“Yes, you can!” Alex was firm. “I’m going to be tied up here, unfortunately, and I don’t want you in any financial hardship. Pay your bills. Pay your workers. Pay yourself. Keep your people employed until we get that casino approval. Because I don’t care what you said, you will get that contract.”
Kari stared at him.
“And it has nothing to do with that,” he added.
Kari smiled. “Okay,” she said.
“I don’t care what you do with that card, just as long as you use it. The amount is unlimited. And I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Jordan smiled. That was how you had to handle his mother. Or she would be handling you.
Kari didn’t know what to make of this. The idea that somebody, and especially some man, would hand her a card and tell her to knock herself out, was generous beyond anything she’d ever experienced. She read where he was very giving to the women he dated. And he made it official last night: they were indeed dating. But it still felt surreal to her.
But something deep inside of Kari told her to never turn Alex down again. To meet him, not at her station in life, but at his. To elevate her own game.
“Thanks,” she said to him. “It’s early for this, but thanks.”
Alex knew exactly what she meant. It was too soon in their coupling for him to be this generous. Their relationship was still brand new. In truth, he still had mistresses he was supporting all across the globe for crying out loud! He had a lot of affairs to get in order if he expected to keep Kari. And it was his absolute expectation that he was going to keep Kari. She was the only woman who ever made his heart go pat-a-tat-tat just by showing up. She was the only woman whom he already knew was not going to put up with his bullshit.
She already turned down the chance at a lucrative contract that she needed desperately. She already followed her moral compass, no matter how fool-hearted to Alex, when the cameras, so to speak, were turned off. When it mattered. His money and power and position were not going to be enough to keep a woman like that.
He also knew, if he expected to keep Kari, that his lifestyle had to change, too. Dramatically. She was not going to accept being one of many females in his life. He knew that just as certainly as he knew his name. He didn’t even have to ask her.
He kissed her again, said goodbye to Jordan again, and got off the plane.
It wasn’t lost on Jordan that his mother beat him to the window on the opposite side of the plane to watch Alex walk back to his Mercedes. His mother was behaving like those people in the movies behaved: she was falling in love. And this time, she was falling for what Jordan considered to be a real man. Not like that icky Vito.
“Ma,” he said, as the plane began to taxi and they both were waving at Alex.
“Yes, dear?” Kari asked.
“With that card he gave you, could you buy me a pair of Jordan’s?”
Jordan smiled when he asked it, but Kari didn’t. She continued to stare at Alex. “We aren’t there yet, Jordan,” she said.
“After all he already did for us? Then what’s going to get us there?” he asked.
“Time,” Kari said, with a heavy heart.
It wasn’t until the plane had taxied and was lifting off of the runway, lifting up into the sky, did Alex head toward the driver side of his car. His heart was heavy, too. He hated, absolutely hated, to see them go!
But his focus shifted dramatically when two cars sped up and began firing on him. It was a shock to his system as suddenly bullets were flying and his security detail, in a car out of sight, came speeding across the tarmac firing at the second car: the car closest to them.
Alex might have been shocked by the sudden turn of events, but he didn’t hesitate. He rolled over his hood from the passenger side of his Mercedes, to the driver side, pulled out the loaded gun he always kept on his person, and began firing back at the first car as he opened his car door and jumped in, verbally commanding his car to crank.
It cranked. And Alex, instead of speeding off so that the first car could chase him, did something the two men in the first car were not expecting at all: he swerved his car as if he was doing a donut on the tarmac, until it was not fleeing the gunmen, but had turned toward the gunmen’s car. As if he was pursuing them. And then he floored it, and headed straight for a head-on collision.
“He’s crazy!” cried one of the gunman. “He’s not going to stop!”
The driver shifted the gear into Reverse, and began backing up as fast as he had driven up, but Alex was driving even faster. As if he was not going to stop until there was a massive head-on collision.
But at the very last second, when the men were so convinced he was going to kill them both that they covered their heads with their hands and braced for impact, Alex veered his car slightly left. He sideswiped the car so hard his airbag deployed, but he kept he car glued to the gunmen’s car, and his Mercedes pushed the gunmen’s car all the way across the tarmac until they crashed like crushed metal into a side wall with such force that the front passenger seat folded like an accordion, and both men died on impact. Alex dreaded going down that road, but he’d go down it with the best of them if his life was in danger.
But when he thought about danger, and thought about how this ambush was timed, his heart pounded. It occurred just after the plane lifted off from the ground. It occurred just after the plane was airborne, with Kari and Jordan onboard, and helpless.
As Alex’s security detail, which had taken out the second car’s gunmen, drove over to make sure he was okay, Alex was frantically calling his plane’s cockpit. “Get back here now!” he ordered. “There’s been an ambush on the ground and it may not stop here! Get back to the airstrip now!”
“Roger that, sir,” his pilot responded quickly, and Alex got out of his Mercedes and waited for the plane, that had only just taken off, to complete maneuvers to return.
His security detail was out of their car, watching and waiting too, until they saw the plane clear airspace and return to the airstrip.
