“Nice of you to meet our plane, MG,” Oz said jovially as they approached the car. “But I think my brother and I can manage our own security.”
MG laughed. “I’m sure you can, sir!”
“So, what’s the deal?” Oz asked. “Tino on vacation and you get the big gig?”
MG shook his head. “No, sir. Tino’s with Miss Grant.”
Oz instantly understood that. “Oh. He got the big gig. Got it.”
“But the reason I’m here,” MG said, “is about Misho Dukakis.”
They both were surprised. “They found him?” Alex asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where man, where?” Oz asked anxiously. “If we have to get right back on that plane, we will.”
“He’s right here.”
“Here?” Alex asked. “In Florida?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be gotdamn,” Oz said. “What good luck! Where in Florida?”
“Right here in Florida,” MG said. “He’s here, in Apple Valley.”
Oz looked at Alex. “You have a read on him,” Alex asked his deputy chief, “or eyes on him?”
“Eyes, sir. He’s at a motel near the bus station.”
Oz looked at his brother. “Let’s go get that motherfucker,” he said.
Alex couldn’t agree more. They got in the SUV and, along with MG as their driver, took off.
It was even closer than the bus station. A motel Alex didn’t know existed in Apple Valley until they pulled into the parking lot.
“They said he left about ten minutes ago, to go get something to eat,” MG said as he parked the car, “but he’s on his way back now.”
“Is he alone?” Alex asked.
“He has one guy with him. Some bodyguard for hire. Nobody big.”
“I heard old Misho spent his days loansharking out in Atlantic City,” Oz said. “That’s where I thought they were going to find his ass.”
“So did I,” Alex said as his cell phone rang. “Or at least nearby like Felix was.”
“I heard what happened to Felix,” MG said as Alex answered his phone. “That’s some crazy shit.”
“Crazy as a motherfuck,” Oz said and leaned back, watching his brother on the phone.
It was Tino. “She just left the club along with Mrs. Church and Miss Mayes,” he said to Alex.
“What’s the problem with that?”
“They left in a very big hurry, sir. So big that Miss Grant left her car at the club.”
Alex didn’t like the sound of that. “Stay on them,” he said. “I’ll give her a call.”
And Alex did call Kari as Kari and her friends were on their way, they thought, to confront Benny and the woman he supposedly was with.
Oz couldn’t hear Kari’s end of the conversation because Alex did not have the call on Speaker, but he got the gist of it: Alex was worried about his lady and didn’t want her getting involved with other people’s drama.
But that was the amazing part to Oz, as he watched his big brother. Alex used to be more of a player than Oz ever was! And it made Oz wonder that maybe it was possible for him too. That maybe he could finally stop bedhopping and settle down with a woman of his own too.
Then he inwardly smiled. Not a chance! he said to himself. But maybe one day, when he was fifty and too tired to fuck. Maybe he’d find himself a woman then, have kids, and settle down too. But right now? He just wanted to have some fun!
When Alex ended the call with “I love you” to Kari, Oz was shocked. Not about the fact that Alex loved her. He already knew that. But about the fact that he would say it in front of somebody else. That was the shocking part.
“What was that about?” Oz asked him.
“Faye and Benny are having issues, and she’s tagging along for support.”
“What issues?” Oz asked. “Faye’s cheating?”
Alex laughed. “That’s what I thought! But no. It’s supposedly Benjamin who’s cheating.”
“Benny?” Oz asked. “Get the fuck out of here! That straight arrow? No way! But that wife of his? That very hot, very fine-ass wife of his? She probably has to beat the men off with bats. I figured she’d slip up every once in a while, before he would.”
Alex looked at his brother. “Just make sure she doesn’t slip up with you.”
“Me? I couldn’t do that to Benny! He’s like family! I may be immoral, but I have my morals, okay?”
Alex frowned. “What?” he asked.
Oz grinned. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, do I?”
“No, you do not!” Alex said.
