Alex Drakos 2_His Scandalous Family

by Mallory Monroe

  Neither did Alex! “We have to call a truce,” Alex said. “Because, you know, if you kill my father, I will have to take action against you. What good will that do any of us?”

  “There was a truce. You people leave us alone, we leave you alone. But the truce was broken by your father!”

  “I will meet with you. You make your demands. And I will bring them back to my father.”

  “And if he refuses our demands?” asked Batebbi.

  “If they are reasonable,” Alex said, “you have my word he will not refuse to comply.”

  Oz looked at his father. Nobody on the face of this earth could speak so assuredly for him as Alex could. It was that very strength that allowed Oz to be in awe of his big brother, and to despise his big brother too.

  “But first,” Alex added, “you must release Zylena.”

  There was a long pause, as, Alex was certain, Batebbi was conferring with the others. Then he was back on the phone. “You will come alone?” he asked Alex.

  “To negotiate a truce? Will you come alone?”

  Batebbi laughed. “The same old Ace! Okay. You bring three with you. You may bring one other to take your sister away. But no others. We had been playing based on your father’s terms. Now they are our terms.”

  “Agreed,” Alex said.

  “When?”

  Alex looked at his father. Elasaid mouthed the word now emphatically.

  “Now,” said Alex. “In a neutral location.”

  And the meeting that Elasaid had been hoping for all along, especially after his disastrous decision, was set.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Alex walked Kari to their villa and closed the door behind them. She could see the strain on his face, and it was a different kind of stress than she’d ever seen on him before. It looked as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and the weight of being responsible for her as well. And she knew, in that moment, that Alex was back in the game.

  “This was not the way I envisioned this trip would be,” he said to her.

  “What are you planning to do?”

  “After they release Zee, then Oz and I, along with our two uncles, are going to meet with the families,” he said.

  Terror gripped Kari and she was about to speak her concerns, but Alex placed his finger to her lips. “It is non-negotiable, honey,” he said. “I have no choice in this matter.”

  “The same way your father had no choice in what he did?” Kari asked.

  “In this world, as you know how it was in Vito Visconni’s world, yes. The same way my father believed he had no choice.”

  Kari gripped his shirt. “But it’s dangerous, Alex.” She said this with pain in her big, brown eyes.

  Alex smiled a smile that produced wrinkles on the side of his tired blue eyes. “Nothing will happen to me,” he said. “These men I know. What my father did was unconscionable, but what they tried to do was unconscionable too.”

  Kari frowned. “What did they try to do? Squeeze him out of profiting from those upcoming International Games?”

  “They are almost as big as the Olympics,” Alex said. “The money they generate will be enormous. If the Drakos family does not participate, my father is right: they will be challenged and ultimately eliminated. He had to set them straight.”

  “I understand something had to be done. But all of them, Alex?”

  Alex frowned and shook his head. “It was a terrible decision. An awful decision.” Then he exhaled. “But it’s done now. And all I can do is get my sister back and try as hard as I can to agree to terms that will diminish my family’s standing in the underworld, but will not put them at any more risk than they already are.”

  Kari studied his face. “You feel you owe them that much?”

  Alex shook his head. “I don’t owe them shit. But Odysseus did not launch such an elaborate scheme to get me here for no reason. He knew, as I know, that I am their only hope of survival. I have to negotiate a truce. That is the least I can do.”

  “And if your father won’t accept it?” Kari asked.

  “He’ll accept it.”

  “But if he won’t, Alex?”

  “Then he will die. He’ll accept it.”

  Kari nodded. But still she hated that Alex had to do their bidding!

  Alex placed his hands on her arms. “I brought you here so that you could get an unvarnished view of who you are interested in being with,” he said. “I needed you to know every side of me. The good side, which you and Jordan helped to bring to the forefront, but also the bad and the ugly sides, too. Greece contains the bad and the ugly sides. You had to see this to decide if you can live with a man with this side, too.”

  “How long before you have to leave?” Kari asked.

  It was an odd question to ask after Alex had exposed his inner thoughts to her, at least from his perspective. “The meeting won’t be for another couple hours. But I’ll need to prepare.”

  “Then I need to ask you something,” Kari said.

  “Ask away,” Alex said. “You have my undivided attention.”

  “It may be a crazy time to bring it up.”

  “Welcome to my world,” Alex said with a smile. “Crazy is normal in my world. So whatever your question is, it will fit right in.”

  Kari smiled too. “I was brought up in a rough part of Miami,” she said. “My father was a drug dealer. I hooked up with a made man in the mob. I know what this life can be like. Maybe not on this scale, but I know the life. But I don’t know what this is.”

  Alex was confused. “What what is?” he asked.

  “Us, Alex. You and me. I’ve never been in a relationship like this. You brought me into this world to see if I’m hard enough to take it, but we haven’t even discussed where we stand. I don’t know where this is headed. I don’t even know if we have an exclusive relationship right now.”

  Alex nodded and squeezed her arms. “I thought, after that referendum passed in Florida and I was granted the right to build my casino and hotel, there would be a settling down period for us to talk about our relationship and how we wanted to proceed. But then those assassination attempts changed the equation again, and caused me more distraction. But we’ll talk, Karena. I promise you that.”

