Oz was in the lobby and heading toward the entrance doors when his brother walked in.
“How is she?” Alex asked as soon as they met up. He didn’t break his stride as both men began hurrying toward the private elevators in back.
“She’s better,” said Oz as he kept pace. “She’s still resting.”
“Was she exhausted? Doc seems to think so.”
“I’m sure she was,” said Oz. “But . . .”
Alex glanced at him as he stopped at the private elevator, swiped his keypad, and the doors immediately opened. “But what?” he asked his brother.
“But that’s not why she passed out,” Oz said. Both men stepped onto the elevator.
Alex was certain more was going on, and he was certain Oz wasn’t about to tell him what over their phone call until he had him in person. He didn’t even ask his brother what it was. He stared at him, and waited for him to tell him.
“Ever hear of a guy named DayVon Clarke?” Oz asked him.
Alex frowned. “He was Jordan’s biological father.”
“So you remember that name?”
“Yes, I remembered that name. We had to prove he was either dead or unable to be found when I filed adoption papers on J.”
“What did you find out?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was he dead?”
“Yes, he was dead! We got a copy of his death certificate from the Cecoyan government and filed it with the court. Why are you asking me about him?”
Oz pressed the Stop button on the elevator before the doors opened at the penthouse. He looked at his brother. “He’s here,” he said.
Alex stared at his brother. “What do you mean he’s here?”
“He’s here, Alexio.”
“Here? In Apple Valley?”
“Here, at The Drakos.”
Alex was shocked. “Are you telling me he’s alive?”
“Yes! That’s what I’m telling you. DayVon Clarke, Jordan’s biological father, is very much alive and well. And here, at The Drakos, to see his son.”
“But how could that be? Kari said, and we discovered that he had died.”
“His mother has considerable pull on that island. They apparently faked his death certificate on her behalf. But he’s alive and kicking.”
Alex couldn’t believe it. He opened his suit coat and placed his hands on his hips. “But Kari said he was dead, too. She was certain he had died!”
“He’s not dead, obviously. He’s here.”
“But he could be a fraud.”
“He could be. Our guys are looking into it as we speak. But . . .”
“But what, man?” Alex asked anxiously. “Tell me!”
“But your wife is certain it’s him. She’s absolutely certain. That’s why she passed out when she saw him. It’s him, Alexio. Your son’s real father is here.”
It was not the news Alex had expected to hear. Not by a longshot. He assumed she had passed out for reasons that went beyond mere exhaustion, but not that reason!
“Where’s Jordan?” he asked.
“At Faye and Benny’s,” said Oz. “He had been with his tutor, but I didn’t want him around here when work leaked. I didn’t want him in the same building as the guy until we had him thoroughly checked out. And until you got here.”
Alex nodded. That was the kind of efficiency he expected from Odysseus, a powerful man in his own right who once ran their entire mob family back in Greece.
“Where do you have Mr. Clarke?” Alex asked.
“In the Soviet suite.”
They called it the Soviet suite because it was where they placed those hotels guests that were causing problems, or that they needed to interrogate. It had a one-way mirror in the adjacent room for them to view the interrogation undetected.
Alex liked the decision. “Good,” he said. “Keep him there until we get full intel.”
“I will.”
“Has he been cooperative?”
“Very,” said Oz. “That’s the scary part. The guy’s like a choirboy. Just as nice as he could be.”
“What are my men coming back with so far?” Alex asked.
“Just what I said. The residents of the Island of Cecoya just love the guy. They can’t get anybody to say a negative thing about him. Although the islanders don’t know him as DayVon Clarke.”
“What do they know him as?”
“Dajalla Clarke. In their native tongue it means bright light or something. That’s why your guys couldn’t find out anything about him when they went to Cecoya during your adoption bid. The natives don’t know him as DayVon. They didn’t know who they were talking about. So for the government to give up a fake death certificate on a DayVon Clarke was easy. He didn’t exist anyway.”
“Why did the natives know his name this time?” Alex asked.
“Because we had a picture to show them. They knew his picture. ‘That’s Dajalla,’ they said to the guys. ‘That’s not DayVon, whoever that is. That’s Dajalla.”
Alex exhaled again. This was too much.
“But there’s something about the guy,” Oz said.
Alex looked at him. “Rubs you wrong?”
Oz nodded. “Very,” he said.
“That’s not helpful.”
“I know. But that’s how I feel. You’ll see.” Then Oz looked at his big brother. “What are you going to do?” he asked him.
But Alex was in no position to lay down plans. He just needed to see his wife. He pressed the Stop button to release the hold, the elevator doors opened, and Alex stepped off.
As soon as he made it into the penthouse, and then upstairs to their bedroom, he stopped at the door when he saw Kari. She was lying in bed, her big eyes wide awake, staring at the ceiling. She looked almost serene.
But when she looked over, and saw that Alex was standing there, her entire demeanor changed.
“Alex!” she cried. She threw the covers off of her slender body, jumped out of bed, and ran to her husband.
When she got to him, he lifted her up, she wrapped her legs around him, and they both held onto each other with the kind of grip that wasn’t meant to be easy.
