Alex Drakos: His Forbidden Love Read online

  “You know that, do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what makes you know anything like that?”

  “Because a guy such as yourself, a hothead such as yourself, wants to live.”

  Vito had never quite dealt with somebody like Alex. Somebody this cool talking about life and death. But two, Vito decided, could play that game. He smiled. “You’re fucking her, aren’t you?” And although he said it with a smile, Alex could see the underlying bitterness in his eyes. He was rotting in prison, his pea brain was saying, while she was free to fuck away.

  “That’s what this is about,” Vito continued. “You’re fucking her. You discovered the secret to that special recipe pussy of hers, and don’t want to share it with fuckers like me.” His look turned hard. “She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved. You feel me? She’s my woman. Mine!” Fire appeared in Vito’s dark eyes. “She’s been my woman since she was nineteen years old. And I’m the one who’s not sharing her. Got it, old man?”

  Alex didn’t respond to Vito. He just stared at him.

  Vito was accustomed to the stare down. It was stock and trade in his profession. But this fucker was richer than rich, and acted as if he was in control of this situation.

  But the guy was unnerving Vito for a different reason. Danny Pataki had already told him not to go to war with a man like Alex Drakos. And based on that look Alex was giving Vito, it couldn’t have just been because he was rich, or because his father was some Greek hotshot. Something else was going on with this dude. Something Vito recognized but couldn’t put a finger on.

  And Vito knew to back off. Because Scrub McGhee wasn’t wrong. This guy was Kari’s protector. Nothing changed. Vito was still going to have Kari, and have her for life. But he had to plot and plan how he was going to go about it. If left to his own devices, he would just shoot down this motherfucker and be done with it. But apparently the fucker had legs. Legs that attached to other fuckers as far away as Greece. He had to handle this just right.

  Besides, he still held the trump card. “How’s Jordan?” he asked, as if he had a secret.

  And then he smiled, backed up, and walked away. He got into the car he had parked on the street in front of the house, another rental no doubt, and drove away.

  Alex nodded, and a car parked further down the street as part of the elaborate security apparatus that sometimes followed Alex wherever he went, followed Vito.

  Later that morning, Alex, Kari, and Jordan walked out of the house together. When Kari saw Alex’s Mercedes-Maybach on the driveway, she stopped in her tracks. She knew they arrived at the house last night in his limousine. “Where did that come from?” she asked.

  “One of my assistants dropped it off,” Alex said.

  “The same one who dropped off the suit?” Kari asked.

  Alex smiled. “You would think so,” he said.

  Kari smiled. “I don’t know,” she said. “You seem to have more assistants than I have maids.” And Kari had to, once again, remind herself what manner of man she was now hanging with.

  The Mercedes was parked behind Kari’s Toyota, and had to therefore be moved first, but Alex walked to the Toyota, and opened the driver door for Kari. He was already missing the feel of her body against his. He was already missing her smile. Vito had vulgarly called her pussy special recipe, but it wasn’t entirely inaccurate. Alex had never tasted any so sweet.

  Kari and Jordan got in the car and closed their doors.

  Kari pressed down her window, and Alex leaned on the window frame. “Take care of yourself,” he said. “And don’t worry about Vito Visconni. He won’t be bothering you.”

  “But what about what he said about Jordan? He made it sound as if he had a hand in that girl’s murder.”

  “Yes, I know,” Alex said.

  “But?” Jordan asked.

  “I don’t believe him. He’s an opportunist is my read on him. He’s taking advantage of a situation he discovered when he got here. He’s exploiting what we call favorable happenstance.”

  “So, you don’t put much stock in what he said,” Kari said.

  “I don’t put any stock in it at all. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be explored. It will.”

  Kari nodded. “Good,” she said. She didn’t know what transpired between Vito and Alex, but Vito did leave them alone. But what she did know was that Vito wasn’t the kind of man, on any day, to just give up that easily.