  “If we were to become exclusive,” Kari said, “and I’m not saying we are now, but if we were to become exclusive, are there many?”

  “Many what?”

  “Are there many women you’ll need to have a conversation with.”

  Alex hesitated before responding. Then he responded. “Not as many as the tabloids would have you believe,” he said. “But yes.”

  Kari felt a jolt of reality slink through her body. Alex was all but saying, in so many words, that they were moving toward that totally exclusive relationship, but he also seemed to suggest that they weren’t there yet. But why was he bringing her here, and exposing his entire other side to her? Was he trying to make sure she was tough enough first?

  But then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a loaded revolver, and handed it to Kari. He knew she was tough. But could she survive his family? “While I’m gone,” he said, “I want you to keep it with you at all times. Trust no one. Open this door for no one but me. I don’t care if my father bangs this door down, you aim it as if you plan to use it, you hear me? While I’m gone, it’s your job to keep yourself alive.”

  Kari thought about Jordan. “Don’t worry,” she said.

  Alex nodded too. “I know I can depend on you, Kari. No harm will come to you, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

  Kari grabbed his shirt lapel. “You listen to me, Alexio Drakos. You don’t be in that meeting worrying about me. I can take care of myself. I survived Vito’s bullshit, remember?”

  Alex smiled.

  “I know I can survive your family’s.” Then she frowned. “I need you to survive them,” she said. “I need you to survive that meeting.”

  A surge of emotion overtook Alex, and he pulled Kari into his arms. He had
so much baggage to clean up to be with this woman that it seemed daunting no matter how he looked at it. She didn’t know the half of that part of his life! He still was certain she didn’t know what she was getting into, and if he was half the man he ought to be he would have not allowed her to get involved with him at all. But he already felt as if he was too far gone. This early, and he already felt that way. But one thing he knew for certain: Kari Grant was tough enough. He was certain she was up for the challenge.

  He continued to hold her, even after he knew it was time to get ready.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Two cars pulled up at the designated location: a poolhall in the fishing village of Argostoli. It was surrounded with security, an army of security, as the cars came to a stop.

  The first car was driven by Cronos, Alex’s security chief while he was in Greece, and Alex and Oz sat in the backseat. The second car, with one of Alex’s men driving and one riding shotgun, contained Jabari and Maximus in their backseat. But as soon as the two vehicles drove up, the muscle for the Galen clan, who had been waiting out front, walked over.

  “No security allowed inside,” said one of the men.

  Alex already knew the drill. He looked at Cronos, who knew the drill too. Cronos nodded, and Alex and Oz got out.

  With their uncles out of the second car, the four Drakos men were escorted to a back room inside the empty pool hall and told to wait. It was a risk, and all four men knew it, but Alex also knew there was no other way around it. The respect he had with the families was the only weapon he could use if his own family, thanks to his father’s savagery, was to be preserved.

  But when the door opened, and the five underbosses of the five crime families walked in, Alex, Oz, and their uncles rose in respect, although Alex could see the hatred in their eyes.

  Alex also saw that Batebbi, the underboss of the Galen clan, was now the appointed leader of all five families, when he sat down first. Alex and his team sat down second. And then the rest of the men.

  “You brought Cronos and his crew with you,” Batebbi said in Greek.

  “They’re outside,” said Alex. “They won’t interrupt unless they have to.”

  “Was that the deal we agreed upon?” Batebbi asked. “You know it is not. But it is always like a Drakos man to change the terms.”

  “To cheat,” said another underboss.

  Alex did not even look his way. Batebbi was in charge. “No change in terms,” he said. “You have security outside. Considerable security. We have only a few men outside, too.”

  “But we have the upper hand now. We have your sister.”

  Alex’s jaw tightened. “You release her first, and then we discuss the truce. That was the agreement.”

  Anger appeared in Batebbi’s eyes. “Your father killed my father,” he said. “Your father killed all of our fathers. All five! And you want to sit up here and tell me about an agreement? We discuss the truce,” he declared, “and then, if the terms are what we can accept, she will be released.”

  Alex stared at him. Thanks to his father they were in no position to bargain, and he knew it. “What will be required for a truce,” Alex asked.

  “Complete and total surrender. You give us your father. Then there will be peace.”

  “What will be required for a truce?” Alex asked again.

  “You do not even consider my terms,” said Batebbi. “What did you think I was going to say? Your father broke the peace. He broke it in a way that could have destroyed us all. But we, the number twos, pulled together. We refused to let that bastard win.” Then he added: “We shocked the shit out of him, in American jargon. Now we are more powerful than he thought he would become when he first tried to cheat us.”

  “Cheat you?” Oz asked. “What are you talking about, Batebbi? Our father did not cheat you. It was you who tried to cheat us.”

  Batebbi smiled. “Is that what he told you?”

  “Tell us what you mean,” Alex said.

  “The war began,” Batebbi said, “because your father, Elasaid Drakos, decided to muscle all of us out of the profits from the International Games that are coming to Greece.”

