Alex Drakos: His Dangerous Affair (The Alex Drakos Romantic Suspense Series Book 4)

by Mallory Monroe

  And as soon as he sat in that car, closed the door and rolled down the window, he was about to crank up to leave. But a hand reached into his car and stopped him.

  “What the fuck?” he asked as he turned to see just who was crazy enough to pull that bullshit. Didn’t they know who he was? He was the fucking police!

  But when he saw that it was the man from the police station, the supposedly rich one who inexplicably got the chief to drop those charges, he frowned.

  JimBob might have been poised to ask Alex the same question Chief Duncan had asked him. Namely, what was he doing? But Alex didn’t give him a chance. Mainly because Alex didn’t reach into that car empty-handed. He reached in with that same butcher’s knife the chief tried to use on him. And Alex didn’t hesitate. He took that knife and stabbed it straight through JimBob’s penis. JimBob was about to let out a howl of a scream, but Alex stuffed a balled-up rag into his mouth. JimBob screamed in horror, but his voice was even more muffled than Kenny Chesney’s.

  “Remember those drugs you found on my lady?” Alex asked him as he stabbed him again through his penis. “Blame it on that.”

  JimBob was trying to get away, to fight for his life, but all the pain was concentrated in his dick and he could barely bat a fly away.

  “Remember those men you beat with that bat?” Alex asked as he stabbed him yet again through his bleeding penis. “Blame it on that.”

  “Remember that black man you kept beating down to the ground, and you placed special emphasis on brutalizing that man’s penis?”

  JimBob looked at him.

  “I’m emphasizing yours,” Alex said.

  And Alex stabbed him yet again, and then again, and that final time broke the fever. And JimBob fell over. Alex glanced around as he took his gloved hand and checked JimBob’s pulse, just in case JimBob had only fainted and was not dead. But there was no pulse. He was gone.

  “Blame me, motherfucker,” Alex said bitterly as he stared at the lifeless form. Then he tossed the knife into the car, stood erect, and then walked away.

  And Kenny Chesney was still blaring over the speakers of that honky-tonk, and all those other drunks and pseudo-singers, who thought they could out-sing the singer any day of the week, were blaring too:

  “Get along, on down the road

  We’ve got a long, long way to go.

  Scared to live, scared to die

  We ain’t perfect, but we try!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Water. Freedom. Home at last!

  That was how Kari felt as she stood in her shower, well beyond mere cleaning, and allowed the water to drench her entire body. They returned to Apple Valley last night, after that craziness in Virginia, and she was grateful to be back home.

  But she also knew she had work to do and wasn’t going to allow anything to change her routine.

  She got out of the shower, dressed quickly, and headed into Jordan’s room. He, unlike her, slept like a baby all night, and was still sound asleep.

  She didn’t want to wake him. He’d been through his own hell too. But she couldn’t teach him to take time off just because life threw him an unjust curveball. He had to keep plowing away. He couldn’t let those bastards win.

  “Jordan? Jordan?” She shook him until she roused him. “Get up, boy. Time to get up!”

  Jordan opened his big eyes. But he didn’t get up. “Do I have to go today?”

  “Yes, you have to go today. You missed all those days when we were in New York. You aren’t missing another day. Time to get back on track.”

  “But they’ll think I was in a fight. I look like Rocky Balboa.”

  Kari didn’t know who Rocky Balboa was, but it didn’t matter: he was going to school. “Get up,” she said. “That doctor said you were fine. You look like you’re fine. Get up. And I mean it.”

  Which, for Jordan, meant he could forget it. He removed his covers, placed his feet on the floor, and sat up.

  “I’ll get breakfast started,” Kari said as she was about to leave his room. But then she saw his clothes were everywhere. “Look at this room,” she said as she began picking them up. “What did you do last night? Open your closet and start throwing your clothes out?”

  Jordan yawned and stretched. “I thought you were outside cutting the grass.”