  She also could only imagine how differently this morning could have turned out had Alex not been in their lives, and at their home, at that moment Vito decided to pop up. “Are you still going back to New York today?” she asked Alex.

  “Unfortunately, yes. I have too much pressing business that can’t be delayed or phoned in.”

  Kari nodded. “I understand that,” she said, although Alex and Jordan could both see the distress in her eyes.

  Alex sought to reassure her. He usually never, not ever discussed security with anyone beyond his security team. But in this case. “I have a detail assigned to you and Jordan,” he said.

  Kari and Jordan looked at Alex. “A detail?” Kari asked. “What’s that?”

  Alex smiled. “Security,” he said.

  Jordan felt as if a burden had been lifted. All this time he had been trying to figure out how was he going to protect his mother from a fool like Vito Visconni. But Alex had already figured it out for him! Alex was fast becoming a hero in Jordan’s eyes.

  But Kari wasn’t as wide-eyed. “So, this detail is going to be following us?”

  “Yes.”

  “But . . . how does that work, Alex? I mean, what if I think it’s the detail following me when, in fact, it’s Vito’s people? Or Vito himself?”

  “Don’t worry,” Alex said. “Nobody’s getting that close to you without them removing the threat. They already have my instructions.”

  “So, I’ll know who they are then? I’ll see them?”

  “If you see them, and can spot them in a crowd,” Alex said, “they aren’t doing their job.”

  Kari stared at Alex. She always did like bad boys, her father used to tell her, and he should have known since he was one himself. But Jordan’s father wasn’t in that category. Before DayVon died, he was more smart boy than bad boy, and Jordan, to her relief, followed in his footsteps. But Alex, Kari was beginning to realize, was more in line with her father’s footsteps.

  “And don’t you sit around worrying about Jordan’s situation either,” Alex said. “It’s going to work out in his favor eventually.”

  “I know,” Kari said, rubbing her ponytail in place. “I’m praying like mad.”

  “But I mean it, Kari,” Alex said with a serious look on his face. “Trust the process. My people know what they’re doing.”

  Kari smiled. That smile again! Alex thought. “Okay, I will. And thanks again.”

  Alex leaned in and kissed Kari on her lips. Jordan smiled when they kissed.

  Alex looked at Jordan. “Alright, young man, while I’m gone I want you to do whatever the lawyers and investigators tell you to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t discuss your situation with anybody. Not with your best friends, not with your Facebook friends. Not with anyone anywhere. The prosecution can and will use it against you.”

  “Yes, sir. I won’t say a word to anybody.”

  Alex felt, in Jordan, he had a kid he could count on. “And protect your mother,” Alex added.

  Jordan’s smile turned serious. There was nobody in his life more important to him than his mother. She’d die for him. Jordan knew it to the depths of his soul. And he would do the same for her. In a heartbeat. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Alex looked at Kari again, and kissed her again. “I’ll call you later,” he said, and then walked to his Mercedes. He got in and drove away.

  Jordan smiled. Looked at Kari. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “He’s held you real tight.”

  Kari laughed, and drove away too.

  Bot
h she and Jordan kept looking around for this security detail that was supposed to be following them. But they didn’t see anything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Kari’s Toyota stopped in front of Maid for Mom storefront office and Kari, along with Jordan, got out and headed across the sidewalk.

  “Hey, Willis, how’s it going?” Kari spoke to the manager of Lucinda’s Diner the way she always spoke to him whenever they arrived at their respective work places around the same time. But this time, Willis ignored her.

  Kari couldn’t believe it. And Jordan knew his mother. “Come on, Ma,” he said, pulling her sleeve.

  But Kari just stood there. “It’s like that, hun Willis? They put a charge on my child, a false charge, and you can’t speak anymore?”

  Willis looked at her, and she could see the regret in his eyes, but then he glanced at Jordan and kept it moving.