Tears were in Kari’s eyes, but they were closed too tight for anybody to see.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Alex slumped down to the floor, against the wall in their bedroom, with Kari still in his arms. His look was as grim as hers, because he understood the implications too. And not just his position as adopted father in Jordan’s life, either, which was monumental in and of itself. But also because he remembered how glowingly Kari used to speak about her baby’s father. He remembered how that young man was her first and, until he came along, only true love. And he wasn’t dead? He was right there, at Alex’s hotel, ready to reclaim who? Jordan? Both of them?
Alex held Kari in his lap with a firm grip, but just thinking about what it all could mean for him and his family caused him the kind of consternation that only bad deals and losses used to cause. Now, at that moment in time, he didn’t give a fuck about his business problems. Just Kari. Just Jordan.
He leaned his head back, against the wall. He had never felt that vulnerable in his whole life.
Kari finally looked up at him. She could see in his tired blue eyes that he was worried sick too. “Oz told you,” she said as if it wasn’t a question, but a fact.
Alex nodded. “He told me.”
“It’s so shocking,” Kari said, her face distressed in a way Alex had never seen on her before. “They told me he was dead. They said he had a bad heart, and he was dead. I was a poor, sixteen year old kid then,” she said as if she was attempting to explain herself. “He was in another country I had never even heard of before I met him. Who was I to question it? And why would I? It came straight from his mother’s mouth, Alex.”
“It’s okay,” Alex said, leaning her closer against him. “Stop beating yourself up. You couldn’t do anything about it, but accept what she told you.”
“That’s al
l I could do,” Kari said, her head leaned against his broad chest. “That was all I could do. But if I had known . . .” She shook her head. If she’d only known!
“What did he tell you?” Alex asked her.
“Not much. Oz felt I needed more rest.”
“But surely he told you something,” Alex said.
“He told me it was a lie. That his mother flat-out lied to me. He said it wasn’t his heart at all. He said he’d been in a shooting.”
That was out of left field to Alex. “A shooting?” he asked.
“That’s what he said. And he ended up with amnesia. He didn’t remember me. He didn’t even remember his own mother. Instead of telling me that he was alive, but didn’t remember me or his son, she told me he was dead. And I believed her. Why wouldn’t I?”
Alex nodded. “Right,” he said. “Why did he suddenly regain his memory?”
“He said he saw us in a magazine. And he saw my picture and remembered me as soon as he saw my face. He remembered everything,” she added. “At least that’s what he says.”
“Do you believe him?” Alex stared at her as she answered.
“He’s never been a liar,” she said as if she’d known him all the time he’d been away. “So yeah, I believe him,” she added.
Then she paused. “But now,” she said, “what am I going to do?”
It was a question that scared Alex the most. But it wasn’t the question he was asking. He wanted to know how she truly felt about the guy. Was she back where they started, or was that too long ago?
He knew the only way to find out.
And he had to find out.
“Do you need more answers from him?” he asked her.
Kari looked at him. Because that was exactly what she needed. “Yes, I do. Or, if not answers, something. Maybe I don’t even know what. But I need something more.”
Alex hated saying it. “Then I think you should go to him,” he said, “and find out.”
Kari stared at him. Alex was nobody’s fool. He knew what he was asking her to do. “Are you sure?” she asked him.
“You still have questions, don’t you?”
“Plenty,” said Kari. “Yes.”
“More questions about what happened?”
Kari nodded. “Yes. Who tried to kill him back then, for instance.”
“You also probably have questions about how he’s been all these years,” Alex said. Then he looked at her.
But Kari was no liar. She nodded again. “Yes,” she said.
“He’s Jordan’s father, after all.”
Kari stared at Alex. “You’re Jordan’s father.”
“In the eyes of the law, I’m his adopted father, yes. But in Jordan’s heart, when he sees the man you’ve only had wonderful things to say about, it’s going to be a different story.”
Kari’s heart sank. “But it won’t be, Alex,” she said. “Jordan loves you more than any man on the face of this earth.”
“But he didn’t know his biological father was still on the face of this earth,” Alex said.
Kari knew he spoke the truth. But Jordan loved Alex. “That’s not going to matter to Jordan in the long run,” she said.
Alex looked at her. It was as good a time as any. “And what about you?” he asked. “Is it going to matter to you?”
Kari stared at her husband. “What do you mean?”
Alex couldn’t go there yet, because she wasn’t ready to go there yet. “Go see him, Kari,” he said. “Talk to him. I need you to be certain he is who he says he is before we bring Jordan into this mess.”
Kari couldn’t agree more. “I will,” she said.
She got off of Alex’s lap, and then helped Alex, who was older than she was and felt every second of it at that very moment, off of the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Oz was already in the inner room watching DayVon through the one-way mirror. He just sat there, with his legs crossed, and napped. But when the door to the Soviet suite opened, and Kari walked in alone, DayVon rose to his feet. And Oz was surprised.
Then Alex walked into the inner room. “You’re allowing this?” Oz asked his brother as soon as he walked in.
“Yes,” Alex said and took a seat beside Oz. He was immediately staring at Kari and DayVon in the Soviet suite.
