ALEX DRAKOS
FOR MY LOVER
BY
MALLORY MONROE
Copyright©2019 Mallory Monroe
All rights reserved. Any use of the materials contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author and/or her affiliates, including scanning, uploading and downloading at file sharing and other sites, and distribution of this book by way of the Internet or any other means, is illegal and strictly prohibited.
AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING
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WITHOUT THE WRITTEN CONSENT OF
THE AUTHOR AND AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING.
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.
ALEX DRAKOS SERIES:
1. ALEX DRAKOS
HIS FORBIDDEN LOVE
2. ALEX DRAKOS 2:
HIS SCANDALOUS FAMILY
3. ALEX DRAKOS 3:
WHAT THEY DID FOR LOVE
4. ALEX DRAKOS 4:
HIS DANGEROUS AFFAIR
5. ALEX DRAKOS 5:
A REUNION, A WEDDING, A SCANDAL
MICK SINATRA SERIES
IN ORDER:
1.MICK SINATRA: FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE
2.MICK SINATRA: LOVE LIES AND JERICHO
3.MICK SINATRA: HIS LADY, HIS CHILDREN, AND SAL
4.MICK SINATRA: IF YOU DON’T KNOW ME BY NOW
5.MICK SINATRA: THE HARDER THEY FALL
6.MICK SINATRA: NOW WILL YOU WEEP
7.MICK SINATRA: BREAKING MY HEART
8.MICK SINATRA: LOVE AND SHADOWS
9.MICK SINATRA: NO LOVE. NO PEACE.
10. MICK SINATRA: HEAT WAVE
11. MICK SINATRA: NOT IN MY HOUSE
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
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PROLOGUE
Ten at night, in heavy rain, and they were already on the outskirts of town. Alex was on the phone handling some difficulty in his New York office, while Kari sat beside him staring at the dark road ahead of them. Their driver, a longtime Alex employee, was driving at a steady pace, attempting to make it to the airfield on time despite the rainstorm, but his speed into the black night was worrisome to Kari. She could see the rain like slanted needles falling down across the front of the headlights, but all else seemed like a black hole of nothingness: no other cars, no other lights, no houses or farms or even truck stop cafés in view. Just more rain and darkness.
With Washington, DC long since faded from their rearview mirrors, Kari Grant-Drakos still could not believe how different her life had become. From a teen mom, to a drug dealer’s girlfriend, to a struggling small-business owner, she was now the wife of one of the most powerful men in the world. A man, she still couldn’t believe, who just had an audience with the President of the United States. To a girl who came from a background like Kari’s, it was surreal.
They were in the backseat of the SUV heading back to the airfield, where their private plane was waiting to transport them back to Florida. Alex Drakos, her brand new husband, had one arm around her waist as he spoke on the phone, while Kari sat so close beside him that her small shoulder was resting against the front of his body.
But she couldn’t help it. She was proud to be his wife. Proud that they had just had dinner at the White House where she felt that she, the only black woman at the entire function, had held her own and represented well. Not that she was the only African-American in attendance. She wasn’t. There were two black men that were also present, and they both held their own too. But they both had white wives.
When Alex finished his phone conversation, he tossed his phone aside, tired of the interruptions, and looked at Kari. She was staring out at the dark, rain-slicked stretch of highway that led to the airfield. Nothing was out there beyond the darkness of the night and the woods on either side of the road, but she was staring as if that part of the country, or maybe the brand new world he was introducing her to, was so foreign to her that she couldn’t take her eyes off of it. Which pleased him, but alarmed him too.
It pleased him because he knew she deserved her new life of wealth and access and so much more. But it alarmed him, too, because he often wondered if he had taken her from her honest, real, simple life, and plucked her down into the harsh, plastic society in which he had to travel. And he worried if her new life would be an overall positive for her, or glaringly negative.
“A penny for them,” he said to her.
Surprised that he was no longer on the phone, Kari looked at him.
His heart always squeezed when her big, beautiful, golden-brown eyes suddenly turned his way. There was an understated sexiness to Kari that precious few men had ever seen in her, but Alex somehow managed to see every time she looked at him. Including now.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked him.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked her.
“Oh! Nothing major. Just how everything has changed.”
Alex felt a twinge of regret that he had upended her life so completely. “Are you thinking that everything’s changed in a good way,” he decided to ask her, “or a bad way?”
“Nothing that deep,” Kari said with a smile. “I was just thinking that somebody like me, Kari Grant, a woman who was an unwed mother at fifteen, a high school dropout who barely got her GED, a woman who lived with an unsavory drug dealer for most of her young adult life, a girl like me, just had dinner at the White House with the President of the United States.” She smiled. “That shit doesn’t happen to people like me. That’s some fairytale shit right there!”
