“Good morning,” Oz and Jordan said.
Alex, however, wasn’t interested in niceties. Nobody boarded his company helicopter, flew onto his land, and did so before breakfast unless it was vital. “What’s happened?” he asked.
“There’s a problem at the refinery, sir.”
Alex was half-expecting to hear that there were difficulties with the major negotiations currently taking place in Russia, not a problem on one of his oil rigs. “What kind of problem?” he asked.
“Missing oil, sir,” Tino said. “And we’re talking thousands of barrels of it. I just got word from the rig chief after the inventory was taken.”
That sounded crazy to Alex. “Thousands?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Thousands.”
“Where is it?”
“The rig? Just offshore, sir. We could be there in ten minutes.”
Alex exhaled. He knew then he had to handle this. It already sounded out of hand. He looked at Oz and Jordan. “I should be back within the hour,” he said. “Teach him something, Odysseus,” he added, as he handed Jordan the golf bag.
“I’m no Mister D,” Oz said with a smile, “but I think I can manage that.”
But Jordan was worried about Alex. Other than his godfather, Benny Church, he’d never known a man who worked so hard all the time. “You don’t want me to come with you, sir?” he asked his future stepfather.
Alex smiled as he wrapped his golf glove tighter on his hand. “Thanks, son,” he said, “but I’ll be okay.”
Then he looked at his brother again. “He’s not your caddy,” he said. “Teach him.”
“I will,” said Oz. “I promise. Geez!”
Alex smiled, then his look turned more concerning. He looked at Jordan. “If your mother wakes up before I return,” he said, and then he hesitated. Kari was going to get tired of his bullshit, business-first lifestyle really quick if he didn’t slow his ass down. She told him so already. “Hopefully, she won’t wake up before I return.”
“She went to bed really late,” Jordan said, “after Auntie Faye and Auntie Lucinda and Uncle Benny left. She won’t be waking up any time soon.”
Alex ruffled Jordan’s soft hair. He was such a sweet, sensitive young man. Always the bearer of good news, Alex thought. “See you soon,” he said, got on the golf cart with Tino and their driver, and made his way toward the helipad.
But Jordan looked at Oz. “He owns an oil rig?” he asked.
Oz smiled. “You didn’t know your future stepfather is an oilman too? Yes, he owns a few rigs. He owns a private oil company. You become a billionaire through diversification. My brother, your future father, is very diversified. Yes, he owns oil rigs.”
Jordan shook his head. “Wow,” he said. Alex Drakos never ceased to amaze him. “Wow.”
“No, Jordan,” Oz said, “your surprise is misplaced. Wow is going to be the word to use when I finish annihilating you in this golf game.”
Jordan smiled. “He said to teach me, not ruin me,” he said.
Oz looked at Jordan, surprised by his sharp, intelligent wit, and laughed. “You have the looks the ladies are going to love. And you’re smart too? A child after my own heart,” Oz added, with what Kari once called that lady-killing grin.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kirk Ross and Barry Miller waited with oil-smudged faces as the boss and Tino Castellano got out of the helicopter on the deck of the ship and climbed down the steep stairs. They already had on hardhats, like Miller and Ross, but they weren’t like them at all. They were both in tailored suits as they climbed down. They were both looking as if the bowels of an offshore oil rig were the last place on earth they ever thought they’d find themselves. But the boss had come. And for good reason, both men knew.
And when Alex and Tino made their way toward the two men, Kirk Ross, the rig supervisor, quickly extended his hand. “It’s an honor to see you again, sir,” he said.
Alex shook his hand. If they met before, as Ross implied, Alex didn’t remember him. And wasn’t pretending that he did. “Nice to meet you,” he said.
“Terrible thing that happened, sir. We feel just awful about it.”
“Take me to where they did it,” Alex said.
“Yes, sir. Right this way, sir.”
Ross, with Miller bringing up the rear, escorted Alex and Tino down a long, narrow corridor, in the bowels of the ship, to a compartment at the very end of the hall. When they walked in, Alex still couldn’t see how it happened. “Am I missing something here?” he asked.
