Alex Drakos: His Forbidden Love Read online

  When cars started moving again, she took the first opportunity to turn off of the main artery onto a series of back streets to try to make it to the office that way. Normally, the back way was longer and slower because of the speed limits and the risk of a train on the tracks holding you up. But there were never any traffic jams. There was hardly any traffic at all.

  Her bet paid off this time because she encountered no trains, and no cops to check her speed, and arrived at work with four minutes to spare. She had time to enter the side door of River City Consultants (called RCC), hurry past the telemarketers’ cubicles, and then take the backstairs to her office on the second floor.

  Her co-worker, Dana, was already heading to the conference room. “He said he’s starting eight sharp,” she told Kari.

  “He’s in there now?” Kari asked, as she hurried to her desk.

  “Sitting at the head of the table.”

  “Geez,” Kari said. Even being on time wasn’t enough today! She tossed her purse into a drawer, grabbed a writing pad and pen from her desk, and hurried for the conference room too.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Are we going to the club tonight?”

  Catherine “Cate” Drakos plopped down in the chair across from the sofa and looked at her boring brother. Jonathan Drakos was lying on the sofa, reviewing text messages on his phone, minding his own business.

  But Cate was not going to be ignored. “You heard me, Johnny. Are we or are we not going to the club tonight?”

  “You can go,” he responded.

  “That was not my question.”

  “That was my answer.”

  Cate stared at him. “You are such an ass. Anybody ever tell you that?”

  Jonathan ignored her. But they had that kind of symbiotic relationship. He got on her nerves. She got on his nerves. But yet they lived together in their ritzy condo, getting on each other’s nerves daily, as if they took some sort of twisted pleasure in their dysfunction.

  “I’m going to the club,” Cate said finally. “How about that?”

  “Copycat,” Jonathan said.

  “Copycat? How am I copying you?”

  “Because you know I’m going to the club. You’re following me.”

  Cate laughed. “Oh, darling, who in their right mind would ever believe that? If there’s any following to be done, it will be you following me. As always.”

  Then a melancholy look came over her brother. She saw it immediately. “What is it now?” she asked.

  “You know what.”

  “What?”

  “We took too much this time,” Jonathan said.

  “Oh, Johnny, give it a rest! We are nowhere near completion.”

  “But it’s enough, Cate! We can leave the country, just the two of us, and live lavishly for the rest of our lives!”

  “On twenty-eight million dollars?” Cate was incredulous. “Are you serious? We’ve only just begun!”

  “But it has to end before Dad finds out. You know how he is. He’ll make us pay for what we’ve done. You know he will.”

  “He’ll never find out. That’s what I know.”

  “I don’t like living like this. I say we leave the country.”

  “No way,” Cate said. “He disowned us in his will. Mom told us that. Just because we don’t want to work for a living, he disowned us! We’re rich, why should we have to work for a living as if we were nobodies?”

  “But we stole millions from him.”

  “So what? He’s not leaving us a dime. Don’t you understand that, Johnny? Not one red cent. What did he expect us to do?”

  Her logic astounds, Jonathan thought. “But this can’t go on indefinitely,” he said. “When will it end, Cate?”

  “When it hurts,” she responded.

  Jonathan looked at his sister. “When it hurts? When it hurts whom?”

  “Dad,” she said.

  “But he’s a billionaire! We can’t steal a billion dollars right from under his nose!”

  “Says who?” Cate asked.

  Jonathan could not believe it. Who was he in league with? The devil?

  Suddenly hard banging could be heard on their front door. And then an announcement: “FBI! Open up!”

  Cate jumped up, Jonathan sat up, and both of them were floored. He looked at his sister. “Dad found out!” he cried. “You said he would never find out!”

  More banging. More yells for entry. “FBI! Open up!”

  “Come on!” Cate cried to her brother, and began running toward the back of the condo.

  Jonathan didn’t wait to ask where they were going. He just knew they had to get out of there. He jumped up and followed his sister.

  As they ran down the back stairs, the Feds used a battering ram to knock down the door. When they searched the house and saw no-one, and then saw that the suspects had fled down the back stairs, the special agent in charge cried out. “They’re heading down! They’re heading down! Go! Go! Go!”

  Some agents ran back down the way they came up, while others ran down those same backstairs Cate and Jonathan had run down. But by the time they all made it downstairs, Cate and Jonathan were in Cate’s Ferrari, and speeding away.

  The Feds jumped into their cars, and sped away too.

  Cate drove so fast Jonathan wondered if they would survive the trip. They were in the Hudson Valley region of New York, where their condo was within ten miles of their father’s estate. They weren’t even sure he was in town. He could have been back in Manhattan at his office, or on the golf course again. He never shared his comings and goings with them. But it was the only chance Cate saw that they had. She sped toward his place.

  Alex lived in an exclusive area of Hudson Valley where Rockefellers once lived; where Samuel Morse and Martin Van Buren and people of that ilk resided, once upon a time, in its storied past. His estate, the Drakos estate, was a beautiful old historic home too. Since they never lived with their father, Cate and Jonathan never understood his more traditional style of beauty. They liked contemporary and brand new. But right now, as they drove up to the security gate, they just needed to get inside that historic home, and make sure the Feds stayed out.

