More knocks. “Miss Grant, please open the door so that I may explain to you what has just transpired.”
She heard what Alex’s father was saying, but she remembered what Alex had said. She was not to open that door for anybody but him. He didn’t care who was on the other side. Do not open that door!
She began running, as if her life depended on it, across the massive bedroom toward the bathroom door.
Just as she did, she heard Elasaid say “do it,” and then she heard kicks on that bedroom door. Then the door was kicked in. The men who kicked the door open came in first, but Elasaid was right behind them. And he saw Kari just as she was running toward the bathroom.
“Get that bitch!” Elasaid yelled angrily, and his men ran toward the bathroom, too.
Kari could feel them closing in as they ran at an angle, putting them almost at the same distance from that bathroom as she was. One of Elasaid’s men was even able to reach out and grab Kari’s blouse, and was about to sling her away from that bathroom door and into their clutches. But Kari snatched away from him, entered the bathroom, and slammed that door shut. Then she quickly locked it.
She held up that loaded gun Alex had given to her with trembling hands, backing away from that door in a state of pure panic, as the men on the other side began kicking it in. She was going to have to kill them. She was going to have to kill each and every one of those motherfuckers who tried to come for her. Before, when she was in this position, Alex was with her. Her protector was protecting her. Now she was all alone.
But then she remembered something else Alex had told her. It was during a conversation they had at that window overlooking the sea. Alex said he would go to that sea, late at night, through an escape route “behind the sink in the bathroom of this very villa, a passage that my parents did not know existed. I happened upon it by accident myself.”
Kari quickly looked at that sink as that door was within a hair’s breadth of being kicked down. She pulled on the sink. She tried to push it side to side. But it was a sink! How could Alex claim a sink moved???
Kari was beyond panicking. “Lord, help me,” she was crying. “I don’t know where. Where, Lord, where?!”
But the men outside of that bathroom door weren’t waiting for answers. They leaned back one last time, and kicked it all the way down. They ran into that sizeable bathroom, and Elasaid ran in behind them.
To their shock, there was no Kari. They looked up and down. Around and around. But the black girl was gone.
“Impossible!” Elasaid said. There were no hiding places in that bathroom. There were no corners or moveable objects. And they all saw her go into this place!
Then Elasaid looked up. There was an air vent on the side wall. It didn’t look wide enough to him, nor did it look as if it had been tampered with. But that was all they had!
“Remove that vent and see if she somehow got in there,” he ordered to the crew chief. “And get men to surround the castle in search of her. I want her found.”
“Dead or alive?” the chief asked him.
“Dead or alive!” Elasaid replied, and angrily left the bathroom.
His plan had gone awry already, he thought, as he left. She was going to be his hostage. She was going to be that extra leverage he had should Alexio try something crazy. Because Elasaid knew his son. He knew he was going to make it out alive with those five underbosses no matter who didn’t make it. Alexio, he was certain, would.
And he just might come for his father.
But when Elasaid was angry, he was irrational. And he was irrational now. He didn’t care about having a hostage. He didn’t care about having a bargaining chip. He just wanted that bitch captured, however way they caught her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“What the fuck was that about?” Alex yelled at his kid brother as Cronos sped their car away from that poolhall in Argostoli.
“How the fuck should I know?” Oz yelled back. “I didn’t know this was going to happen! My job was to get you back in Greece to negotiate a truce because you’re the only one they would meet with. They were supposed to release Zylena, and we were supposed to negotiate a truce!”
“Zylena!” Alex said, his heart heavy. “How could Jabari and Maximus come out firing when they knew those bastards had our sister? Their asses weren’t there to negotiate any truce. Their asses were there to take Batebbi and all of the others out.” Then Alex hit the side of the door panel and yelled, “motherfuckers,” so violently that Cronos glanced at him through the rearview mirror, to make sure he was going to be alright.
Then Alex had another thought, about another woman, and he pulled out his cellphone.
“And what was that shit about Papa muscling them out of the Games,” Alex asked Oz, “when Papa said they had muscled him out? Batebbi told the truth about that too?”
He could tell Oz hated to admit it. But he admitted it. “Yes,” he said.
Alex shook his head. How could he have not seen this? How could he have allowed himself, and his good name, to get mixed up in this backward-ass bullshit?!
“But we were still there to negotiate a truce,” Oz said. “And to get Zylena back. We’ve got to get to the castle, and see if they will be willing to reason with us and return her unharmed. That’s our only option. They have to know that father has the upper hand now, no matter how he got it. He is firmly in control now. Their second-tier leaders are now dead too. Thanks to you,” Oz added, which only angered Alex more. “Father now is the sole leader of the Greek Mafia. But if you’re asking me if I knew Jabari and Maximus were going to pull that shit, Alex, before we even had Zylena’s release, the answer is no. You know I would not have approved anything that nuts. I had no idea.”
Alex could kill somebody right now! He was that upset. But he called Kari instead. She was in that house with that twisted, power-hungry motherfucker. He had to make sure she was okay.
But Oz was frowning. “What are you doing?” he asked him.
“Calling Karena,” he said.