They all felt relief, none more so than Alex, when they saw the plane head for landing. But just before it was about to land, and the wheels were to be deployed, the plane suddenly buckled.
“No,” Alex said. “Lord, no!” Alex cried. “Lord, no!”
And then an explosion ripped through the plane’s tailfin, creating a sudden shock of smoke and fire that tore the plane apart. The fuselage skidded down the runway wildly, with sparks flying from beneath its belly. The tailfin broke loose and skidded off the runway completely, like a runaway fireball.
Alex’s heart was in his throat as he and his men began running toward the front half of the plane. Alex was worried about everything: Kari. Jordan. Uncontrolled decompression. Everything!
The fuselage eventually stopped its skid landing, and the tailfin stopped spinning too. But then everything stopped. Even Alex and his men. And there was no movement anywhere.
Not anywhere.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
It was the worse feeling in Alex’s life when he stood there and waited. But was he even at the right end? What if they were in the back of the plane, near that tailfin? What if they were in that fireball?
His heart felt as if it was going to pound out of his chest. He needed to find out what happened. He needed to see for himself what happened to Kari and Jordan and if, by God’s miracle, they were still alive!
He could hear sirens in the distance, as ambulances were rushing to the scene, but there was no way he was going to just stand there and wait that way.
But just as he was about to act. Just as he was about to do something drastic to get on board that plane, the door opened, the emergency chute was deployed, and then Jordan, followed by Kari, followed by his crew and pilot, all slid down the chute, with their arms folded across their chests. All in one piece.
Alex had to lean down, and hold onto his knees, before he could make another move. Before he collapsed from the emotional horror he thought he was about to see.
But given who Kari and Jordan were, he didn’t have to make another move. As soon as they hit the ground, Jordan and Kari held onto each other, and then ran to Alex.
Alex regained enough of his strength and ran to them, too, and they embraced with a wonderful, grateful to be alive, endearing embrace.
But as he held onto them, and as they held onto him, Alex knew this had just gotten ugly. This had just gotten joined. And he knew what he had to do.
Jordan was in bed, at Alex’s mansion, and Kari had not left his side. She continued to hug him for nearly ten minutes after he had fallen asleep. Although they were both fine, Alex had ordered his personal physician and his physician’s staff to come to the house and fully examine them both. Both passed with flying colors, as Kari had already told Alex they would. Their physical state of being, she knew, was not the issue.
When she was certain her son was fast asleep, she eased off of the bed he slept in, and headed downstairs.
Alex was in his office. Kari had heard voices earlier, tons of voices, but he was now in his office alone, standing behind his desk, reading over what she saw to be, once she walked closer, blueprints.
“Where’s everybody?” she asked. “I thought I heard voices. And not just in my mind, either,” she added, with a smile.
But Alex had that serious look on his face. After what happened at that airstrip, he wasn’t smiling anymore. “They’re manning their posts,” he answered her.
“By posts you mean security posts?”
Alex nodded. “Yes. I’ve beefed up security to the highest level. You and Jordan will be safe here.” Then he looked at Kari. She looked well, but her eyes showed distress, too. “How is Jordan?” he asked.
Kari nodded. “He’s asleep, thank God,” she said. To find somebody for herself was one thing. And Alex already made clear that she was his lady now, as he put it. But to have that man care about her child, too? That was the priceless part. That was the piece of the puzzle that had never fit in her life. Not since Jordan’s father had passed. “He’s good.”
“He’s been through a lot, that kid,” Alex said. “But he’s resilient.”
“Yes, he is. You should have seen him when the doctor was here. He was smiling and cracking jokes, Alex. Can you imagine after what he’s been through? He’s tougher than I was giving him credit for.”
“People had better not underestimate him,” Alex said. “I’ll tell you that.” Then Alex looked at her even harder. “But you, on the other hand,” he said.
Kari was surprised by that comment. “What about me?” she asked.
“How are you holding up?”
Kari was never the type to lie or put on a happy face when she was miserable inside. She exhaled. “It was a terrifying ordeal,” she said. “I’m not even gonna lie. But I’m okay now. You have a great crew, Alex. They took care of Jordan and me first.”
Alex nodded. “Yeah, they’re the best. They will be greatly rewarded, financially and otherwise, for how they handled that emergency. For how they handled you and Jordan.”
Kari was pleased to hear that. But when Alex returned his attention to those papers on his desk, she moved around and stood beside him. “What are those?” she asked, looking too.
“Blueprints.”
She already knew they were blueprints. “But blueprints of where?”
Alex didn’t answer her question.
Kari hesitated. “It was the Patakis.” She looked at Alex. “Wasn’t it?”
Alex continued to study the blueprints. There was a pause at first. “Yes,” he finally said.
“You’ve confirmed it?”
Another pause by Alex. “Yes,” he said.
“You’re going after them. Aren’t you?”
No hesitation this time. “I am, yes.”
“You have a crew of men ready to go with you?”
“No,” Alex said firmly, continuing to study those blueprints, his face serious as a heart attack. “I work alone.”
That wasn’t what Kari wanted to hear. But one thing she knew for sure: Alex always knew what he was doing. “What’s your plan?”