“My thoughts exactly, Boss,” said Tino.
“It’s here, sir,” Ross said as he removed what appeared to be the wall of the cabin, and a pumping station passageway appeared.
“They pumped out hundreds of barrels of my oil through there?” Alex asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Alex bent down and looked through the passageway.
“It was an elaborate scheme to be sure, sir,” said Ross, “because they needed all the mechanisms on their end, too. But they pulled it off right under our noses.”
Alex stood upright, but he continued looking at that passageway. He stood there for several minutes without comment. And he concluded that it was possible for thousands of barrels of oil to be removed from that rig in the very way Kirk Ross described. It was possible. But what was not possible in Alex’s mind was the fact that thousands of barrels of his crude oil were removed, and nobody saw a damn thing. To Alex, that was the impossibility.
It was impossible to Tino Castellano, too, who glanced at Alex and knew what to do. He walked over to Barry Miller, the second man in the bowels of that ship.
“Hey, how are you?” he said to Miller when he arrived at his side.
“I’m good, sir,” Miller responded. “And you?”
“Quite a feat they pulled off,” said Tino.
“Yeah.” Miller was shaking his head. “That’s something there.”
And before Ross or Miller knew what hit them, Alex grabbed Ross by his shirt and flung him into a metal pipe, instantly busting Ross’s forehead open, then he threw him against the wall. Barry Miller tried to make an immediate run for it, but Tino pulled out his gun and placed it at Miller’s rib. “Don’t even try it,” he said to him, and Miller’s entire countenance dropped. He knew like he knew his name that it was all over for them. It was over already.
After slamming Ross into the wall of the ship, Alex hurried over and grabbed him by his short, spiky hair. “Do you think I’m some kind of fucking fool?” he asked him. “Where’s my oil, motherfucker? Where’s my oil?”
But Ross looked dumbstruck. “They took it,” he said. “What are you asking of me? I don’t know where they took it to!”
Alex grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head against another metal pipe. “Where’s my oil?” he asked him again. He slammed him again. And again.
“I told you I don’t know,” responded confused-looking Ross again. Even Tino began to wonder if Alex had the right man.
But Alex wasn’t wondering any such thing. He knew he had the right man. Kirk Ross was hired to run this rig and protect the cargo onboard. Nothing happened on or around this rig that he didn’t know about. And if he didn’t know, he should have known. Alex was betting he knew. And he was going to beat it out of him.
He grabbed him again and slammed his back against the wall again, and then he began punching the shit out of him. And Alex was a big, muscular man. His licks broke skin. His licks had Ross nearly punch-drunk in pain.
But Ross was still denying all. He was still looking as if Alex was crazy out of his mind to even think he would know anything! But Alex kept punching until Ross was so wabbly on his feet that it appeared as if he was going to pass out. And that was when Alex knew it was time to go there. He pulled out a gun, and he placed it to the head of Kirk Ross.
He spoke directly into Ross’s ear. “Where is my oil? You get one shot at the right answer, or you get one shot through the head.”
And it was
only then did the wall of denial crack. “It’s on a ship.”
Tino stood erect. “Motherfucker,” he said. That joker had him convinced he was telling the truth!
“It’s on a cargo ship,” Ross said to Alex.
“All of it?” Alex asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Heading where?”
“I don’t--”
Alex cocked that gun. He wasn’t going to take no more of his bullshit denials.
Ross realized it too. “Texas,” he said.
“Where in Texas? Houston? Dallas?”
“El Paso. They said they needed a crew to help them get it to El Paso.”
“A crew? You sent men I’m paying as the crew on that ship?”
Ross hated to admit it, but he knew he had to. “Yes, sir.”
“Motherfucker!” Tino said again.
“They went along with it because I ordered them to,” Ross said, “and they figured it was just a nonentity buy.” A nonentity buy was a purchase by an individual rather than a collective, like a country or a company. Alex only rarely accommodated nonentities and everybody knew it.