Alex laughed.
“And I didn’t slip and fall,” Kari continued. “I didn’t stutter or stumble over my words. I pulled it off!” She grinned. “That’s the really amazing part.”
Alex took her hand. “You were brilliant tonight. They didn’t see you coming.”
“I know! Wasn’t it grand?”
A
lex loved her lack of pretense. “Yes, babe. It was grand.”
But Kari continued to look at him with a stare he was beginning to understand. It was a quizzical stare. “What is it?” he asked her.
“I also saw when POTUS pulled you aside, into that private office,” Kari said. “What was that about?”
Alex said nothing, which normally was his way of telling her to back off. Alex could be that way sometimes. But Kari wasn’t backing away this time. With marriage came liberties. She was taking some tonight. “What was that about?” she asked him again.
It was Alex’s turn to look out at the darkness and rain that surrounded them. Then he looked at Kari. “He officially informed me that I was on the short list to become the next United States Ambassador to Greece.”
Greece was Alex’s native land, and he had already informed Kari a week ago that he was being considered for the post. “We already knew you were on his short list,” she said. It had been all over the media as well.
“What he wanted to inform me,” Alex said, “is that the list has gotten shorter.”
That was a surprise to Kari. “From what to what?”
“From six individuals, according to the president, to two.”
Kari’s already big eyes stretched. “Two? Alex, really? You and who?”
“He didn’t tell me who the other person might be, which is understandable. But yes, there are now only two of us still on the list.”
“And you’re at the head of the list, right?”
“He wouldn’t say that. He said we are both in contention.”
“But why would he invite you to dinner, and not the other person, whomever it is?”
“Because my name was the only name on any of the lists that ever leaked. He said it’s because some of his staff favors me over anybody else, and might have leaked it to help my chances. He invited me to dinner because I was already considered a shoo-in.”
“But he’s saying you aren’t a shoo-in?”
“He’s saying my chances have improved from a one-in-sixth chance, to better than even. So, yes, he says I have a slight advantage at this stage.”
Kari was so happy for him. “Oh, Alex, that’s great news! Despite all they tried to do, that’s wonderful news. And you told him how badly you want it, right?”
Alex smiled. Although her lack of pretense was refreshingly honest in her world, he couldn’t afford to display the same in his. “No, darling, I didn’t tell him any such thing. You never want to appear too thirsty in DC. They will chew you up and spit you out if you show that level of vulnerability.”
Kari knew she had a lot to learn in Alex’s world, and it still felt so daunting and scary at times. “What did you say to him?” she asked.
“I thanked him for the consideration, and promptly changed the subject.”
“Changed the subject? Alex! To what?”
“Golf, what else?” He smiled. “He invited me to go a few rounds with himself and a few of his pro friends, including Tiger Woods, in the near future.”
Kari nodded. “Oh, okay. That’s nice,” she said.
Alex was surprised. “That’s nice? That’s all you have to say? I namedrop Tiger Woods, perhaps the greatest golfer to ever live, and all you have to say is how nice? The first African-American to win the Masters, and all you can say is that’s nice?”
Kari smiled at Alex’s animation. Golf did that to him. “I know it’s a great thing, I’m not minimizing it. But Tiger Woods just isn’t one of my favorite people, that’s all.”
Alex looked at her. Golf was a religion for him. The idea that one of the game’s best would be on sweet Kari’s stank list surprised him. “What in the world could you have against Tiger Woods?” he asked her.
“It’s stupid, and has nothing to do with him as a good golfer, really.”
“Then tell me why you have an issue with Tiger.”
“When he first hit the scene and everybody was talking about this black golfer that learned at the knee of his black father, my girlfriends and I were so excited. We were talking about how finally there was going to be a black woman at winner’s row waiting for her golfer-husband when he won the Master’s or the PGA Tour or whatever major tournament it was. We didn’t care which. We were just excited that it was finally going to happen. A black woman on winner’s row. But it didn’t happen. Not ever.” Then she sighed. “He’s just considered a major disappointment where I come from.”
And then it happened.
BAM!
Their SUV was struck from behind with such force that it caused the backend to slightly lift in the air. As it was slamming back down to the ground Alex, shocked, pushed Kari down with one hand and with his other hand, grabbed the loaded gun he could not take into the White House but was at his side in the SUV. He used to be the enforcer for his father’s crime syndicate during his younger days back in Greece. He knew an ambush when he saw one.
This was an ambush.
“Get down and stay down!” he yelled to Kari as he personally pushed her head down into the floor mat. “Floor this motherfucker!” he yelled to his driver as he turned to get a better read on who it was that attempted to disable their vehicle.