  The security gate opened quickly for the car, and Cate, behind the wheel, pressed down the window.

  The guard hurried over. “Yes, ma’am, Miss Cate?”

  “Don’t let them in!” she cried. “They need a warrant to get through this gate. Don’t you dare let them in!”

  And then she hit the gas again, and sped on in.

  The security guard looked at his partner in the booth. What was that about, his expression seemed to ask. And then he saw the Feds approach. But unbeknownst to Cate, they already had a warrant.

  Inside the estate, Alex was in his office signing papers that his longtime personal assistant, Priska Rahm, was standing beside his desk handing to him. “Put the Orlin Group first in rotation,” he said to Priska as he handed her back the signed contract.

  “Above Walker Ridge, sir?” Priska asked.

  “Even above Walker. Orlin has been on time and under budget, and has been consistently that way on every project I’ve worked with them. They’ve earned the spot.”

  “Yes, sir,” Priska said, as she handed Alex yet another contract.

  But Alex looked at that one, and handed it back to her. “I want to see their requisition orders before I get on board.”

  “Back orders included?”

  “Back orders included,” Alex said. And then commotion could be suddenly heard in the front of his house, and loud voices.

  “What’s that?” Priska asked, as she was about to go and find out.

  But Alex leaned back in his seat. He could hear his daughter’s voice in the melee. He had a pretty good idea what it was about.

  When his son and daughter hurried into his office, in pure panic, his suspicion was confirmed. His house manager, Shamus, ran in behind them.

  “Sir, I told them you were busy, sir!” Shamus proclaimed.

  But
the matter was already out of hand. He waved Shamus off. Shamus backed out, closing the door that automatically locked on closure, behind him.

  “Dad, how could you?” his daughter cried.

  “How could I what?”

  “We’ll go to prison if they take us!” cried his son. “We’ll go to prison!”

  “You should have thought about that before you decided to steal from me,” Alex said far more calmly than either one of them. His anger was so deep-seated he was scowling at them.

  “But the cops are coming,” Cate said. “You’ve got to tell them you didn’t mean it! You’ve got to tell them you won’t press charges. Who presses charges against their own children over money? It’s only money!”

  Alex frowned.

  “Yes, I said it!” she said defiantly. “It’s only fucking money!”

  “If you thought I would view my money the way you view my money,” Alex said to her, “you gravely miscalculated me.”

  “But you called the FBI on us. You called the FBI! Who calls the FBI on their own children? It’s the propriety of the thing. It’s simply not done!”

  “What children steals twenty-eight-million dollars from their own parent?” Alex fired back. “That’s not done, either. So don’t your slick-ass talk to me about propriety!”

  Cate was floored. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you? You’re going to let them cart us off like common criminals right out of your own home, aren’t you?”

  “You brought this circus to me,” Alex said. “You stole my money. You ran here. You dictated the terms of this entire fiasco.”

  “Mom said you were a bastard. Johnny and I tried to give you a chance. Mom was right!”

  Knocks were heard on the office door. “Sir, FBI. Please open this door.”

  “Don’t let them in!” Cate cried.

  “We have a warrant, sir. We have a warrant for the arrest of Catherine and Jonathan Drakos!”

  “Daddy, don’t let them in!” Cate was in complete meltdown. “Daddy, you can’t let them in!”

  But they were already inside the house, and it was obvious that Alex had no intentions of stopping them.

  Jonathan knew it too. Their father was the most stubborn man alive! They did him wrong, and he was going to pay them back. It was that simple to an asshole like their father. That was why Jonathan decided not to waste another second. He’d wasted too much time already!

  As soon as the Feds began to push against the door as if they’d made the decision to break it down, he cried out. “I can’t go to prison! I can’t, Cate. I can’t!”

  And then he pulled out a revolver, put it to his head, and as Cate tried to reach for him, blew his brains out.

  “Nooo!” Cate screamed, as she dropped to her knees beside her brother’s lifeless body. “Nooo!”

  The Feds, now more determined than ever after hearing that gunshot, broke down the office door and rushed inside.

  What they saw stunned them too. Jonathan Drakos, the heir-apparent to the Drakos fortune, was on the floor dead. His sister and partner in crime was right beside him, holding him.

  And their father, the man the agents had heard of but had never met; the man who had decided his children were not above the law and ordered his investigators to turn them in, slowly rose to his feet from behind his desk, staring at his lifeless son. Priska was stunned. Cate was stunned. The agents were all stunned, too.

  But the boy’s father, it seemed to the Feds, was stunned most of all.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The announcement was supposed to take place during their weekly department meeting, and although Kari was absolutely expecting to get the nod, she was cautious too. Life’s hard lessons had already taught her to never count eggs before they hatched. And as soon as she walked into that conference room, she had the distinct impression that she was about to get yet another lesson on why that cliché, when it came to her, was absolutely true.

