“Yeah, they are.”
“How much are they asking?” Lucinda asked.
“Don’t know,” Kari said. “But for real,” she added, grabbing her purse and phone and sliding over to the end of the banquette, “I need to get going. I’ll call you guys later. We’ll get together soon.”
“You sound like a Harry Chapin song,” Lucinda said.
“Harry who?” asked Faye, and Kari smiled. Those two. But she did leave the restaurant.
But her joy was short-lived because, as soon as she walked into the lobby of The Drakos, a ghost from her past walked right up to her as if they were long, lost friends.
Kari, at first, thought it was just another staffer coming to tell her something about a housekeeping issue she needed to address. That was why she didn’t hesitate to turn when he touched her shoulder. But when she saw who it was, she recoiled.
And as soon as she did, Lee McCrae, the new head of hotel security, and three other security personnel immediately made their way to Kari’s side. They surrounded Maggio Margolis. Maggio grinned at how quickly they came to her rescue.
But Kari waved them off. “It’s okay,” she said to them. “He’s an old friend.”
Lee looked at Kari hard, as if she wasn’t so sure of that, but Kari only gave her a hard look back. And Lee and her team backed off.
When they were out of earshot, Kari looked at Maggio. “What do you want?” she asked him.
“And how are you, Miss Kari Grant?” Maggio asked her. “Or should I say Kari Drakos? Must be nice having all of this security at your beck and call.”
“What do you want, Maggio?” She wasn’t about to play his game.
Maggio got down to business too. “We need to talk,” he said. “We’ve got some old, old business to talk about.” And then he added: “Old friend.”
Kari looked around. Security was still staring at her and the lobby was filled with guests going and coming and bumping into her like she was just a regular joe. They certainly couldn’t talk there.
“Come with me,” she said, and then escorted him down the side hall, and into one of the downstairs guest rooms.
But as soon as the door closed, the security team still in the lobby looked at Lee, their brand new supervisor. All of them were nearly twice her age, and all of them were envious as hell that she got the job and they weren’t even considered. “What do you want us to do?” one of them asked Lee.
Lee felt as inadequate as she had most of her life. She knew every one of those men could probably run circles around her in the security field. But they hired her, and she aimed to do her job, because of her instincts. Instinctively, nobody was better. Her job involved a lot of judgment calls. This was one of those moments.
“We do nothing,” she said to her team. “Mrs. Drakos can handle him.”
And she walked away.
Her seasoned security team looked at each other as if that wasn’t the call they would have made, but was happy that she made it. If the shit went sideways, they knew, she would bear the brunt of the blame, and not them. They could live with that.
“Yes, ma’am, boss lady,” one of them sarcastically said, causing the others to snicker, as Lee McCrae walked away. “And when Alex Drakos fuck you up for letting that man fuck his wife, you won’t be the boss lady anymore. But yes, ma’am. Keep calling the shots.” And they laughed again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
As soon as the door to the hotel room closed, Kari leaned against it, folded her arms, and addressed Maggio in a voice dripping with contempt. “What do you want, Maggio?” she asked him again.
“No way to talk to an old friend. Now is it?”
“What do you want?”
“Ten million.”
Kari stared at him. “What?”
“You heard what I said.”
“Ten million dollars, Maggio? Are you out of your fucking mind? Where do you think I can get ten million dollars from, boy?”
Maggio laughed. “Now that’s funny! That’s my laugh for the day.” Then his smile left. “Maybe what I heard about Alexander Drakos is right and he’s a stingy sonafabitch. Maybe he won’t give you the money. Okay. I can dig that. It’s a brand new marriage and he might not trust you like that. But I still want my money.”
“I don’t owe you any money.”
“Oh, you owe me a lot more than money. And you know it!”
“Where am I going to get ten million dollars, Maggio? Just tell me that?”
“You’re going to embezzle it,” Maggio said.
Kari couldn’t believe him. “Get real.”