But as he turned, the big GMC pickup truck behind them was now riding beside them and Alex, quick to react, pressed down the window of the SUV, aimed his Magnum, and began firing shot after shot at the driver of the wrecked truck. So much so that the driver of the truck, seemingly surprised by Alex’s readiness, swerved to avoid the volley of bullets and hit on the gas to fly past the bulkier SUV.
But Alex had a sneaking suspicion that the pickup truck driver wasn’t about to go quietly into the night. But before he could react to his suspicion, the driver of the pickup fired one shot into the SUV as he was speeding past it. He fired, not to hit Alex, but to hit Alex’s driver. Alex knew why. If he took out the driver, he probably figured he’d take out Alex and Kari too.
Initially, it worked. He shot the driver of Alex’s SUV in the neck and then sped away, causing Alex’s driver to lose consciousness and immediately release the steering wheel as his body fell sideways.
“What’s happening?” Kari was asking anxiously as Alex was leaping over the seat so fast, that he seemed like a blur flying over her. But he knew he had no time to waste.
He pushed the driver out of the way, onto the passenger seat, and took control of the SUV’s steering wheel just as it was veering toward the side of the road and certain disaster.
“Alex, what’s happening?” Kari cried again.
“It’s alright!” Alex yelled back at her, attempting to calm what he knew was Kari’s hysterical nerves. He sat down and wrestled control of the steering wheel. “It’s alright.”
Without stopping the SUV, Alex steered the vehicle back onto the road as he reached over and grabbed the wrist of his unconscious driver, to see if he still had a pulse and they needed to get him to the hospital rather than pursue that truck driver.
But he didn’t have a pulse.
Not even a faint one.
And Alex, now even angrier that somebody would dare kill one of his guys, let alone attempt to take him out with his wife in the vehicle, kept going. “It’s alright,” he said to Kari again. “Everything’s alright.”
But Kari knew it wasn’t alright. She knew their driver had been shot. She saw that Alex hadn’t stopped the SUV, but was speeding after the truck that had hit them. Everything was a long way from alright!
“I’ll call 911,” she said anxiously. If they could get some help, they might be able to save their driver’s life, and to catch up with that gunman too.
But Alex yelled an emphatic no to any suggestion of a 911 call as he sped through that isolated stretch of highway. He was determined to catch that motherfucker himself and render Drakos justice on his ass. He wasn’t about to be restraint by cops who’d never served him well the times he did put it in their hands. It was in Alex’s hands now, and he wasn’t about to let that bastard get away with what he’d d
one to his driver, and tried to do to his wife.
He sped through the rain in pursuit of that pickup. Sped like a madman. His SUV was damaged from behind, but it was still fast. Faster than that fucking truck, he decided. His driver was shot before he was able to take the SUV out of the casual driving speed he had been driving them, to the full throttle, all-out speed Alex was driving. Alex hit a hundred in no time. He was flying to get to that gunman.
“Put on your seatbelt,” he told Kari as he flew.
But he could have saved his breath. Kari had gotten off of the floormat and was already buckled up. “You buckle up too!” she yelled at him.
He ignored her at first, speeding through the night, but she yelled at him again. He managed to take one hand off of the wheel long enough to put on his seatbelt as he continued to steer the wheel.
“What about our driver?” she asked her husband as he continued to speed through the night. “Doesn’t he need a doctor? Maybe he’s still alive, Alex!”
“He’s dead,” Alex said bluntly, and glanced at his driver again. Possible death came with the territory when you worked in the security field. That was their driver’s job: to put his life on the line for his employer. But Alex never would have expected that on a night like this, just after they’d been given an audience with the president, shit this crazy would go down. It was so out of nowhere that it still stunned Alex, a man that had seen his share and then some.
But he knew he had enemies. Many enemies from his days back in Greece and his involvement with the Drakos Crime Family. And many more enemies in the corporate world in the States. He was never going to be a man free of drama. But his wife was with him. They decided to take him out when his wife was with him! That, to Alex, was unforgiveable.
And that was why, he knew, he couldn’t let that bastard in that truck get away with what he’d done.
His tenacity paid off within minutes of his decision to go after the shooter. He spotted the truck in the distance. It had gotten a good head start, and the driver was skilled enough to take full advantage of it.
But Alex was skilled too. And before the driver could realize what was happening, Alex was upon him. His only option, he knew, was a PIT maneuver, where he’d get beside the truck, preferably near the back end of the truck, and ram it hard enough to cause it to veer out of control just enough to be overtaken.
Alex Drakos: For My Lover Page 1