  Kari shook her head. First it was the owner of Ralph’s from across the street, where Jordan had been bagging groceries to make extra money. But Ralph had already made it clear Jordan was no longer welcomed at his store. Jordan. The model kid one day. The murderer the next. Now Willis was joining the lynch party. Kari could say a word to Lucinda and Lucinda would fire her longtime manager. But she couldn’t do that to his ignorant ass. He was just scared. Somebody call somebody a murderer, and people clam up. Kari understood the game. But it still hurt.

  She and Jordan went inside where at least, Kari thought, Jordan would be welcomed.

  And he was. As soon as they dawned the door, Dezzamaine, Kari’s secretary, smiled. “Jordan!” she said and jumped up from her desk and hurried over to hug his neck.

  “Hey, Miss Dez,” Jordan said as she hugged him. She always smelled like a combination of mothballs and perfume to him.

  “It’s so good to see your little cute self,” she said, pinching his cheek.

  “Don’t give him the big head,” Kari said with a smile, as she made her way to her own desk.

  “Too late for that,” Dezzamaine said. “Boy with his looks and his brains is going to give those girls a run for their money. I know I’d be running if I was a few years younger.”

  “Back up, cougar,” Kari said, and she and Dezzamaine laughed. Jordan laughed too.

  “Alright, boy, let’s get you started,” Kari said as she and Jordan disappeared into the storage room.

  But when Kari returned to her desk, that big smile on Dezzamaine’s face had gone.

  “What is it?” Kari asked.

  “We lost another one. I just got off the phone.”

  Kari expected fallout. “Who this time?” she asked.

  “Summer Lodge.”

  Another big one. At least big by Maid for Mom standards. “Okay,” she said, sitting behind her desk. “It’s time we do the hard work of cutting staff.”

  “We couldn’t hang on until we get that casino contract?” Dezzamaine asked. “They usually give vendors upfront operating cash.”

  Kari didn’t even want to mention it. Had she known what was going to happen after she made that decision, and how Jordan was going to be on the hot seat, she might not have acted so rashly. But Dez had a right to know. “I told Alex, Mr. Drakos,” she corrected herself, “to take me, to take Maid for Mom, out of the running.”

  Dezzamaine was shocked. “Why, Kari?” she asked.

  “I have my reasons,” Kari said. “I did it. We can’t rely on that. We’ve just got to hope we weather this storm and hold onto most of our clients.”

  Dezzamaine exhaled. She was certain whatever reason caused Kari to pull out of the contract bidding, was because of something Drakos did. She didn’t know him like that, but she read up on him. He was a womanizer if ever there was one. Kari probably knew he would want sex for that contract, and she wasn’t that kind of girl. Since Dez wasn’t either, she understood. “Anyway,” she said, “we’ll survive. Before that casino was even a thought, we were struggling. What’s new?” she asked, and even Kari had to smile at that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Vito Visconni was on edge. He paced the floor of his small motel room with his cellphone to his ear and anger in his heart. As a rule, he didn’t believe in Speaker calls. As a rule, he didn’t believe in ever talking to a Pataki with other ears listening in.

  “What are we talking here?” he asked.

  “Greek crime family,” Danny Pataki said over the phone. “Homebased out of Athens. By every account I could find, that group, the one headed up by his old man, make the Sicilians look like choirboys. We can’t go to war with that.”

  “But would we be going to war with that?” Vito asked. “You think his old man would get involved over some female situation?”

  “He would if Drakos asked for that help,” Pataki said. “By all accounts the old man’s nuts about Drakos. He expects him to head the family when he’s dead and gone. But Drakos, by even more accounts, don’t give a shit for the old man.”

  “He don’t give a shit about nobody, from what I’ve been reading,” Vito said. “His son committed suicide because he turned him into the cops. His daughter serving time as we speak because, even after his son died, he wouldn’t drop the charges on her. What kind of man is that?”

  “Their asses stole twenty-eight million dollars from him! What the fuck you think he was gonna do? I would have put bullets up both their asses if they would have been my kids and taken a dime from me!”

  “But the point is,” Vito said, “he ain’t easy. He ain’t no sentimental guy.”