“You won’t go to jail. Drakos is big on image, you see. I heard about that too. Besides, it’s technically your money, too, now. They can’t steal you to jail for stealing your own money. Besides, he won’t miss it.”
“Who won’t miss ten million dollars, fool?”
“That big fat casino right out that door and around that corner. That’s who!”
“Let me get this straight,” Kari said. “Your stupid ass expects me to embezzle ten million dollars from my husband’s casino?”
“That’s exactly what I expect you to do. His son and daughter did it to him before.”
“And his son killed himself behind it, and his daughter was thrown in jail.”
“He should be used to people who are supposed to love him stealing from him, is what I mean,” Maggio said.
“And what if I don’t do it?” Kari asked.
“Then I will blow the lid off of your phony marriage. He’ll find out who the real Mrs. Drakos really is. And it won’t be a flattering realness either. Oh, and that ambassadorship he wants sooo bad that he can taste it? I’ll make sure, with my little phone call to TMZ, that it never happens. Nobody’s appointing a man with the judgment to marry a woman like you. He’ll never be ambassador to anything! That dream of his will be over before it even gets started. You get my money, you feel me? You get me my money!
He handed her a card. “Call me at that number when you get it ready, and we’ll meet up. I’m staying in town, at a motel. I can’t afford to stay at The Drakos. But that’ll change, eh, Kari? That’ll change.”
And then he walked over to the door. He was within a few inches of Kari’s face. He touched it with his rough hand.
Kari slapped it away from her. “You creep!” she said.
But he continued to stare at her face. “Money used to love to fuck you. He told all us about how sweet your shit was, and what you did for him in bed. He made every last one of us want you. Now you landed yourself a billionaire. What the fuck you got between them legs, girl?”
“Just get out,” Kari said to him. She never could stand his trifling ass. “Get out!”
Maggio laughed. Then his smile left again. “Get it together, Kari Grant, or all this dream world you’re living in, with your Rolls Royce and your fancy penthouse apartment, will be all over and that rich white dude will drag your ass right back to Chicago. And they ain’t gonna want you either! Especially after what you and Drakos did to Money.”
Kari stared at Maggio. “Money” was Vito Visconni, Kari’s drug-dealing ex-boyfriend, who died after he attempted to terrorize Kari.
Maggio nodded. “Yeah, I know about that shit. Know all about what y’all did to Money. So don’t try no bullshit with me. I got my peeps too. You ain’t the only one with connections. You feel me, Kari Grant? You feel me?”
Then he laughed again. “Get my money and call me,” he ordered, and then left.
Kari stood there stunned. Maggio was never a drama king, and she knew he had the goods on her. The kind of goods that would do just as he said: cause Alex to get knocked out of the running for that ambassadorship he wanted so badly, and maybe cause him to dump her too.
Any self-respecting man, if they knew what Maggio knew, would dump her in a heartbeat. Maggio wasn’t exaggerating about that.
She felt she had to give him what he wanted. Somehow get that money and give it to him and end it before anyt
hing got out of hand. Or out in the open.
But what about tomorrow, she thought, when he needed more money? He’d be back for more just as sure as she was standing there. And who were those “peeps” he mentioned? Who were those connections he had?
Kari stood there, unsure what to do.
Then she wondered what she would do had it involved any other messy situation.
And the answer was as obvious as the nose on her face.
She pulled out her cell phone as she left the guest room and made her way back toward the lobby.
She called Oz and told him to keep an eye on Jordan until she got back.
And then she phoned Alex’s pilot and ordered, as only the wife of Alex Drakos had the authority to order, that Alex’s plane be prepped for takeoff.
She was flying to New York.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Alex was seated at the conference table inside his office at Drake Capital in Manhattan discussing a recently concluded audit of a major tech firm with his CFO, Matt Scribner. The firm had presented a far-rosier picture of their assets and viability than an audit suggested. And Alex wasn’t pleased.
“I still believe,” Matt was saying to Alex, “that there’s enough upside with that company for us to take the risk. I think they’re that good.”
