Kari understood what Trina was saying, but still! “I should be used to upheaval,” Kari said. “I’ve been around crooks and gangsters all my life. Beginning with my own father. But this is on a different level, Trina. That was child’s play compared to this.”
Trina smiled. She remembered feeling that same way early in her relationship with Reno. “And that will always be nothing but the truth,” she said. “But what it means is that there’s only two questions to answer.”
Kari looked at the older woman. “What?” she asked.
“Is he worth it, number one,” Trina said. “And are you worth it, number two.”
“Yes, he’s worth it,” Kari could easily answer. “Am I worth it? You mean to him?”
“Are you going to be able to handle the hell days, that’s what I mean,” Trina said. “Do you have what it takes? When the shit hits the fan, and it’s fight or flight, are you going to stay and fight, or turn tail and run? Are you up for the danger, the challenge, and the monumental rewards? That’s what I mean.”
Kari thought about it, but it really wasn’t close. “If it means I’ll have Alex?” she asked. “Hell yeah!”
Trina smiled, and then laughed, and then hugged Kari vigorously. “I knew you was down,” she said. “No shade, but I knew it when I first saw you! I said to myself, now this sister right here got game. Oh, yeah, she’s been around that block a time or two. Just like me. Ain’t no shrinking violet nowhere in her!”
Kari smiled too, and despite the craziness she’d just endured, and the craziness Alex had yet to endure, she couldn’t help but laugh.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Alex parked on the side of the dirt road that led to the pathway. There was one way in and one way out, according to Reno, but Alex found another way. He walked, fully armed, through thickets of trees and branches for half a mile away from the entrance.
When he saw the small cabin in those woods, he stopped walking to make sure there was no one on his tail, or positioned around the place. All he heard were the night cries of the night insects. But no human sounds. He proceeded forward.
After carefully walking around the cabin, checking out the front door and the back door, he decided the back door was more vulnerable. He therefore walked back around to the front of the cabin, banged vigorously on the front door, and then ran to the back of the cabin.
After several seconds, the front door was flung open by a man known around those parts as Snipe, and he opened that door with a sawed-off shotgun locked and loaded. “Who’s the motherfucker banging on my door like that?” he yelled as soon as he opened up.
But while Snipe was distracted at the front door, Alex kicked in the backdoor, and entered in the house with his own rifle aimed and ready.
It was what they called a shotgun house, and Snipe turned around quickly to the sound. But Alex was running toward him as soon as he turned. Snipe fired a shot as soon as he saw the intruder, but Alex had already launched his body at him, knocking him down and causing him to fire erratically. Alex knocked Snipe’s gun, along with Snipe, to the floor.
But when Snipe realized who it was that had tackled him down, he jumped back up and attempted to run away.
He made it to the back bedroom with Alex close on his trail. But just as he was slamming the door in an attempt to lock it, Alex’s big body shouldered it back open, splintering it so violently that wood chips flew around the room like confetti.
Snipe backed up, looking around for something to grab in his defense, but Alex grabbed him, lifted his entire body up, and angrily threw him out of an unopened window, shattering the glass.
As Snipe lay on the ground outside, in severe pain from the glass breaking around him and the fall itself, Alex jumped out of that window, too, and made his way to Snipe’s side.
He grabbed Snipe by the shirt until Snipe was sitting up. Cuts were all over his face and neck. “Why?” Alex asked him. “Because I crippled your sorry-ass nephew? Because I killed his ass?”
But Snipe wouldn’t answer him.
Alex punched him mercilessly in the face. “Why, motherfucker? Are you the one who sent those goons to Florida to try that shit there too? Was it you all along, and not Vito?”
When Snipe didn’t respond, and Alex was about to rough him up some more, he gave in. “Yes,” Snipe finally said, and he said it defeatedly. “It was me.”
Alex stared at him, sizing him up. “Lying motherfucker,” he said.
Snipe looked at him.
“I researched your ass before I came here,” Alex said. “You’re the one who killed Vito’s old man, which happens to be your own brother. You killed your own brother and did time in prison for it, too. So I figure a man like that, why would he give a fuck about Vito? He was a nephew to you in name only anyway.”
Alex pulled him closer, but this time he pulled out his handgun and placed it to Snipe’s head. “Now you tell me the truth, motherfucker,” he said, “or when I leave, I’m taking your head with me. Are you going to tell me the truth?”
Snipe quickly nodded that he would. Alex just as quickly removed the gun from his head. “Now talk,” he said. “Who hired you to handle that Florida hit, because I know your ass didn’t come up with that shit all by yourself? Who hired you to pull off that shit y’all pulled tonight?”
Snipe began shaking his head.
Alex grabbed him again, ready to put that gun back to his head.
“Your brother,” Snipe blurted out.
Alex stared at him. “What?”
“Your brother hired me.”
Alex fired. “My brother?”
“Since I did to my own brother what he wants to do to you, he figured I would make the perfect person to pull it off. I’m experienced at this shit. And I would have done it, too. But I hired out. I figure why get my hands dirty? That fucker paid me in advance, anyway. And the guys I hired weren’t the best, but I figured it wasn’t that hard a job. You were just a rich business man, what could you do? But you took them out in Florida, and when I hired a second crew to do the job in Vegas, you took them out too.”