DayVon was smiling from ear to ear as Kari sat on the sofa. He sat down beside her. “It’s so good to see you again, Kari,” he said. “You didn’t look well last we met.”
Kari explained that the news was still shocking to her, and DayVon was, as Oz had said he’d been the whole time, completely sympathetic. Too sympathetic, if you asked Alex.
“Could he be a twin?” Alex asked Oz.
Oz shook his head, staring at DayVon too. “He could be, but that’s not what we’re turning up. He’s who he says he is. His mother gave him the name of DayVon, to give him street cred in America, at least she thought, when she sent him to live in Chicago at fifteen.”
“Kari said he was involved in a shooting that led to his amnesia,” Alex said. “Did that shooting check out?”
“It checked out. The amnesia did too. He actually did have amnesia, and his mother was very devoted to him.”
Oz’s cell phone buzzed. He looked at the Caller ID. “It’s the guys,” he said, and answered quickly. “Yeah? What you got?”
Oz listened while Alex continued to stare at the couple through the one-way mirror. But what surprised Oz as he listened on the phone, was that Alex wasn’t looking at DayVon at all. He was, instead, staring at Kari. Especially when DayVon told some silly joke about how they used to sell apples on the streets of Chicago to get movie money, and Kari laughed as if it was the funniest thing in the world. Alex was staring at his wife.
Then Oz ended the call. Alex was still staring at his wife. Oz looked, too, but he was looking at DayVon. “Remember when I told you something about the guy rubbed me wrong?” he asked.
Alex looked at him. “Yeah? What about it?”
“According to our guys, Mr. Clarke isn’t just some sweet innocent rediscovering his memory and searching for his kid.”
Alex was worried. “What is he then?” he asked.
“That memory rediscovery part might be accurate, they said,” said Oz. “But he’s no sweet innocent,” he added.
“What is he?”
“He’s a stone cold killer. He runs his mother’s drug cartel and he’s so good at it, he runs it as if it’s an ordinary family business. Every governmental agency on that island is in their pocket. He’s ruthless, Alexio. There’s nothing sweet nor innocent about him.”
Alex’s heart sank. Not for himself. News like that should have given him hope. But for Jordan and Kari. Kari still thought highly of the guy. Who would she blame when the truth was discovered?
Alex got up. He didn’t want Kari alone with the guy ever again. He went out of the inner room, out in the hall, and then entered the suite.
Oz watched DayVon carefully when Alex walked in. Although his look didn’t change, his demeanor did. He sat upright, as if he was some actor getting himself ready for a performance. He even smiled and rose to his feet. Oz smiled too. If he was foolish enough to think he could fool Alex Drakos that easier, he was a damn fool, Oz thought.
But as Alex walked into the room, his thoughts were more concerned about what Kari thought than Oz. He needed to make sure she wasn’t falling for his charm offensive.
But when she didn’t even bother to look his way, but was staring at DayVon as he stood on his feet, and was staring with a dreamy look in her eyes, he already knew what she thought. She was remembering him the way he used to be, not the way he actually was.
“You must be Kari’s husband,” DayVon said as he extended his hand long before Alex arrived at his side.
Alex turned his attention away from Kari, and looked at the man he immediately knew was now his competition. He didn’t shake his hand. “Hello.”
DayVon continued to smile. “I assure you I do not bi
te,” he said to Alex.
Kari was surprised when Alex didn’t shake his hand. She looked at him.
DayVon looked at his own extended hand, and then put it back down. “I’m DayVon Clarke. Nice to meet you, Mr. Drakos. Or may I call you Alex?”
“Is that what they call you in Cecoya?” Alex asked. “DayVon?
DayVon smiled. “Oh, no,” he said. “Not at all. They call me Dajalla in Cecoya. But I’m sure your people already figured that out. Funny how they couldn’t figure it out when you were attempting to adopt my son. But that’s neither here nor there. I recovered my memory, as I’m sure Kari has told you, and now I am here.”
“To do what?” Alex asked.
DayVon smiled again. “I haven’t worked that out as of yet,” he lied. “That is entirely up to Kari. And Jordan, of course.”
Alex motioned toward the sofa. “Have a seat,” he said. DayVon sat back down. Alex sat, not next to Kari, but in the chair across from the sofa. He needed to see Kari, not sit beside her.
But Kari needed him beside her. She also needed his emotional support, as she was still in shock by it all.
But Alex wasn’t that kind of man. He would hold her, and comfort her, but in the end he expected her to pull it together and move on. He probably figured she should have moved on by now.
But when emotions were involved, Kari could rarely just move on.
And it was her emotions that were at the heart of her seeing DayVon again.
“They said I could see my son,” DayVon said to Alex, “when you got here. Although, I would have imagined his mother, his biological mother, would be the one who would have the final say-so. Not his stepfather.”
Alex knew the game DayVon was playing, and he wasn’t interested in participating. He had bigger issues on his mind.
“So I put in my formal request,” said DayVon. “When will I be allowed to see my son?”
“When you tell me exactly why you’re here,” Alex said.
Kari looked at him. “What do you mean? I told you already.”
Alex Drakos: Branding Her Again Page 12