“But I was just commenting on the obvious,” said Oz. “That Faye Church, and Lucinda, too, to a lesser degree, are very fine-looking women. Gorgeous girls!”
Alex looked at his brother. He was an expert on women. “And Karena?” he asked.
But Oz was no liar. “That ain’t her thing,” he said. “She’s the total package, don’t get me wrong. And she’s hot in her own way. It’s just that beauty isn’t at the top of her best-traits list. Faye and Lucinda are just beautiful. Which means, in my view, Kari wins in a landslide!”
Alex smiled. “You’re full of shit, but I’ll take it,” he said, and both men laughed.
It would be several more minutes of waiting when a car finally drove up just as MG was getting off of his cellphone. “They say that’s him,” he told the brothers. “In that car. Him and his bodyguard.”
“You take the bodyguard,” Alex said.
“I knew you were going to say that,” Oz said as both men waited. When Misho Dukakis got out of the car and made his way toward his downstairs motel room, Oz and Alex got out. Oz headed toward the driver side of the car, where the bodyguard still sat, and Alex headed toward the motel room door, where Misho, with his back to Oz, was unlocking the door.
The bodyguard, who was watching his boss head to the room, saw Alex before Misho did, and was about to grab his gun where it sat beside him. But Oz put a gun to his head. “We aren’t doing that today,” he said. The guard looked at him. Oz smiled. “At least you aren’t,” he said. Then he motioned for the guard to get out of the car. “Let’s go.”
At the room door, Misho had just swiped his keycard and had opened the door. Just as he stepped inside, and was about to close the door behind him, Alex placed his big pair of Ferragamo’s in the doorway and prevented the door from closing.
When Misho turned and saw that it was Alex Drakos, his heart dropped. As did the carry-out he had been carrying.
Alex forced his way inside, and he closed the door.
Misho immediately began backing up, toward the bed. “Mr. Drakos, hey,” he said. “How nice to see you again!”
Did he think Alex was nuts? “Nice to see me? You’re happy to see me? No. I think not.”
“What are you doing here? What are you doing in this town?”
“That’s the question I should ask you. What are you doing in this town?”
Oz and the bodyguard entered the room, and Oz closed the door behind them, looking down at the Chinese takeaway spilled on the floor. “Somebody lost their lunch,” he said. “But it’s almost midnight, right? I’m all jetlagged and shit. I guess I should say dinner.” He threw the bodyguard over in the only chair in the room, and stood beside him, gun trained on him. “Hello, Misho,” he said. “It’s been a while.”
“This is what we’re going to do,” Alex said as he moved closer to Misho. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about the sudden reappearance of Ninochka Kobalinski, and I’m going to try not to kill you while I listen.”
Misho swallowed hard.
“If my bullshit antenna began going haywire,” Alex said, “then I will kill you. Do you understand the rules?”
Misho frowned, but he had no choice but to nod.
“You and Felix came to me and told me you put Ninochka on that private plane that crashed. That plane that belonged to her father’s friend. That was a lie. Why did you lie?”
M
isho swallowed hard again. “May I sit down?” he asked.
Alex motioned for him to sit on the bed. He sat.
“Talk,” Alex said.
“We were paid to say what we said to you,” Misho said.
“Who paid you?”
“We believe her father,” Misho said. “That’s who they said they worked for.”
“But you knew she didn’t get on that plane,” Alex said.
Misho nodded. “We knew all along she didn’t get on that plane, or any plane that day. She was forced into a car and was taken away by friends of her father. Real friends. That guy on the plane that crashed was no friend of her father’s. But they knew your people had rigged that engine, and that it was going to crash.”
Alex frowned. “How did they know that?”
Misho hesitated. “I think Felix might have given them the heads up when they first approached us about helping get Narnia away from you. Her father thought that plane crash would be the perfect time to get Narnia away from you.”
“Away from me?” Alex asked. Oz was curious too. “Why would they want her away from me?”