  Kari stopped and turned to him with a say what now look on her face. “Why would you think something like that?”

  And when she asked that question, she realized why. For the first time she heard what Jordan heard as soon as he woke up: a lawn mower going. And it was going across their lawn!

  Curious, she flapped the clothes she had picked up over a chair and headed out of Jordan’s room. Jordan, curious too, got off of his bed still in his pajama pants, and followed her.

  Kari went around back, through the backdoor, since that was where the sound was coming from. When she opened the door and she and Jordan stepped out onto the back porch, they were both surprised. Alex Drakos, in a pair of Levi’s and a tucked-in t-shirt, with gloves on his precious golf hands, was mowing their lawn. They both were pleasantly surprised. This man was actually cutting their yard! Jordan even ran back into the house.

  But Kari was also concerned. And when Alex mowed his way toward her, and saw her, he turned off the mower.

  She was dressed for work already, he noticed, in a form-fitting light-blue skirt suit, and her hair was combed down in that bouncy look he loved. Keeping to the boundaries that Kari had set up for the sake of her child, she and Jordan slept in their own beds last night, with super-tight security that Alex ordered, and Alex slept across town in a house he now owned, in his bed. It wasn’t his choice. He would have moved both of them into his house if it was left up to him. But Kari made it crystal clear to him early on: she wasn’t shacking up, as she put it, with anybody! “Good morning,” he said to her.

  “Good morning. You didn’t have to do that, Alex. That’s Jordan’s job.”

  “It’s my job, too,” Alex made himself crystal clear as he began walking toward her.

  Kari smiled when he said those words. She’d never been in a relationship with anybody who took such total responsibility for her wellbeing. Even her parents never gave her that kind of love. It was exciting, and thrilling, and scary for her. Scary because she just wasn’t used to it!

  “I appreciate the sentiment,” Kari said, “but you didn’t have to mow the lawn today. We just got back in town.”

  “Ah, I wanted to. It needed mowing, and I need to lose some weight,” he said with a smile.

  And for the first time Kari actually looked at his body as he approached her. Seeing him out of his normal business attire and stripped down to a mere t-shirt and jeans made her see what he meant. He still had his six-pack abs. That wasn’t going anywhere she was certain. But she did see where he was also developing, oh so slightly, a little belly. A little paunch. But that only made him more adorable to her. He presented to the world as this perfect man: in dress, in great looks, in style, money, and power. But to Kari and Jordan, he was just himself. And to them, that made him better than perfect!

  He didn’t climb the two steps that led to the back porch, because he was sweaty as hell and didn’t want his drench to touch her clothes, but he leaned over the porch rail and kissed her on the lips. They both closed their eyes when their lips met. They’d only been apart for a night, but they missed each other’s touch.

  And as their lips parted, Jordan came back out onto the porch, with a cold glass of water. He handed it to Alex.

  Alex felt such a warmness for that young man that he’d never felt for his own two children: the daughter in prison for stealing millions from a charitable foundation he financed, and his son, who committed suicide rather than serve time for his part in the theft. Jordan was the first true, honest, and loving father-son relationship he’d ever had. “Thank you, son,” he said as he accepted the glass of water.

  “He’s just happy he doesn’t have to do it,” Kari said with a smile,
although she was very proud of her young man.

  Jordan smiled as well. “That too,” he said and Alex laughed. And he drank the entire glass of water with one gulp-down.

  “Have much more to do?” Kari asked.

  “Just the rest of the back yard, which should only take a few minutes. Then I’ll shower and we’ll take Jordan to school.”

  Kari was surprised to hear him say that. But she was too pleased to question it. “I’ll fix breakfast,” she said, and headed inside. Alex handed Jordan the empty glass, thanked him again, and got back to his mowing. Jordan stood there grinning like a Cheshire cat. Every night in his prayers he thanked God for Alex Drakos. It was as if he lost a father he never knew at birth, but he had gained one he was getting to know so well at fourteen. He loved Alex. He’d never tell a living soul. But he did.