  Alex just sat there. His father had said they muscled him out of the profits!

  But Batebbi continued. “We cannot allow one man to dominate all of us. We will cease to exist as individual corporations if your father has his way. We are a democracy in the Greek underworld. We will not allow a dictator like your father to overthrow us.”

  Alex’s mind was in overdrive. What was his father up to? Why did he lie about them muscling him out of the profits, when it was the other way around?

  “Are you alright, Alexio?” Batebbi asked. “You look unwell!” The underbosses laughed.

  Then Batebbi turned serious. “When the heads of our families agreed to join forces to stop your father, he agreed to meet with them to negotiate. There was plenty of money to go around. There was no need for this power grab by your father. So they met. All six heads of the families. And it was then did your father, and men he had somehow smuggled in, took the other five leaders out.”

  Everything sounded sideways. Alex had to think the way his father would think. Why would he tell such lies? Why would he claim what wasn’t true? Then Alex understood why. His father told the lies he told to get Alex to set up a meeting. He told such lies so that Alex could arrive at the meeting, find out the truth, and then what? Take them out? But why would he think Alex would do such a thing? These men knew and trusted Alex. They knew his word was his everything. Why would he sacrifice that trust by getting into a gun battle with all five underbosses and, while he was at it, their men outside? Elasaid had to know that Alex didn’t operate that way.

  Unless, Alex thought, and then he realized how his father’s twisted mind would set this up. He jumped from the table, turning toward his uncles, just as both Jabari and Maximus, his uncles, pulled out their weapons and shot one and then another underboss, and was about to kill a third one. But the three other bosses pulled their weapons, too, forcing Alex and Oz to pull theirs.

  But Alex, shocking every one, pointed his gun, not at the bosses, but at his uncles. “Drop it!” he ordered them. “They have Zylena! What are you doing?” The plot was crystal clear to Alex now. His uncles were in it with his father. They wanted countrywide domination, and they needed Alex to get them through the door to make it happen fast: with a take out of the five underbosses the same way his father had taken out the bosses.

  But as a testament, Alex felt, to just how poorly thought out his father’s plan actually was, the door of the room flung open and the Galen men ran in. The sound of the gunfire was why they came. The sound of the gunfire was why they came ready to shoot first.

  Now it was a fight for survival. Those uncles didn’t give a damn that Zylena was being held hostage. They just wanted that power. They just wanted their brother, Alex’s father, to dominate the entirety of the underworld. Alex and Oz had to dive to avoid certain death.

  No longer could any truce be reached. No longer could there be any negotiated settlement. It was each man for himself. And Alex, on his back, shot back. He shot and killed every man pointing in his direction. It was agonizing, but he shot and killed Batebbi, and another underboss, and the final one. Alex would have killed every man in that room to stay alive!

  Oz, along with the uncles, were shooting too, killing as many of that first wave of men who had entered that room.

  When the last man fell, Jabari yelled, “this way!” and Alex, Oz, and Maximus hurriedly followed him out of a side door that led down a long corridor. Alex was on his wrist microphone. “We’re heading toward the south side of the building. The south side. Don’t come in. Ambush. Don’t come in!” He was warning Cronos and his men. Meet them on the south end of the building, he was telling them. They wouldn’t stand a chance inside.

  And he was right. He was right because as soon as they hit the corridor, the second wave of shooters had arrived, and they were running down the co
rridor, too, firing as they ran. If Jabari had not found a side room for them to duck into, they all would have been dead.

  They ducked into that room, with Alex having to dive in. But they knew they had to come back out shooting. They couldn’t wait for those gunmen to block them in.

  Alex didn’t hesitate. Like the old days, Alex reappeared in that corridor firing before he showed his face, and his brother and uncles followed his lead. They took out as many as they could, and avoided being hit themselves, but the second wave of men was larger than the first wave. It was too many men. The only thing they had going for them was the fact that they were in front.

  Taking advantage of their head start, they took off further down the corridor, around another corridor, until they were running toward, and then opening, a backdoor.

  To their relief, Cronos had heeded Alex’s warning and drove, along with the second car behind him, to the southside of the building and was waiting there.

  Jabari and Maximus jumped into the first car. Alex and Oz jumped into the second car. And as the second wave of gunmen ran out of that building firing shot after shot with a vengeance, the two cars sped away. Outracing bullets.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Kari, with that loaded gun still in her hand, stood at the floor-to-ceiling window inside Alex’s childhood bedroom, or villa as the Drakos’s referred to it, when she heard a hard knock on the door.

  “Miss Grant?”

  It was Alex’s father.

  Kari stood erect. “Yes?”

  “Open the door, please. It’s about Alexio.”

  Kari began to move closer to the door. “What about Alex?” she asked.

  “Open the door, please, and I will tell you. It is not good news, I am sad to say. He told me to come and get you.” More knocks. “Open the door, please. It is not safe here!”

  Kari’s heart was hammering. Every muscle in her body was telling her to run to that door and open it. What if Alex was hurt? What if Alex needed her?