“Her father was afraid of you. He’s still afraid of you, that’s why he’s in hiding. He knew your father had a beef with members of the Russian mob, and that he was picking them off one by one. He didn’t want his daughter caught up in that kind of life. When he found out about that sham of a marriage, as he called it, he knew he had to intervene.”
“So Ninochka didn’t leave on her own?”
“No way,” Misho said. “She was happy. She knew her marriage to you would be in name only, but she was happy to get that much of you. She was so in love with you that she’d take anything she could get to be with you. It was rumored she never took birth control. That was how badly she wanted to have your child and have some claim to you. But her father stopped all that.”
“She was his prisoner?” Alex asked.
“Initially she was,” Misho said. “But she quickly realized it was for the best. At least that’s what I heard.”
Alex stared at Misho, and his bullshit antenna was in overdrive. Misho was lying to him. “Now,” Alex said, “stop telling me the lines you were fed when that shit first went down. You tell me the truth.”
Misho was about to object. Alex pulled out his gun.
“Don’t shoot!” he yelled, covering his face.
“Talk,” Alex said.
“You’re right,” he said. “That’s what I was ordered to tell you if anything went sideways.”
“What’s the truth?” Alex asked.
“Felix and I were hired on your father’s recommendation, yes?”
Alex nodded. “That’s why I hired both of you, yes.”
“We worked for you, but we were still loyal to him.”
Alex stared at Misho. “Go on,” he said.
“Narnia’s father didn’t kidnap her,” Misho said. “That was a lie.”
“Then what happened?” Alex asked.
“It was your father.”
“Our father kidnapped her?” Oz asked. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Your father rescued her,” Misho said to Alex. “He asked you to rig that plane just so he could get Narnia to Greece and keep her, privately, as his woman.”
Oz and Alex both were floored. “Why would he want Ninochka like that?” Alex asked.
“Because she was originally his woman all along. They started seeing each other when it was clear that you just wanted her for sex.”
“What the fuck she thought my father would want her for?”
“It started off as sex, yes. But she fell hard for him. She felt that she was his woman, not yours. She cheated with you to get back at him, when he refused to leave your mother and marry her. So she seduced you, pretended to be pregnant with your child, and agreed to marry you to shake up your father. She was always going back to him. She just wanted to go back to him on better terms. And it worked. He was shaken. To the core. Narnia was the woman he loved. Kind of. He agreed to set her up as his main woman, despite still being married to your mother, and to give her everything she wanted. She moved to Greece, and she lived secretly as his other wife.”
Oz was stunned. He looked at Alex. But Alex was perplexed. “What do you mean pretend pregnancy?” he asked. “It was no pretend pregnancy. I saw the results.”
“She was pregnant alright. But the pretend was with you. The child she carried was not yours.”
“Then whose?” Oz asked. “Our father’s?”
Misho nodded. “Yes. He was that kind of man. You know that. No woman was safe around him. That, I assume, is where you and Alex get that from.”
Oz wanted to kick his ass for saying that bullshit in the first place. But he was too rattled. Could this be true? Their father was woman crazy like that. He was always after a nice piece of meat. But for Narnia to use Alex? What woman would use Alex?
He looked at his brother, unable to believe what was happening. Was Alex’s bullshit antenna going haywire again?
Apparently not, because Alex didn’t dispute it, or even argue the point. He seemed to believe it!
But Alex’s heartbreak didn’t concern Ninochka or his father. Both of them could kiss his ass. His regret was for that man whose plane he rigged. His father said he had a beef with him. He said that man had killed two of his lieutenants, and he wanted revenge. That reality, that he might have killed an innocent man to give Ninochka a convenient reason to end their marriage and live in secret with his father, was what bothered him most.
“It takes a lowlife piece of shit to do what Narnia did,” Oz said. “If it’s true.”
“Takes an even lower piece of shit to do what Pop asked me to do,” said Alex.