  The very first inkling she got that it was not going to go her way was when she saw Paul Kurtz, the boss, sitting at the head of the table, and Amber Tappest sitting to the right of him. Where Amber sat was considered the prize seat at meetings. Kari had been functioning as the department head, and usually sat in that seat. But Amber, who worked in the same department, and had only been there for a few months, had beat her to it.

  The only seat remaining was near the end of the table, which Kari took. But Paul was working on paperwork. It would still be another ten minutes of small-talk amongst her colleagues before the meeting was called to order, and the veil was lifted.

  Her hope, that Amber was sitting in the seat of honor merely because she had arrived early enough and was bold enough to take the prized spot, was torn to shreds when the meeting was convened. Paul made the announcement as his first order of business.

  “Amber will be the new department head,” he said.

  And that was it. Amber will be the new department head. No explaining why. No hems and haws. No hesitation. Amber was the new head of Marketing.

  The old department head, Teresa Goldberg, had moved on to bigger and better things. Kari had been Teresa’s second-in-command. Now she was going to be Amber’s?

  “I’m sure all of you in this department will work closely with Amber and Kari as they do everything in their power to keep our marketing department on top. To keep our marketing department the fine-oiled machine it has become.”

  But then Kari, surprising even herself, blurted out: “Not by happenstance.”

  Everybody looked at her. Some smiled because they knew Kari, and they knew she wasn’t about to take the news lying down.

  Paul knew Kari too. He knew she had a mouth on her. But he was hoping against hope that she would at least stick to decorum. He had hoped his sudden and firm announcement would shame her to silence. But he had hoped for too much. “Excuse me?” he asked her.

  Kari did not back down. Her big, brown eyes were intense. “When Teresa left, this department had serious issues,” she said. “Production was down. We weren’t getting the contracts we needed to stay afloat. Teresa’s decisions were called into question, and not just by me, but by you, too, Paul. Everything was off. But I got in there. I ran this department, and with the team at this table, we turned it around. For an entire year I did the work of the department head; all the work. I just didn’t get the pay. And everybody at this table, including you, know it.”

  Although all of the associates at the table agreed wholeheartedly with Kari, none of them verbalized their agreements. A few nodded their heads, but even they were careful to do so only when Paul had looked away.

  But Kari was tired of being silent. She was tired of being used as the trainer for workers who leapfrogged her to promotion after promotion. She was the one who had trained Teresa to begin with. And Mitzy before her. And Bridgett before her! All had been promoted over Kari. Now Amber too?

  “You call the marketing department a fine-oiled machine,” Kari continued. “And it is. But that machine didn’t oil itself! It required a lot of work. A lot of trial and error. A lot of shit you didn’t think would work, but I tried it anyway, and it did work. You took credit for those accomplishments. Which was fine. It’s your company. You have that right. But this department improved after Teresa left. You said so yourself, Paul. The stats say so! But in spite of all of that, you promote Amber, who just got here, over me? That’s some wrong shit, Paul.” Kari was moving around in her seat. “I’m sorry. That’s some wrong shit.”

  Paul was staring at Kari. He was listening to her, as if he might have been persuaded by her passion. But then he spoke. “Amber is the new department head,” he said again. And then, to end this conversation once and for all, he added: “If you don’t like it, then leave.”

  Everybody looked at Kari. The ball was in her court. A reasonable girl would have said her piece and slinked back into her corner to hide and sulk alone. She needed that paycheck, after all. But a reasonable girl would have never hooked up with a thug like Vito Visconni.
A reasonable girl would have never had the balls to take a hammer upside Vito’s head and leave his ass for good. A reasonable girl would have never had the courage to move to Florida, start over from scratch, and make a decent life for herself and her child.

  Kari Grant was not a reasonable girl.

  She rose to her feet. “Then I’ll leave,” she said, to the shock of everybody at the table. “I’m sure Amber, who doesn’t know shit about shit, will do a bang-up job for you. That is, when she’s not banging you,” Kari added, and walked out of the room.

  The associates were shocked. Not about the banging part. They all knew Amber was sleeping her way to the top. But they couldn’t believe Kari would ever leave. They were proud of her. You go girl, they wanted to scream. But they didn’t say a word. They were too shocked to speak.

  Paul was shocked, too. Kari, his right-hand person, was leaving? He knew what he said. He knew he was the one who arrogantly told her that she should leave if she didn’t like his decision. But he never dreamed she’d do it!

  But like Vito Visconni before him, he had underestimated Kari too.

  And Amber, who had every intention of letting Kari do all the work while she sat back pretty and got all the glory, not to mention the extra pay, was in full panic mode. “You can’t let her go, Paul, what are you doing?” she asked him. “Stop her. You’ve got to stop her, Paul. You’ve got to stop her!”

  But their workhorse was gone.

  Paul, red-faced and angry, kicked Amber, hard, under the table. “Let’s move on, shall we?” he said calmly, to her and to the others.

  Amber was in pain from his kick, and in shock from Kari’s sudden and dramatic departure. But she had to wear the mask. She had a new job, a job, as Kari said, she didn’t know, nor had bothered to learn, shit about. She had to pull herself together. She had to manage, despite the terror she felt inside, to at least pretend to know the part.