Snipe shook his head as if he was mighty regretful. “They failed,” he said. “Every one of those fuckers I hired failed. But I won’t!” Snipe said suddenly and grabbed Alex’s gun in a desperate attempt to wrestle it away from him.
Snipe was strong. He had prison yard muscles and he and Alex tussled mightily for control of that weapon. But he was not strong enough to overpower Alex Drakos. Alex took control of his own weapon, turned it toward Snipe’s terrified face, and fired.
But when Alex made the run back to his vehicle, and then sped away from the scene, he was still reeling from the news. He called Jimmy Hines, his conglomerate’s chief investigator.
“Get to Greece, Jim,” he ordered. “I was just told that Odysseus ordered a hit on me. I was just told that my own brother wants me dead. Find out if it’s true.”
“Yes, sir,” the chief said, his voice as stunned as Alex’s.
And when Alex made it back to the Presidential suite at the PaLargio, Alex was impressed with the level of security around the place. His men had arrived, but Reno had men in place, too.
Inside the suite, Reno and Trina had gone, and Kari was sitting up in bed asleep, with a book called The Unauthorized Biography of the Billionaire Playboy, a biography on Alex’s life, sitting on her lap.
Alex, with his hands in his pockets and his brows knitted, stood at the bedside and stared at her. If they stayed together, he thought, she would have no idea what she was getting herself into. He had thought he could keep it separately. Other than this drama with Vito Visconni, there had been no issues. But suddenly there were plenty of issues, and not least of which might just involve his own brother. If it turned out to be true, he knew keeping it from her would be an impossibility. And he was so damned attached to her already. Could he let her go, to save her?
But just as that thought entered his mind, Kari’s eyes opened. And when she saw Alex standing there, in on
e piece, a brilliant smile came over her face. And she tossed the book aside, jumped from the bed, and fell into his arms.
“Oh, Alex, you’re safe!” she cried as she held him. “You’re safe!”
He might have been safe tonight, he thought, but that wasn’t the question. Was she going to be safe, he thought, was the question.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Monday morning and Kari had picked up Jordan from Faye and Benny’s, and was driving him to school. He had stayed at their place Sunday night, too, because they had attended a concert at church that didn’t end until very late, and since Kari had not yet made it back in town, he opted to stay the night there. But now Alex was back in New York, Kari was back in Apple Valley, and life was trying to get back to normal. If there was any such thing anymore.
And Jordan, her usually chipper son, seemed down in the dumps. “You didn’t tell me how you enjoyed your weekend,” she said.
“It was okay,” Jordan said as joyless as he could possibly have said it.
“You went to church last night?”
“And that morning and afternoon too. Is there ever a Sunday when Auntie Faye and Uncle Benny don’t go to church?”
“What was the sermon about?” Kari asked.
“Treating people right,” Jordan said, and then he looked at his mother. “How did he treat you?”
Kari knew exactly who the he was. “What kind of question is that?”
“How did he treat you, Ma? Did he treat you right?”
“Yes. Of course he did! He always does. Why would you ask something like that?”
“Did he ask you to marry him?” Jordan asked.
Kari frowned. “Marry him? Jordan, what are you talking about? We’re still trying to get to know each other. What’s wrong with you, boy?”
She glanced at him as she drove. Not enough to get a good read on what he might have been thinking, but enough to tell he was upset about something. “What is it, J?” she asked him.
Jordan exhaled. “I saw something online,” he said.
“About what?” she asked.
“About Alex.” Jordan looked at his mother. “And his fiancée.”
Kari’s heartbeat began to quicken. “Don’t you believe everything you read online. There’s nothing but lies on the internet.”
At first, there was silence. Then she couldn’t help herself. “What did you read?” she asked.
“I heard he bought this big diamond ring for Natalie Corman.”
“Natalie Corman?” Kari was stunned. “The actress?”
Jordan nodded. “She says she and Alex are going to be married. Married, Ma! And she’s very beautiful. I mean, she’s very, very beautiful.” He looked at his mother again. “How are we going to compete against that? We drive a Toyota Tercel. We live in a tiny little house. We’re barely getting by!”
Kari pull up to the drop-off station at Arapaho Middle School.
“How are we going to compete against her?” Jordan asked again.
“We aren’t going to compete against any one,” Kari said firmly, although her heart was hammering. “We won’t have to. Whatever she said just isn’t true.”
Jordan stared at her. “How can you say it’s not true?”
“Because it’s not true, Jordan, that’s how. You hear me? It’s not true. Alex wouldn’t do that.”
“You’re always telling me you barely know him, you’re still trying to get to know him, but yet you’re going to believe that lady is lying? Why would a big-time actress like Natalie Corman lie, Ma? That’s crazy. It’s official, she said. I saw the ring, Ma!”