  “Right. I heard that too. And the fact that he made his daughter pay even after his son offed himself proves that too. I hear you.”

  “Then what the fuck he so interested in my woman for? Why he all of a sudden got to have Kari?”

  “You were always bragging about her equipment downstairs, and how she made men feel. Maybe he heard those brags.”

  “But that ain’t him!” Vito said. “I’m telling you, I looked into that man’s eyes. They were cold as a motherfuck! He’s not running around looking for a piece of tail.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “What you mean I don’t know it? You saw him in person ever? I don’t be digging on no man, but that man’s got the look. He’s handsome even by my standards. He can have any piece of tail he wants. But he comes to little Apple Valley to get Kari’s?”

  “He’s there to get approval for a casino. In a revolutionary move for Florida, that new governor of Florida pushed the amendment through, but it’s up to local jurisdictions to allow it in their towns. Rich guys are trying left and right to get some of that casino action in Florida.”

  “Why aren’t you trying? That’s where the money is.”

  “I don’t have enough money to get where the money is. It’s a game only billionaires and major millionaires can play.”

  Vito stopped walking and exhaled. “I got to get out of this rathole town, man. And I’m taking Kari with me.”

  “Then you’re gonna be on your own. Don’t put my family’s name in that. I’m not going to war with those fucking Greeks.”

  “He won’t call his old man, don’t worry,” Vito said. “I saw that look in his eyes. He’ll die before he asks for help.”

  “I said what I said, Money,” Pataki said. “Disobey at your own peril.” And Pataki ended the call.

  Vito waited, and turned off his phone, too.

  Then he went over by the lumpy double bed, and fell onto his back. The ceiling had water stains. What the fuck was he doing in a rathole town like this?

  He used to dream about Kari when he was incarcerated. Every night almost. Kari all the time. He wrote her letters, and mailed them to her friends in Chi-town, but he never heard a word back from her. Or her friends. But Kari was like that anyway.

  He closed his eyes and started thinking about sex with her. That was good too. Better than good. It was the best he’d had to date. And when he saw her, all feisty as ever when she opened that door, he knew it was worth it. All of this crap he had
to take was well worth it.

  Knocks were heard on the locked side door that connected the two motel rooms, and Vito frowned. “What the fuck?” he asked. Who knocks on a connecting room door?

  But the knocks continued. Vito got up, and went to the door. “What the fuck you want?” he yelled.

  The knocking continued.

  “Cut it out, asshole!” he yelled again.

  Still more knocking.

  Vito had it! He hurried to the open suitcase on his bed, grabbed his loaded gun, and hurried to the side door in his room as the knocking continued without ceasing. And he unlocked and then flung open his door.

  “Look, motherfucker,” he said angrily as he pointed the gun at whomever was on the other side.

  Unfortunate for him, Alex Drakos was on the other side, and he grabbed the gun from Vito’s grasp before Vito knew what had hit him, and pushed Vito all the way back into the room until he had fallen onto the bed.

  “What do you want?” Vito asked as he tried to stand back up off of the bed, but Alex kicked him back down. Then he took Vito’s gun, unloaded the chambers, and tossed it onto the nightstand.

  “Now we’re equals,” Alex said, staring down at Vito.

  “What do you want?” Vito asked again.

  “I am here to bring you a singing telegram. Only mine will be a swinging one.”

  “A what?” Alex’s hard, cold eyes were scaring the hell out of Vito.

  “I am here to send you a message,” Alex said. “Karena Grant and Jordan Grant are no longer involved in your life. They do not want to see you, or hear from you, ever again. If you ever come anywhere near them, what I am about to do to you will be doubled onto death the next time. You will have received your warning.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean, motherfucker? You giving me a warning? You think a man like me care about a fucking warning? I don’t think you realize who you’re dealing with.”

  Alex took a moment to digest the balls of this fool. “Like everything in your mind,” he said, “the reverse is always the truth. I know who I’m dealing with. I had you pegged from the moment I laid eyes on you. You, however, haven’t got a clue.”