“Who’s the purchaser?” Alex asked.
“Some oilman,” Ross said. “They didn’t tell me who.”
“Who are they?” Alex asked.
But Ross was shaking his bloody head. “I don’t know, sir. I only dealt with the ship’s captain and the handful of guys he had working for him. He’s just the transporter. The oilman’s crew will take possession of the cargo at the docks. That’s all I know.”
“And probably for pennies on the dollar,” Alex said.
“I don’t know how much he’s paying for it, sir.”
“Who got in touch with you?”
“The captain of the ship that’s transporting it,” Ross responded.
Alex stared at his slimy rig chief. “How much did he pay you?” he asked.
Ross hated to admit that, too, but he knew he had to. “A hundred thousand,” he said.
Alex shook his head. “Risking my wrath is worth a measly hundred thousand dollars to you?” he asked. “You think that’s enough for the risk you took?”
Ross was shaking his head. “No, sir. I know it’s not enough. I realize that now.”
“Who else on this ship was paid?”
Ross hesitated on that question.
Alex angrily pushed that gun against Ross’s head. “Who?” Alex yelled.
“Miller,” said Ross with pain in his voice, as he felt the pressure of that weapon against his skin. “Barry Miller.”
“He’s lying!” Miller yelled, to save himself. But even he knew that was not going to be a winning strategy.
Tino shook his head. When will these fuckers learn, he wondered!
Alex wondered it too. And he stared at his rig chief. He hated betrayal and disloyalty more than he hated anything. Men who would not stand behind their shit, and who would do all of that denying Ross had been doing, weren’t men at all in Alex’s eyes. And his eyes were inflamed with anger.
“On principal alone,” he said to Ross, and then he pulled that trigger and watched Kirk Ross fall.
When Barry Miller realized all those rumors about Alex Drakos’s mob past were likely true, and the man would extract revenge in the ultimate way, he fought to get out of that room. He fought for his life. But Tino, a big, muscular man in his own right, wrapped his arm around his neck in a chokehold and held it there until Miller had passed out. Then he released him, and he fell to the floor.
Alex walked over to Tino. “Get crews, including a helicopter crew, at the docks in El Paso,” he ordered. “Do not allow any crewmember to reveal anything to anyone until that shipment arrives at port and we know for certain who the buyer is. Once you find that out, you contact me. I’ll take it from there.”
“Yes, sir. And this guy here?” Tino looked down at the unconscious Barry Miller.
“He was in on it,” Alex said. “You do to that motherfucker what I did to that motherfucker,” Alex said firmly as he nodded his head toward the very dead Kirk Ross. “Nobody gets away with stealing from me.”
“Yes, sir,” Tino said. “And the crew that left this rig to help get that oil to Texas?”
“They were following orders,” Alex said. “They think it’s just another nonentity buy. No harm comes to them.”
Tino had met very kindhearted men in his life, and very ruthless men, too. But he’d never met any man who was as ruthless, and as kindhearted, as Alex Drakos. Alex was both. It was the most extraordinary truth Tino had ever witnessed. “Yes, sir,” he said.
And Alex, who hated being forced to show his vicious side time and time again, wiped his hands against themselves, frowned dishearteningly at the violence of it, and left the bowels of that ship.
CHAPTER FIVE
Kari opened her eyes, looked around at the gorgeous bedroom, and quickly realized where she was and what was happening to her. She was still in New York, at Alex’s estate, and he was behind her naked body squeezing her breasts and easing his dick into her very wet womanhood.
The day before was one of the best days of Kari’s life. Alex had flown her friends up to New York from Florida for a day, where he purchased her the most beautiful ring in the world, and he presented her with a spanking brand-new car: A Rolls Royce Phantom no less! Her engagement present, as he called it. As if that multi-million-dollar ring wasn’t gift enough. Now she was waking up in his bed, was feeling as if she was living a dream so wonderful she dared not even dream it, and he was fucking her in that hard, romantic way she loved.