  As if his grin was left in thin air like the Cheshire cat, he went into the house as if he was walking on that same happy air.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Kari and Jordan were already waiting in Alex’s black Mercedes when Alex, now showered and dressed in one of the array of suits he kept at Kari’s house, this one an elegant light-brown suit, made his way out of Kari’s front door and behind the wheel of his car.

  “I still don’t understand it,” Jordan was saying as Alex got in. “Do you, Mister D?”

  “Understand what?” Alex put on his seatbelt.

  “I don’t understand why Ma won’t drive her Rolls. It’s here in town. It’s in the garage at your house. But she doesn’t want to go and get it. We still have time before school starts.”

  Alex looked over at Kari. When he realized she wasn’t buckled in yet, he reached over and buckled her seatbelt for her. Alex didn’t understand it, either, but when she said she didn’t want to drive that car right now, he didn’t question it. “One thing about your mother,” he said as he began backing out of the driveway.

  When he didn’t continue, Jordan pushed his glasses up on his face. He only wore them when he was going to, or already at, school. “What’s the one thing about her?” he asked.

  “She’s never wrong,” he said as he glanced at Jordan. “Buckle up,” he said when he realized Jordan wasn’t buckled either, and they were off.

  As he drove through that slow, always hectic morning traffic, Kari reached over and turned on his stereo.

  Jordan smiled, because it was black music and it sounded good, but he didn’t know who it was. “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “BeBe and CeCe,” Alex said. “The Winans.”

  Jordan frowned. “The Who-ans?”

  Alex and Kari both laughed. “BeBe and CeCe Winans, Jordan,” Alex said. “Their Relationships CD.”

  Jordan smiled. All he heard was the word Relationships. “Oh, okay,” he said, as if their names rang a bell when it didn’t at all.

  But they all leaned back and enjoyed the songs. One song, Benjamin Winans’ These What Abouts, touched Kari deeply.

  “Now let me start by saying sorry,

  thought it might be positively too late.

  Knowing this one word can't change things,

  but yet it can express the way my heart aches.

  My heart aches!

  Cause what about the plans we made?

  What about the dreams of cascades?

  What about the vows we pledged?

  Are they still alive or dead?

  And what about the promise to stay?

  Can I still believe it's OK?

  Can we somehow talk about

  These

  what abouts?”

  Kari might have been touched, and Alex too, but Jordan just liked the way that it rhymed.

  But it was pin-drop quiet as they made their way through traffic. Kari pressed through a lot of the fast songs, until the CD circled back to another slow one: Bob Carter and Junior Giscombe’s penned Love of my Life:

  “My heart

  belongs to you.

  You’re the happiness I know I can depend on.

  Been there for me

  when things go wrong.

  There’s a river full of love I can rely on.

  You and I have faced troubled times before.

  Because of you I live needing nothing more.

  Where you are my heart isn’t very far

  So promise me now

  We’ll always be for-ever!

  Every day I wake and every night I dream of.

  One thing in life I’m sure of.

  You are the love of my life!

  Never should there be one moment lived without you.

  Nothing I’d change about you.

  You are the love of my life!”

  She looked at Alex and smiled. “I like,” she said, nodding approval.

  Alex smiled too. “I figured you would!” And Kari laughed.

  When they arrived at Jordan’s school, Jordan did as he always did and said his goodbyes and got out. He loved them both, but he wasn’t going to hug Alex, or his mother either, with all of the prying eyes of his friends and schoolmates. They were already staring as it was, simply because the richest man Apple Valley had ever known was driving a person they viewed as a nobody kid like him to school, but also because it just wasn’t done. Kids at Arapaho Middle didn’t go around showing that kind of public affection to any grownup.

  Alex pulled away. “He doesn’t give you a hug when you drop him off?” he asked.