“I don’t,” Alex said. “If they attempted to lie about their assets, when as you said they had enough upside that they really didn’t have to do that, I’m concerned about what else they may be hiding that we can’t see until we take over.”
“It’ll be a risk,” Matt said, “that’s for damn sure.”
“A risk I’m not willing to take,” said Alex.
“Are you ready to pull the plug?” Matt asked. “Are you saying it’s a no-go?”
“That’s what I’m saying. It’s a no.”
“Yes, sir,” Matt said, and pulled out his cell phone. Alex might have had the reputation of this flamboyant playboy, but, in truth, he was a very cautious man.
But just as Matt stood and walked away to make his phone call, to Alex’s surprise, Kari walked in. “Karena?” he asked, and even Matt turned to look.
Alex stood up and walked around to her as she made her way to the table. “What are you doing here?” he asked her. “Is everything okay?” He placed his hands on her small shoulders, and looked into her eyes. Had she been crying?
“You’re in a meeting?” Kari asked him.
“No worries,” Matt said to Kari. “I was just leaving. Hold on,” he said to the person on his cell phone, and then walked out of the office, closing the door behind him.
“Sit down,” Alex said as he pulled out a chair for Kari, and then sat down beside her. “Jordan’s okay?”
“Yes, he’s fine. I got Oz to look after him.”
“And who’s going to look after Oz?” Alex asked with a smile.
Kari would have smiled, too, but her heart was in too much turmoil.
Alex saw her dismay. “What is it, darling?” he asked her.
Kari stared at him. She took a chance coming to him instead of handling it herself. Was it the right move?
“What is it, babe?” Alex asked her again. His worry meter was going higher with every second she delayed.
“You remember I told you about Maggio,” she said to him.
“Of course. What about him?”
Kari exhaled.
“What about this person, Karena? Has he threatened you?”
When Alex asked her that question, tears suddenly appeared in Kari’s big, golden-brown eyes.
Alex, distressed himself now, moved his chair closer to her, and held her hand. “What is it, darling? Just tell me what happened. I’ll take care of it, but you have to tell me what it is.”
Kari leaned her head back. It was a horrific time in her life that she had buried so deep down inside of her that on a good day, a very good day, she would forget it ever existed. Pulling it back up was going to be hard. But she knew she had to. She came to Alex to help her. He had every right to know exactly why she needed his help.
“I was nineteen,” she began, “and Vito was like twenty-five or twenty-six. He was slinging dope like it was nobody’s business, and I knew that’s what he was doing. There was nothing innocent about me, Alex. I knew it. And the reason I knew it,” she said, “is because I helped him,” she said. And when she said it, she could feel Alex’s grip on her hand begin to loosen.
But she kept going. She hated that she was going to disappoint him so utterly, but she couldn’t turn back now.
“Are you saying to me,” Alex asked her, “that you sold drugs for him?” Even Alex, in his worse criminal days, wouldn’t stoop to that level.
“I didn’t sling, no,” Kari said. “But I dropped off packages for him. I thought he was going to be my husband. I loved that dude so much. And I was so young, Alex. I was green compared to Vito. I did a lot of crazy shit for him.”
Alex released his grip on her hand, and sat all the way back in his chair. “Tell me,” he said to her in a voice so quiet she almost didn’t hear him.
And she recited, chapter and verse, that one small time in her life that still devastated her just thinking about it.
“I was in love,” she said. “That was the bottom line. When we first met, Vito treated me like I was the most beautiful, most important human being in this world to him. And I loved him for it. I knew what he was doing was wrong. Slinging that shit and ruining people’s lives? I knew it was wrong. But I was a dumb kid with a baby, out here all by myself trying to make it. It was rough. And when a man like Vito came along and offered to make me his number one, I took that offer. I didn’t have nothing else. I had nobody else but Jordan. I took it.”
She paused. Alex continued to stare at her so hard, and with what seemed like such judgment in his eyes that she didn’t know if she could tell it all. She stared back at him, and wiped a tear away.