Kari could see the pain in his eyes. And she was in so much pain herself she didn’t know how to comfort him. But she did know this: there was nothing neither one of them could do about it now. “Don’t you worry about that at all,” she said to her son. “You hear me, Jordan? Don’t worry about that. You go to your classes and get your work. You do like that preacher said and treat everybody right. God’s got this. We’re good.”
Jordan looked at his mother. She was always putting on the brave front, no matter what. But he knew she was hurting. That was why he didn’t want to tell her when he first saw it on the internet late last night. But he knew if anybody was going to tell her, it was only right that it would be him.
Although it was like the most uncool thing ever to his friends at Arapaho Middle, he reached over anyway and hugged his mother. She deserved happiness more than anybody alive, if you asked Jordan, but she was always the one who never ended up with any. He gladly hugged her neck.
And Kari gladly received the hug as she fought back tears. Jordan was the only example she had in her entire life that turned out to be a home run, with no ands if or buts in the bargain. Jordan, when it came down to it, was all she had.
And when they finished hugging, she managed to smile. “If you’re good,” she said, “as I know you will be, I’ll cook you your favorite spaghetti tonight.”
Jordan tried to smile but he was too much of an emotional child. “Okay, Ma,” he said, gathered up his bookbag, and got out of the car.
But as Kari drove away, she was angry.
“Damn! Damn! Damn!” she said out loud as she drove; as she gripped the steering wheel and hit her palm up against it. She didn’t know if any of what that actress said was true, but that wasn’t the point to her. She fell for some guy who still had mess to clean up, and now her son was in as deep as she was. Now Jordan felt as hurt as she felt. She dragged her own son into this shit when she swore she’d never do that again! That was the worst part.
But it was more than that, too. She even had Alex risking his life, over and over, because of her stupid decision when she wasn’t even eighteen, and with a dead man’s baby no less, to hook up with a bastard like Vito Visconni to begin with. What kind of sorry-ass, can’t-do-anything-right piece of crap she really was?
But even Kari knew, as she drove further and further away, that she was only lashing out at herself because that news Jordan had just unloaded on her hurt.
Bad.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Matt Scribner, the chief financial officer at Drakos Capital, thought about it. And then he thought about it some more. He was in Alex’s office, seated in front of Alex’s desk. His elbows rested on both arms of the chair and his fingers were tented in front of him. “I would define it more as good progress,” he said, “but not great progress. We break ground in a month, that’s still on track as of today. But we still have a ton of cost overrun inclusions that are receiving push back after push back. Every one of the companies are demanding more incentives as a part of the package. They all feel our agreements are too punishment-heavy against them.”
“Damn right they’re punishment heavy against them,” Alex responded. He sat behind his desk. “What do they expect? For it to be punishment-heavy against me? They fought tooth-and-nail to be a part of this project, because they all know what it’ll mean for their bottom lines. The cards are in my hands. Not theirs. What did they think I was going to do? They thought I would deal myself a bad hand, and deal them a better one?”
“According to them, not that I agree with it, but according to them they want the deck stacked with a little more balance in mind.”
Alex shook his head. “They want me to balance the deck against myself when every one of those greedy bastards know I can turn down their demands and hire brand new contractors as easily as I hired them. No. No deal. You tell them the contracts remain as written. If they want to bow out, they have until close-of-business Friday of this week. They can bow out up until then without penalty. But no more negotiations. That’s over.”
“We’re playing hardball then?” the CFO asked.
“As hard as we can throw it,” Alex said. “I committed to the citizens of Apple Valley that I would have this project on time and under budget, and that’s exactly what is going to happen.”
Alex’s desk intercom buzzed.
“Then that’s what will happen,” the CFO
said. “I’ll put the word out.”
Alex pressed the intercom button. “Yes?”
“Mr. Hines is here, sir.” Jimmy Hines was Alex’s chief investigator.
“Send him through,” Alex said and released the button. Then he looked at Scribner. “Get to it then,” he said to him.
The CFO smiled as he rose to his feet. “Get lost, in other words?” he asked.
Alex smiled too. “Those would be the exact words, yes!”
The CFO laughed as he headed out of the door that Jimmy Hines was entering through. They spoke, but the chief only had eyes for Alex. He hurried and stood in front of Alex’s desk. He was just back from Greece, and Alex could tell the intel wasn’t good.
“What did you learn?” he asked.
“Couldn’t get shit from anybody, Boss. Not even your brother’s enemies. It’s a closed society in the Grecian mob. You know how they are. They wouldn’t even talk to me. They know I work for you, and they still wouldn’t talk to me.”
Alex was staring at his chief. He knew him like he knew the back of his hand. “But?” he asked.
“But something’s up. Something so big it’s got everybody spooked. I could feel it in the fucking air over there. I even tried to get an audience with your father, to tell him what happened and what you heard about it, but he wouldn’t see me either.”
That was news for sure, Alex thought. If his old man wouldn’t so much as talk to a man he knew represented Alex, something was definitely up.
“I hate to say it, Boss,” Jim Hines said, “but you’ve got to go to Greece and see what’s going on for yourself. They won’t talk to me, but they damn sure will talk to you.”
Alex Drakos 2_His Scandalous Family Page 8