  “Never,” Kari said. “He says it’s not cool. Of course, he’s on the debate team. He’s not exactly cool himself.”

  Alex laughed.

  “But he’s still a kid in a kid’s school. And he feels he has to act accordingly.”

  “I’m getting old,” Alex said. “I can’t even remember those days!”

  Kari looked at him. “Thanks for taking him. And me. I could have driven my Tercel you know.”

  “Didn’t I tell you your rust bucket days were over?” Then he glanced at her. “You have a very nice, brand-new car you know.”

  Kari frowned and looked forward. “I know. But it’s just that . . .”

  “What?”

  “What happened in Virginia,” she said. “I can’t risk that again.”

  Alex turned a corner and was back in thick traffic. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “They targeted us because we were black with a fancy car. It was bad enough for me, and I’m a grown woman. But I have a son. A young, black son. And I can’t risk that, Alex.” She looked at him. He was stopped at a traffic light and staring at her. “I appreciate the car. You know I do. I love it! But I can’t take that risk. Not yet. I’ll need time.”

  Alex understood. “Take all the time you need,” he said. “It’ll be waiting for you. And when Oz gets here tomorrow, you don’t let his ass touch it.”

  Kari smiled. “Oz is really coming then? To little Apple Valley?”

  “He can’t believe it, either. ‘I’m a metrosexual man,’ he had the nerve to tell me. ‘Apple Valley may not look good on me.’

  Kari laughed. That sounded so like Oz!

  “But he’s coming,” Alex said. “I’ve got to attend some vital meetings in New York tomorrow. I’m hoping to return later that night, but I want him in place, in charge of you and Jordan’s security, until I get back.”

  That sounded like overreacting to Kari. Oz used to be the head of an entire crime syndicate in Greece. Looking after her and Jordan would probably seem like babysitting work to a man like him. But after yesterday, and after what happened in Moscow at that nightclub, Kari was still seriously spooked. If she had to have a protector at all, she welcomed having a man like Oz, a man Alex trusted with his life, as the one.

  “He’ll probably hate the small-town life, I’ll tell you that right now.”

  “He might,” Alex said. “But he said for you and Jordan, he’ll give it a try.”

  Kari looked at him. “He said that for real?”

  Alex nodded. “He said that.”

  Kari leaned her head back. “
These Drakos men,” she said with a wry smile. “My my!”

  Alex laughed, and drove her on to work.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  What shocked Kari was when Alex didn’t just drop her off and go over to his still-under-construction hotel and casino to check on the progress, but, instead, got out at her office.

  “You don’t have to get out,” she said. “I’ve got it.” She thought he was getting out to open her car door. Alex smiled and kept getting out.

  She waited for him to walk around and open her door. When he didn’t, she was confused. And grabbed her briefcase and shoulder bag, and the bagged lunch she prepared for herself figuring she had so much to do she wouldn’t have time to go get anything, and she got out of the car. “What’s the matter?” she asked him as she hip-closed the door.

  “You said you had it,” he said.

  “I did. But why did you get out then?”

  “I’m shadowing you today,” Alex said.

  Kari looked curiously at him. “Shadowing me? What does that mean?”

  “I want to see a day in the work life of Kari Grant.”

  Kari smiled. “Why?”

  “Because I want to see what your day is like. Just as you see what mine is like all the time.”

  “I see no such thing!” Kari wasn’t going along with that whopper. “You don’t even let me hear your business phone calls. You always go in another room.”

  Alex smiled. “Then one day you’ll get to shadow me too. How about that?”

  Kari shook her head and headed across the sidewalk to her office door. “Busy as your schedule usually is? No thanks!”

  Alex nodded and followed her. “Good answer,” he said.

  When they walked in, they saw the one person they expected to see: Kari’s secretary, Dezzamaine. But in the office with her were a maid, Shantel, and three ladies, two white and one black, all dressed to the nines, all sitting prim and proper against the wall beside Kari’s desk.