“I see you’re wide awake,” she said in a hoarse voice as he moved in deeper and began pumping on her.
Alex was not only wide awake, but he had already been on his golf course and his oil rig before she even thought about waking up. After showering, he had planned to get back on the golf course, his passion, but he had more passion for Kari when he got out of that shower and saw her lying there. The covers were no longer covering her, and her naked ass was poking out. A tight, brown ass he knelt down to, kissed and licked and sucked, and then got in bed behind that same ass, and fucked it.
He was fucking her hard, and squeezing her breasts even harder, by the time she was fully awake. And when she started joining in, and riding his fully aroused cock, Alex could barely hold back.
But he did, for her, to make certain she got hers too. And she did. It never took much for Kari when Alex was her partner. He kept going in deeper and deeper, and pounding her harder and harder, that when she came she came with a thundering orgasm. She stretched out her entire body, as she fought to bear the pulsating heat of her cum.
Alex came, too, with a body stretch of his own that took his dick all the way inside of her until his balls were all that showed. And they began slapping against her ass as he pumped. Still deep in, he turned her onto her stomach, got on top of her ass, and continued to fuck her.
Ooohs and aaahs were all he kept saying as he fucked her. “Oooh. Aaah!” Until she was so saturated with his outpouring of love, and he was so empty from his outpour, that he collapsed on top of her.
When he pulled her into his arms, and he held her as if she was the most precious person in the world to him, tears were in her eyes.
Before Kari met Alex, she thought life was never going to be her good news, and she had steeled herself for a tough road ahead. Even in little Apply Valley, Florida, where she eventually put down roots, nobody considered her anything special at all. It was a nice, clean community where men always rated her as okay-looking, but nowhere near gorgeous; as somebody who was sensible, but not necessarily smart; as somebody who existed and lived a decent life, but who wasn’t outstanding in any way whatsoever. And as if she was proving their point daily, she was always struggling and having a hard time. Her small house. Her wrecked Toyota Tercel. Her cleaning business that barely turned a profit. She was going through it!
But to go from a wrecked Tercel to a Rolls Royce; to go from a woman with a struggling b
usiness to the future wife of a titan of industry, was head-scratching to Kari. She was not a girl who believed in fairy tales. Her drug-dealing father; the death of her baby daddy when they were both young teens; the long-term relationship with an abusive mobster boyfriend necessitated that she kept it real in such a harsh, cold world. But then Alex came along. He wasn’t looking for love either. But somehow, they got together and chose each other. Her life, she felt, was on an upward trajectory for the first time ever!
She smiled and stretched her body. His dick was still inside of her, and she still felt it. “I’d better get up and fix breakfast,” she said.
Alex was so pleased that she slept through his trip to that oil rig that he didn’t try to stop her from leaving him, the way he usually did. “I’ll be down shortly,” he replied to her.
Kari was a little surprised that he didn’t try to stop her, the way he usually did when she got up first, but she was glad he didn’t. But as soon as she moved away from him, and she could feel his penis slowly slide out of her, she felt an immediate chill. As if something warm and inviting had been taken from her. But she knew there would be more times to come where his manliness would warm her again. Alex was very virile, and so was she. She got out of bed.
She moved as if Alex’s big cock was still wedged inside of her, and still filling her. She threw on his dress shirt that he had thrown over a chair, and she walked over to the French doors that led to the balcony.
As soon as she stepped out, and the fresh air hit her nostrils, she stretched. And she could see, across the estate, that Jordan and Oz were on Alex’s golf course. She was surprised Alex wasn’t with him. Golf was his passion!
But it was apparently Oz’s too, and she was grateful that he had taken Jordan along, the way Alex did. Jordan used to only have his godfather, Benny Church, as his role model. Now he also had Alex and Oz. And yes, she thought, Oz! He was a cad. He was a playboy to end the profession. But he was a good guy too. And oddly reliable and trustworthy. She liked him.
Alex Drakos: His Dangerous Affair (The Alex Drakos Romantic Suspense Series Book 4) Page 3
