Alex, smart enough to know not to antagonize the Feds unless necessary, shook his hand. “And you are?” he asked as they shook.
“I’m Felt Bronson, the special agent in charge. We should complete our work in an hour tops,” he said.
“And what is your probable cause to conduct this raid?” Shannon asked him.
The agent looked at Shannon, but then looked at Alex.
“She’s my attorney,” Alex said.
In that case, the agent responded. “We received credible information,” the agent said to Alex, “that your housekeeping department was acting as a conduit for a drug trafficking ring.”
Kari was floored. “A what?” she asked him.
“A drug trafficking ring,” said the agent.
“Run by whom?” Alex asked him. He was floored too.
The agent exhaled. “Run by your wife, sir,” he said.
And as soon as he said it, Alex shredded all pretense at cordiality. “Get off of my premises with this bullshit, and get off now!” he barked.
“But they have probable cause, Alex,” Shannon said to him.
“What fucking probable cause? That my wife is a fucking drug dealer? Are you out of your fucking mind?” Veins were appearing in Alex’s forehead he was so upset.
“What I’m saying is that you need to let them do their work,” Shannon said.
“But this is crazy,” Kari said. She was as upset as Alex was. “There’s no way they have a credible source! They may have a source, but whomever it is can’t possibly be credible!”
“Just settle yourself down, alright?” Shannon said to Kari.
Kari gave her a leaned-back, the nerve of this chick look. She hadn’t even been formally introduced to her yet; she had only just got off the plane; but yet she called herself running this? Kari wanted to tell her a thing or two.
But Felt Bronson, the special agent in charge, was standing right there. She had a big-ass problem, and it wasn’t some lawyer.
Alex settled down too. “What are our options?” he asked Shannon. They hadn’t even worked out a strategy before this raid happened.
“We have to let them conduct their business. I’ll take a look at their paperwork,” she said, looking at the agent, “but I’m sure it’s in order.”
The agent gladly handed her the warrant.
“Now may I get back to work?” the agent asked.
Shannon reviewed the paperwork very quickly. Then she handed it back to the agent. “You may,” she said as she did. And the agent, smiling as if he’d won some contest, headed back to continue the trashing of Kari’s office.
“This is so not right,” Kari said, folding her arms. “There must be something we can do, Alex! This is an abuse of power.”
“No, it’s not,” Shannon said.
“Yes, it is,” said Toker. “I agree with Mrs. Drakos a hundred percent. This is wrong. What they’re doing is wrong.”
Alex pulled out his cell phone.
“We have to let them do their work,” Shannon said, “I don’t care how much you may disagree with it. But a judge has signed off on their probable cause petition and they have every right to be here.”
Alex began making a phone call.
“Now if you have nothing to hide,” Shannon said to Kari, “then they won’t find anything.”
“If?” Kari asked her.
“Yes, if,” Shannon shot back.
Alex looked at Shannon.
“If you have nothing to hide ---”
“I have nothing to hide, okay?” Kari said to Shannon. “Stop with the ifs. I have nothing to hide.”
“Amen,” said Toker, getting upset too.
“Hey, this is Alex Drakos,” Alex said on his phone. “Is he in?” Then he then moved slightly away from the crowd, to hold a private conversation.
Shannon continued her diatribe. “If you have nothing to hide,” she said yet again to Kari.
But Kari wasn’t having it again. “Look, lady,” she began.
But Shannon interrupted her. “Don’t you look, lady me, okay? I don’t know you like that, honey. I don’t know your character.”
“She’s Mrs. Alex Drakos,” Toker said. He was looking at Shannon as if she’d lost her mind. “That’s her character! She’s your boss’s wife.”
Although Alex was on the phone, he was staring at Shannon. But Shannon would not relent. “If you have nothing to hide,” she said to Kari yet again, “then you have nothing to worry about. If you do have some shady business going on here, then yes, you have lots to be upset about. And I mean a lot.”
Kari just shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. It was enough watching those agents tear her office apart. She couldn’t deal with Shannon Wyatt too. So she ignored her. She’d deal with her later.
Alex finally finished his phone call and returned to Kari’s side. She looked at him. “Who did you call?” she asked him.
“Their boss,” Alex said.
“The head of the local FBI?”
“The director of the FBI,” Alex said. Which, Kari knew, meant the national director of the FBI. In other words, the Congress-confirmed director. Oh, snap, Kari thought gleefully to herself. It was about to go down now!
And, sure enough, within a matter of minutes after her gleeful thought, the cell phone of the special agent in charge rang. The agent took the call and then looked at Alex as the call continued. All they could hear were a lot of yes, sirs, and no, sirs. And then the agent ended the call.
He was flustered, they could tell. “Alright, let’s shut it down!” he ordered his men.
“Shut it down?” one of the men responded.
“I said shut it down!” the agent yelled. “What part of shut it down don’t you understand? Shut it down!”
And the agents, all flustered, too, stopped rummaging through file cabinets and tossing boxes with papers still in them, and, eventually, left Kari’s office.
“Escort them off of the premises,” Toker said to Bob Michaels.