Oz stared at his big brother as if he was staring at a stranger. At a time like this he was worried about a lady? Alexio? The man with a lady for every day of the week? For every mood he was in? Was this man his big brother?
But Kari didn’t answer the call. And it terrified Alex. “Faster, Cronos,” he said to his driver. “Get me back to the castle as fast as this bucket can get me there!”
And Cronos floored the gas, and flew right past the car in front: the car containing Alex’s uncles.
Kari had gotten out. Just when she prayed, and needed that sink to do for her what it did for Alex, she felt around to the furthest underside of the sink, found a button, and pressed it hard. The sink slid open to a passageway, and she ran through it. As she was pulling the sink back closed, Elasaid men had kicked the door down.
Now she was running. And if she doubted it before, she did not doubt it now: she was running for her life.
But it was tricky. She had to scale down the side of a mountain. But she did it. She hurried down rock after rock after rock until she was near the bottom. But when she saw at the bottom, a group of Elasaid’s men seemingly searching for her, she started running sideways, toward the plateau of woods that ran parallel to the sea. But someone on the ground saw her, and began firing.
She darted into those woods and kept running. She had one loaded gun. She was not going to be able to outshoot an army of men. She ran.
But just as she was nearing a clearing, and was about to take it, another group of men, this time two of them, were seen. When she saw them, they saw her, and they attempted to get off a round. But Kari dropped back and fired first, and fired repeatedly. She hit them both.
But she knew the sound of the bullets had alerted that other group of men, the larger group, and she had to keep running!
She ran across the clearing, back into another thicket of woods, and kept on running. What she loved about Alex was the level of confidence he had in her abilities. He truly believed sh
e could handle situations like this. What she hated most about Alex was his confidence in her abilities. She wasn’t at all sure if she could handle shit! But she knew she had to. Not just for her own sake. Or even Alex’s. But for Jordan’s sake. Nobody was going to take care of him the way she did. No matter how bleak it looked now, she was going home to her son.
But it only got bleaker. As soon as Kari made her way out of those woods, and was hopeful that she had strayed far enough away from the larger group of men, she found herself face to face, not only with yet another group of men, but their pointed rifles too. All sixteen of them.
She dropped her own weapon, and held up her hands.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The gates to the castle were quickly opened, and the two cars, led by Cronos’s car, sped inside. Alex and Oz jumped out of the car, and ran into the main house. They did not wait for their uncles to so much as open a car door. They knew who was the boss. They knew that Jabari and Maximus did not fart without Elasaid giving them permission.
And Elasaid, along with his wife Leda, were waiting in the living room. Oz ran up to his father. Alex, however, ran up the stairs. He had to check on Kari first!
“How could you, Papa?” Oz asked. “They still have Zylena!”
Leda was angry. “You left her? How could you leave without her?”
“What are you talking about, Mother? There was no choice to be had! Jabari and Maximus came out shooting. They did not give us a chance to get her out. They did not give us a chance to negotiate a truce! They did not give us a chance!”
Upstairs, Alex heard his family’s voicing, arguing the way they usually did, but his mind was focused on getting Kari. He ran all the way around that wing of the home until he made it to his bedroom. When he saw that the door had been kicked open, his heart dropped.
“Kari?” he yelled as he ran into the bedroom. But Kari was nowhere to be found. And when he saw that the bathroom door in the back of the room had been not only kicked open, but kicked all the way down, his heart fell. He ran into that bathroom, praying there would be no blood. There was none.
And then he looked at the sink.
Kari, he was pleased to see, had attempted to push it all the way back in place. And she almost succeeded. No man, who did not know better, would have seen the inch of space between the sink and the wall. But Alex saw it. And it was the first time since the madness began did he begin to feel hopeful.
But that hope was crushed as soon as he was about to run to that sink and go and find her. Oz ran into the room.
“Alex! Alex!” he yelled.
Alex turned around.
“Papa has Karena.”
What did he mean by Papa having Karena? He spoke as if she was his prisoner. But Alex did not ask for clarification. He hurried past his brother, and then they both hurried downstairs.
Kari was standing in the living room with two of Elasaid’s men holding her by her arms. There was now a large army of Elasaid’s men in the living room. They had found Kari, and all had come in together. Jabari and Maximus had arrived in that living room too.
But as Alex came down those stairs and saw her standing there, he was livid. “Release her at once!” he yelled angrily to those men. “Remove your hands from her!”
But both men looked at Elasaid. And Alex began to make a fast run toward Kari, to release her himself, but every man in Elasaid’s army of men closed in on him with their weapons trained at his head. It was only then did Alex understand just how different everything had become. He used to command every one of those men, and they respected his command. Now he was just another enemy Elasaid ordered them to dislike.
Alex looked at Kari. She tried to smile, to let him know that she was okay, but he could see that look of terror in her eyes. But he knew what he had to do. His only purpose was getting Kari out of this country, and his father’s house, alive.
“Let her go, Papa,” Oz said to their father. “Why have you captured her.”