And then he leaned forward, and his look changed. She didn’t see judgment in his big, blue eyes anymore. She saw pain. He was in pain for her. He took her hand again. “Tell me why Maggio has threatened you, Karena. I need to know the reason.”
“Because he knows,” Kari said.
Alex was confused. “He knows what?”
“What I did to that boy.”
A sinking feeling came over Alex when she said such an ominous thing. “What did you do to the boy, Karena?” he asked her.
Tears filled Kari’s big eyes again. “I killed him,” she said.
Alex’s heart dropped through his shoe. He dropped her hand, and sat up straight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Vito got shot,” Kari said to Alex, “by a rival gang in Chicago. Maggio wasn’t in Vito’s crew, but he was always hanging around. Would sling for him sometimes too. But it was a side business for Vito. He worked for the mob, and they didn’t know he was doing that shit. Even from his hospital bed, he was supplying his guys on the street.”
Alex didn’t respond. He was leaned back in his chair, had folded one leg over his thigh, and was listening intently. A worried look was now in his eyes.
But Kari soldiered on, telling a story she swore she’d never repeat to anyone. “One day, I was visiting Vito like I did the whole time he was hospitalized, and one of his biggest suppliers brought him a big brick size wad of cocaine.”
Kari hesitated again. She had hoped Alex would lean forward and take her hand again, to comfort her, but he remained where he was: staring at her.
“His supplier wasn’t gone ten minutes when Vito gets this phone call from Maggio. Mag says he’s in the parking lot and just saw a swat team of cops running into the hospital. He doesn’t know if they’re coming for Vito, but he knows they’re heading into that hospital to bust somebody. Since Vito had literally just gotten that stash of cocaine, he panics. Maybe his supplier was a cop informant or some shit. He’s certain they’re coming for him. So he panics. I panic too. Especially when Vito starts crying that if the cops find those drugs
on him, he’ll do Life in prison without parole. I’ll never see him again, he tells me. I’m nineteen years old and so in love with that man that the idea of never seeing him again stunned me.”
“What did he want you to do?” Alex asked her.
“He threw that big wad of cocaine to me and told me I had to hide it, and I had to do it now. He was bedridden, and hooked up to so many IVs and shit there was no way he could do anything. I started running to the bathroom, like I could flush down that much dope. But he told me no, that was the first place the cops would search. I had to get rid of every trace of it. I then tried to stuff it underneath my shirt, if you can believe that. I was so young and stupid!”
Kari shook her head. “But Vito told me I had to get rid of it. He said the cops knew I was his girl and they were going to search me too. That’s when he told me to go down the hall and hide it in one of those empty rooms. We’ll get it back when the cops leave. ‘If they don’t find any drugs,’ he said to me, ‘they can’t arrest anybody.’”
Kari hesitated again.
“What did you do?” Alex asked her. That seemed to be his singular focus: Not Vito’s actions, but Kari’s.
“I did what he told me to do,” Kari responded. “I couldn’t let him go to prison for the rest of his life. He deserved it, but I was young and dumb and I loved him. That’s all I knew. So I ran down that hallway like the fool I was and looked in room after room, but somebody was in every room. So I ran back to Vito. Every room was occupied. But Vito cussed me out. He called me stupid and asked me was somebody sleeping in one of those rooms. I told him yeah, some guy who looked like he was barely eighteen was asleep in one of the rooms. He was hooked up to a lot of IVs, too, and he was sleeping when I peeped in his room. Vito told me to hide it in there.”
Kari leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
“Go on,” Alex said.
Kari’s eyes reopened and she was now staring past Alex, as if she was seeing that day all over again. “So I did it,” she said. “I ran into his room and saw his backpack in the corner. I unzipped it and hid it in his backpack. And then I ran back to Vito’s room, so the cops wouldn’t catch me in there. But when I ran back into Vito’s room, Maggio was back on the phone with Vito. And he heard me tell Vito where I stashed his wad. And then the cops came.”
Alex Drakos: For My Lover Page 16