“With pleasure,” Bob said, and followed the agents out.
“Look at the mess those bastards made,” Kari said.
“I’m surprised they left,” said Shannon. “They had every right to be here.”
Kari was about to tell her a thing or two now that her distraction had left, but Alex beat her to it. “Shannon,” he said in his calm, measured way.
Shannon looked at him. “Yes, Alex?” she asked.
“You’re fired,” he said.
Toker couldn’t suppress his glee. Kari was almost as surprised as Shannon was.
“Fired?” Shannon asked Alex. “But for what?”
“No employee of mine will ever question my wife’s veracity,” Alex said. “None. Ever,” he added, looking her dead in her shocked eyes. “You’re fired. Toke, escort her off the premises, please.”
“With pleasure,” Toker said. “Let’s go, Shan,” he said to her.
Shannon was so angry she could hardly contain her fury. That surge came up and she had to lash out. Kari, she felt, was the weakest link and the reason behind this injustice Alex had just perpetrated on her. And she did it. As she walked past Kari to head out of Kari’s office, she heaved up a mighty wad of spit and spat it right in Kari’s face.
Kari, stunned, moved back and quickly began wiping the spit away.
Alex wasn’t stunned. He was angry. Before Shannon could take another step, he took his hand and backslapped her so hard that her body fell backwards, with her legs doing a split as she dropped to the floor.
She was huffing and puffing and in tears as she looked up, stunned, at Alex.
“Get her out of here,” Alex said to Toker with clenched teeth. “Get her out of here before I kill her ass.”
As Toker went to Shannon, to get her out of there, Alex went to Kari, placing his arm around her. “Are you alright?” he asked her.
Kari was nodding, but still upset.
He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and began wiping any residue of t
hat wad from Kari’s face.
“You knew better,” Toker was saying to Shannon as he helped her up and began walking her out of that office. “And if you didn’t know, you should have known. What’s wrong with you?”
But Shannon, now terrified of Alex, had nothing to say. He and Shannon left.
But Shannon’s departure, and even her firing, brought Kari little solace. “Who would do something like this, Alex?” she asked him. “Did the director tell you anything about who that source was?”
“He didn’t know it was even happening,” Alex said. “So no.”
“But what informant could they be talking about?” Kari asked. “I’m not trafficking in drugs, and I’m the only one who runs this department. Who would tell such lies that the FBI would believe them and a judge would issue a search warrant?”
“I have no idea, babe. But you have no idea either, right?”
Kari hated, absolutely hated to even mention that man’s name in Alex’s presence, but she was nobody’s fool either. Alex might not respect her if he ever had to find out the full truth, but she believed he’d still help her. She was still his wife. He’d help her. “I did see somebody in town earlier today that I used to know,” she said to Alex.
Alex was interested. “Somebody you used to know?” he asked her. “Who?”
“I knew him when I lived with Vito Visconni. My ex-boyfriend?”
Alex remembered him. That, to him, went without saying. “He was somebody who used to run with Vito?”
Kari nodded. “He used to sling some of that shit for Vito sometimes, and they hung out together too.”
“What’s his name?”
“Maggio Margolis. He just showed up out of the blue.”
“Where did you see him?”
“At Wayne’s, while I was having drinks with Faye and Lucinda. He wanted us to have drinks with him and some other tourists at his table.”
A part of Alex was as insecure as the next guy. But only when it came to Kari and some man attempting to get next to her. “And you told him no, naturally,” he said. But he also knew that the fact that he felt a need to say it, said it all.
“Naturally,” Kari said. His insecurity whenever it came to any man having any interest in her was still surprising to her.
“There’s probably a connection between his sudden appearance in Apple Valley,” he said, “and what happened today.”
“Probably,” Kari said. “Or it would be a hell of a coincidence. The FBI claimed that somebody told them I was selling drugs, when Maggio used to actually sell drugs I know for a fact. And he’s suddenly in town. That’s too much of a coincidence.”
Alex nodded. “I’ll get some guys to check this Maggio Margolis out. If he’s still around, they’ll find him. And I’ll find out why he’s here.”
Kari smiled, although a major part of her could only hope he didn’t find out too much.
CHAPTER FIVE
The next morning and his dick was deep inside of her, screwing her hard, by the time she was fully awake.
Kari was in bed, lying on her stomach, and Alex was on top of her fucking her and rubbing against her ass as he did. After that misguided raid yesterday, and Shannon’s firing, not to mention those negotiations in New York that went off the rails fast, he needed this kind of pleasure. The kind that only Kari could give to him. The kind that had his big body on top of her little body, and his arms on either side of her holding her tightly in his grasp, as he made slow, sweet, quiet love to her.
It was so slow and sweet, and felt so relaxing that Kari had been drifting in and out as he fucked her. But as his strokes began to increase, and as the wetness between her legs began to mix up with his significant precum, and as his grunts and moans in her ear became louder and louder, she woke up for good.
And by the time she was fully awake, and was feeling all of the sensations that his big dick made her feel, he was fucking her outright, with a rhythm that was now a full-fledged pounding.