“I thought I could use her,” Elasaid. “For leverage. But you and your brother performed mightily. Especially you, Alex. I ordered Odysseus to bring you here to get us in that meeting room with all five number twos. You did that for us.” He smiled. “You even killed them for us, from what I’m understanding from my brothers,” he added. “That is all I need from you. Now I dominate this country. Now they will have no choice but to come to me.”
“And what about Zylena?” Alex said. “Or do you not care?”
“I care,” Elasaid said. “A little.”
“Elasaid!” Leda yelled at him in horror. “Do not speak so cavalier of your own daughter!”
“I care,” Elasaid said again, “but I care about our position in this country more. They will do her no harm because they know I am now in charge. They will have to come to me. Everything comes through me now!”
Alex looked at Kari. “Are you alright?” he asked her.
“She’s fine,” Elasaid replied before Kari could. “I ordered them to kill her if they had to,” he added. “And they would have had she not been so black.” His brothers laughed. “They simply could not see her!”
Alex made an aggressive move toward his father. He just wanted to get his hands on that bastard. But Elasaid men stopped him, with their weapons and their hands. He, too, was now their prisoner.
But then the phone rang. It had been dispatched straight through by Security. Everybody looked at Elasaid. He nodded at Jabari.
Jabari walked over to the phone, placed it on Speaker, and then spoke. “We have Zylena,” the voice on the other end said.
“And we have the power,” Jabari responded. “Which of those, do you suppose, are more potent?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “We are willing to negotiate a truce,” he said.
Elasaid grinned, and shoved a fist in the air. He mouthed, “I knew it,” as he did.
Jabari looked at him. “They want to negotiate a truce now,” he said with his own cocky smile.
But Elasaid quickly shook his head. “No truce. They have no power against me. But they may join me.”
“Tell them not to harm Zylena, Elasaid,” Leda insisted.
“No harm,” Jabari said to the voice on the other end of the line, “has come to Zylena?” he asked.
“No harm yet,” said the voice.
“Harm her and you die,” Jabari said. “We will call you back with our terms.” And he ended the call.
“You bastard!” Oz yelled at Jabari. “You could have ordered them to bring Zylena home. You could have pretended to want a truce just to get Zylena home!”
“We’ll get her home,” Elasaid replied, “but only on our terms. When they took her, they did us a good turn. They forced Alex to make a decision to meet with them much faster than I had anticipated. They can keep her a little longer.”
“And you,” Elasaid added, “can take your whore and get out of my country. Your usefulness is now beyond its sell-by date. Leave and do not come back.”
The men finally removed their guns from Alex’s head, and the two men removed their hands from Kari’s arms. Kari ran toward Alex, and Alex ran to Kari. And he did not delay. He did not look at his mother, his father, nor his own brother. He took Kari in his arms, and left that house as quickly as his feet could take him. He did not look back.
Cronos drove Alex and Kari along the winding driveway that led to the security gate. And when the gate opened, and gave them safe passage out, Cronos drove along the side of the private road that surrounded the castle. But it drove slowly. Very slowly. Kari knew something more was up.
She looked at Alex. Still holding her hand, he turned to her. “I want you to go to the plane,” he said. “Cronos will see you safely there. You can trust him.”
“What are you going to do?” Kari asked him with grave reservations in her voice.
“What I should have done a long time ago,” Alex responded. But he would not say more.
Kari stared in his hard, blue
eyes. “You may need backup, Alex.”
“No.”
“Whenever I’m with you,” Kari said, “I have no fear. I know I’ll be okay. You may need backup, Alex.”
Alex stared at her. How could he allow her to go into such a dangerous situation? But what if they attacked her at the plane? What if Cronos was unable to protect her? What if something happened to her because she was not in his sight, and at his side?
It was a calculated crapshoot. But he made a decision.
She was safer with him.
He lifted his hand. Cronos saw it. And pulled to the side of the road.
They entered the house the way Kari, at the moment of her gravest danger, exited it: through the passage way behind the bathroom sink. They were armed and ready: both with high-powered shotguns, and both with silencers on the muzzles.
Downstairs, the Drakos family was still in the living room. Jabari and Maximus were having drinks. Oz was slouched down on the couch, still processing what had transpired, and Leda was still arguing with Elasaid about the best way to get their daughter back, and back unharmed. The army of men had now gone, and the castle was back to normal.
As Alex and Kari entered the landing that led to the staircase, they stood at the railing that overlooked the living room.
“Who?” asked Kari.
“Odysseus,” replied Alex. “Make sure he remains neutral.”
Kari nodded and pointed her weapon in the direction of Oz. And then Alex lifted his shotgun, aimed, and fired. Maximus took a shot to the forehead, and fell first. The silencer did its job, and nobody heard the shot. But they saw Maximus fall.
Especially Jabari, who was suddenly fearful. After all they had survived, had his beloved brother succumbed to some sort of heart attack?
But that was exactly as Alex had wanted it. He wanted Jabari, the ringleader of those two sadistic bastards, to feel pain first. And then Alex shot Jabari, through the side of the head, ending his reign.
When Jabari fell too, Oz jumped up from the couch, and Elasaid looked up at the top of the staircase.
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