real test on his own. Nick soon turned the tables on her and came clean, getting fired from the hospital lab in the process. He revealed that Lucas was the real father, and the first test was a mistake. However, he left Kate’s name out of it and promised to keep her blackmail secret safe only if she would give his Las Vegas winnings to Chelsea, stating the money was from her.