The bed was shaking now as Alex put it on her. And Kari, beginning to cum, was immobile. Alex had her just that tightly in his grasp.
But when she came, it was so intense that she tried to wiggle out of his grasp, and get away from his pounding, but she couldn’t. Because Alex was cumming too. And the tighter her vagina closed in around his dick, the tighter he closed her in.
He poured and poured into her. His dick had gotten so big and so hard that she could feel the very veins of his penis rubbing against her, which excited her more. They were in complete sync as they came together.
And as the feeling slowly began to wane, Kari was pleased that Alex did not let her out of his grasp. She was pleased because that experience he gave to her, though at times too intense to bear, was just what the doctor ordered on the morning after.
When they completely stopped, and he eased out of her, he laid on his back, completely exhausted. She remained on her stomach, but turned to him. His thick chest was breathing in and out as if he was hyperventilating, and he, at first, didn’t look her way. He was just trying to regulate his breathing again. But she needed to know.
When he finally looked at her, and smiled, she asked him. “Did you find out anything?” she asked.
Alex was still coming down from the high he always felt after doing her, and he just stared at her. There was something about Kari that turned him on in ways he still didn’t understand himself. He was enjoying the view.
But he knew her like a book. He knew when something was bothering her.
That raid yesterday, and her sighting of that Maggio Margolis, was bothering her. That was why she asked that question. He turned on his side, toward her, and answered her.
“We haven’t found him, no,” he said. “He apparently is no longer in Apple Valley, but my men have calls out to his home turf in Chicago too. They should turn up something on him soon.”
Kari nodded. “I hope he is gone,” she said.
Alex began rubbing her back. “I don’t want you worrying about him, or about what happened yesterday.”
“I still don’t understand who would tell that lie on me.”
“You don’t think it would be Maggio?”
“It could be,” Kari said. “He was no snitch when I knew him, but that was a long time ago. I don’t know what his ass is like now. How desperate he is. What he might have done and had to cut some deal with the Feds. I don’t know none of that. By the time I left Vito, when I was twenty-three years old, he wasn’t even in the picture anymore.”
“Was he still in Chicago?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know. He might have been. I just didn’t see him around anymore. I figured he was in jail like most of the people Vito ran with ended up in.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
Kari smiled. “As you always do,” she said.
Alex smiled. “There ya go!” Then he got out of bed.
But Kari’s heart was still heavy. She didn’t know what was going on. But somebody was out to discredit her. She knew that.
CHAPTER SIX
Kari dragged herself out of bed, brushed and gargled and showered, and then she put on one of Alex’s dress shirts. Then she made her way downstairs. She had taken another catnap after Alex had gotten in the shower himself, and didn’t wake back up until he was dressed and gone. She wanted to grab herself a cup of coffee before she had to put on clothes and face another day. She felt just that drained.
But Alex, regardless of what was going on, was always up at the crack of dawn. Usually to get some golf in before his busy day, but sometimes just to get to the office and get to work.
She was shocked, therefore, to find him still standing in the kitchen.
“Didn’t expect to see you still home,” she said as she walked in.
“I’m getting ready to leave now,” he responded without looking up. He was standing at the center island, fully dressed in one of his tailored suits, and was sipping coffee and swiping through his phone messag
es. “I expected you down sooner than this.”
He was always on her case about her tardiness. She didn’t used to have a problem like this. But her work days at The Drakos were so doggone long, with her getting off sometimes well after midnight, that getting up at the crack of dawn wasn’t going to happen.
“It’s amazing I’m up now,” Kari said as she walked over to the stool next to him. “I didn’t finish working until eleven last night. But Jordan has a competition this morning.”
Alex looked at her as she approached him. “He didn’t mention anything to me.”
“He doesn’t want us to be there. This is his first try, and he says he doesn’t want to embarrass us.”
Alex nodded. “That sounds like J,” he said. Then he looked at Kari as she sat on the stool beside him. He was staring at her.
She smiled. “What?” she asked him.
She looked so damn sexy to him, with her hair messy as hell and falling down across her small forehead. And he was still remembering how it felt to be inside of her. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “Can’t I look?”
Kari smiled. “Not too hard,” she said, and Alex smiled too. He also began pouring her a cup of still-hot coffee.
For some reason, Kari always felt uncomfortable when Alex commented on her looks. To nobody on the face of this earth was she that beautiful, except to him, and it used to bug her when he acted as if everybody else got it wrong. She used to think he was just saying it because he loved her. Now she realized he was seeing it because he loved her. And that, to her, was a wonderful thing.
“Thanks,” she said, as he handed her a cup of coffee. “Just what the doctor ordered.” She took two quick sips.
When she leaned back, on the stool, holding her coffee cup with both hands, he saw that his dress shirt she wore was exposing her mounds and nearly her nipples.
Alex got so hard just looking at her that he placed one hand on her upper back and leaned down and kissed her.
Kari closed her eyes and enjoyed his kiss. It was never a peck with him. He kissed her passionately. She opened her eyes again just as he was finishing.
Alex Drakos: For My Lover Page 4