“Take them out. Every one of them. A threat neutralized today is a non-threat tomorrow. And nobody’s going to be walking the face of this earth threatening you and Jordan. I will take them out.”
It was Kari’s time to hesitate. “Vito too?” she asked.
Alex looked at her. She didn’t know what he’d already done to Vito. She knew he had visited him, but she didn’t know the full extent of that visit. “Yes,” he said. “Do you object?”
Kari frowned. “Hell no! They could have killed Jordan. And from what the police said you went through when our plane took off, they almost killed you. They can’t get away with that.”
She moved sideways, as if her knees were buckling from just the thought of what might have been. Alex quickly reached out and placed his arm around her waist.
“They could have killed Jordan, Alex,” she said again. “They can’t get away with that.”
Alex pulled her into his arms. “Don’t worry,” he said, as he held her, and kissed her hair. “They won’t.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Danny Pataki walked into his not yet opened for business Chicago restaurant early that next morning to find his crew already there. Led by Scrub McGhee, all six men, Pataki’s capos, were eating breakfast and mouthing off about the playoffs.
“You hear that, Boss?” Scrub asked as Pataki headed to the bar counter: his daily routine. “They say we got a good shot this year.”
“They say that every year,” Pataki said, “and we go nowhere. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
The man behind the counter handed Pataki his ritual gear: a hot cup of coffee in his favorite coffee mug, and the Chicago Sun-Times morning newspaper.
“I believe it now,” Scrub said. “We’ve got the talent this year. That’s the difference. We’ve got the talent. I got it all mapped out.” He held up a spreadsheet with his brackets on it.
“You mapped out that hit in New York that went sideways,” Pataki said as he headed for the toilets. “You put that shit down and figure out what’s next. We got work to do. Forget those fucking games.”
The men laughed at Scrub as Pataki headed down the back hall. Scrub, however, was angry. “You think that shit funny?” he asked.
The laughter stopped, but the smiles and winks and elbowing didn’t.
In the restroom, Pataki entered the biggest stall, his favorite, and sat his coffee and paper on a side table. He then unbuckled, unzipped, and pulled down his pants and boxers and sat on the toilet. He immediately peed a long, drawn-out pee. And then, as was his custom, he opened his newspaper, picked up his coffee mug, and began reading and sipping coffee as he waited for his number two to arrive.
It always took several minutes. Several minutes of complaining about editorials. Shaking his head about how much the city was willing to spend for some fucking Obama library. Smiling at the comic strips. Then eventually, after that warm coffee had time to seep down far enough, he began to shit.
His bowel movement went on for several minutes, too, because of his hemorrhoids, but after several push-outs, the final pile pushed free.
“Aaah,” Pataki said when the last was over, and then he wiped his ass and rose to his feet.
But just as he stood, the door to the stall was kicked open violently, knocking his remaining coffee out of its mug, and there stood Alex Drakos, in jeans, a bomber jacket, and work gloves. Ready to work on him.
Pataki’s heart dropped. “How did you get in here?” he asked.
But he was asking the wrong question. It wasn’t a question of Alex getting in. He had studied those blueprints carefully, and found the security weak links. It was a question of what he was going to do about it. But all Alex had to do was think about how this man ordered a hit that almost killed Kari, and Jordan, and even tried to take him out. Alex didn’t give him a chance to ask anything.
Befor
e Pataki could get his thoughts together to say another word, Alex grabbed him by his fat head and dunked that head into the toilet. He dunked that head into the shit and piss that was floating around, and nearly drowned Pataki.
But drowning would have been too easy.
Alex lifted Pataki’s head out of the bowl again, causing Pataki to gasp for air and wipe the shit that had smashed against his nose. Then Alex slammed that same shithead against the sharp edge of the toilet’s top tank lid, over and over. Even as blood flowed; even as any fool could see Pataki was going to have a traumatic brain injury out of this world, Alex kept slamming that head.
Then when it seemed as if the pain could not possibly get any more excruciating, Alex placed both of his hands around Pataki’s neck, and then performed what he used to call his coup de grâce when he was a fixer for his old man: he twisted that motherfucker, until it broke.
Then he pushed Pataki’s now dead body back onto the toilet seat, and then took his boot and kicked the body as far down into the toilet bowl as it could go. Where, Alex decided, it belonged.
Up front, Scrub and the other capos were still laughing and talking and eating their big breakfasts. Their bellies were full. Their hearts were happy. And then Alex, from the back hall, walked in.
Scrub was the first to see him, and when he saw him he was stunned. But unlike his boss, he didn’t ask any obvious question, such as where the fuck did he come from. He didn’t ask any question at all. He and his men rose to their feet, pulled out their guns, and commenced to shoot.
But Alex pulled his sawed-off shotgun from his side and shot Scrub first. He always went for the strongest man first.
And then, in rapid succession, he shot the other two men who had been sitting at Scrub’s table.
But that still left three men, and they turned over tables, took cover, and started firing back.
Alex had to bail. He jumped over the counter, killing the cook that stood behind it, and had to shield himself from a barrage of bullets as he ran into the kitchen.
Alex Drakos_His Forbidden Love Page 19