“Yes, it does,” Misho said, and then, knowing the end was near, he took the chance he had planned to take all along, and whipped out the knife he had secured in his shirt sleeve. He whipped it out and, in one fluid motion, threw it at Alex.
But Alex was prepared for his gamble. He knew one was coming. And as soon as he whipped out that knife and was throwing it, Alex was diving out of range and shooting to kill.
He didn’t miss.
Misho fell over on the bed.
His bodyguard also tried his little trick of the trade. He tried to reach for the second gun he kept in his sock. But that trick was lame to men like Alex and Oz. Oz shot the guard before he could retrieve anything. Oz never enjoyed the idea of it, but it was true: it was an easy kill.
MG ran in, because he heard the gunshots, but was pleased to see that all was well in hand.
And they all got away from that motel swiftly, before anybody in that fleabag would bother to call the cops.
But something was bothering Alex mightily. When they got back into that SUV, and MG drove them away, Alex pulled out his cell phone and began thumbing through his photo gallery.
“What are you doing?” Oz asked him.
But Alex kept searching until he found the photograph he was searching for. Oz leaned over and saw that it was a photograph of their mother. He also saw Alex text Tenniston, the oilman out of El Paso, and asked him that question again: Is that the woman?
Oz looked at Alex. “That’s our mother. What are you saying, Alexio?”
“I’m saying a woman that wasn’t Ninochka accepted payment to steal my oil. That woman had to be filled with bitterness and hatred.”
Oz nodded. “Our mother would fit that bill. But why would she do it?”
“The man she loved died when he was with us. She could blame us for his death. Ninochka wasn’t the only person who loved Dad. Many women did. But none, perhaps, as much as his own wife. That’s why.”
Alex’s phone rang. It was Tenniston. “No, sir,” he said. “I don’t recognize that woman at all.”
Both brothers exhaled. “Okay,” Alex said. “Thought I’d give it a shot.”
“No, sir, she’s way too old. But if she was a little younger, a lot younger in fact, then she would have been a cont
ender. She could have been the one. But no. It’s not her.”
But when Tenniston said those words, Alex and Oz both looked at each other. They were both thinking the same thing! And Alex began searching his phone again. “Stay on the line,” he ordered the oilman.
“May I ask why?” asked the oilman.
But Alex wasn’t answering questions. He was too anxious. He searched and searched his gallery of pictures until he found one. And he shot a text to Tenniston. “Check your text messages,” Alex said. “I just sent you another photograph.”
“Okay. Let me check it.”
Within seconds, Tenniston was excited. “That’s her!” he said. “That’s the one I met with. I’d know that face anywhere!”
“Okay, sir,” Alex said, “I thank you. I’ll take it from here.” And he ended the call.
But it was an unsettling reality for both brothers. Oz looked at Alex. “Our sister? Zylena? But why?”
“She was very close to our father. He recently died, and he died because we went searching for him.”
“But it’s not adding up, Alexio,” Oz said. “Father didn’t give a damn about Zylena! He left her to die when that rival family kidnapped her. You’re the one who rescued her.”
“But she’s the one who went with father when you took over, Oz. Father may not have given a damn about her, but she gave a damn about him. As did mother. As did Linda, remember that? Women loved Elasaid Drakos. They loved him!”
“And if this man is to be believed,” Oz said, “Zylena is in the states. Or at least she was.”
Alex frowned.
“What?”
“We found Misho here. In Apple Valley.”
“That’s right.”
“He said he was still loyal to father.”
“That’s right.”
“Does that mean he’s loyal to Zylena too?”
Then both of them reached the same conclusion at once. “Kari!” Oz said, and Alex was already on his cellphone. “Get me to Hippa Street,” Alex ordered MG. “Pull it up on the navigation if you don’t know where!”
“I know where it is,” MG said and sped up.
“Who are you calling?” Oz asked his brother.
“Tino,” said Alex. “I want him to get Kari now, and keep her until I can get to her!”
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