After dinner, Reno decided to ride with his wife back to the PaLargio, where Alex and Kari planned to stay the night, rather than in the limo that had brought them to the restaurant.

Alex slouched down in the backseat of the limo, while Kari answered a text message from Jordan, as the limo took off.  Reno, being Reno, got behind the wheel of his wife’s car and flew off.  A drama king behind the wheel of a car, too, Kari thought.

Alex smiled.  Reno was one of a kind, to be sure.  “He seemed happy when Trina turned me down,” Alex said to Kari as their limo pulled off far slower, and obeyed the speed limits heading back.

“He certainly appeared happy,” Kari responded.  When she finished answering Jordan’s text, she looked at him.  “But are you okay with her decision not to take the job?”

“I’m actually relieved,” he said.

Kari was surprised to hear that.  “Relieved?  Why would you be relieved?”

“When I offered it to her, I cannot lie.  I had honorable intentions for offering her that job.  I believed she would make an excellent CEO.  But I had nefarious intentions as well.”

“Nefarious in what way?” Kari asked.

Alex was blunt.  “I wanted to fuck her,” he said.

Kari wasn’t shocked at all.  It was what it was.

“But now,” Alex continued, “after meeting you, it’s different.”

“Different how?” Kari asked.

“When I look at her now, I don’t want her like that.  I honestly don’t.”  He looked at Kari.  “I want you like that.”

Kari looked at him.  “But that should be all the more reason you want to hire her,” she said.  “You can handle it.”

“But out of respect for you,” Alex said, “I don’t want to have to handle it.”

Kari smiled.  And leaned against him.

But as they continued to drive in silence, Alex began what he called his eye sweep.  He looked around, to make sure everything was Copa static.  From what he could see, it all was.

Until he looked again, which was his way.  He noticed something so slight he doubted if anybody else would have even thought to view it as different.  But he had completed an eye sweep when they first got into the limousine to drive over to the restaurant.  The man who had driven them to the restaurant wore a chauffeur’s hat, too, but his hair was a darker brown, and it hung just below the nape of his neck.  Unless the driver went to the hairdresser’s while they were eating and got a cut and color, this driver had shorter hair with a lighter, reddish tint.   Which meant, in Alex’s world, he was not the same driver.

Alex remained slouched down, but he calmly pulled out his loaded revolver.  Kari saw it, and her heart skipped a beat when she saw it, but she was not about to give it away.  As their eyes met, she decided to just talk.

And she talked about Jordan and how he was texting her about the fun he was having with his godparents.  Alex, glad that she instinctively knew how to play this, kept his eyes on the driver.  He also placed a silencer on his revolver, as a just in case.

And as soon as the chauffeur turned down a side street, and Alex saw a car waiting at the end of the street, he knew shit was going down.

Knowing the limo was completely tinted, Alex wasted no time.  He immediately pointed the gun at the driver’s head.  “Put the car in Park,” Alex ordered, “or you’re dead.”

The chauffeur quickly stopped the limo and placed it in Park.

“Now get your ass in the passenger seat,” Alex ordered.

The chauffeur quickly raised his hands as he got over into the passenger seat.

Alex quickly got behind the wheel and continued to drive.  He didn’t want to give whomever was in that waiting car a chance to know something was wrong.

“How many?” he asked the driver, with his gun still pointed at him.

“Four,” the driver responded.

“Put your hat on my head,” Alex ordered, and the man did as he was told.

Alex didn’t have time to ask any more questions.  He shot the driver through the head, causing blood to splatter on the passenger side window, and the chauffeur’s lifeless body to slump against the passenger door.  It also caused Kari to flinch and almost lose control and scream, it was so sudden.

But Alex didn’t wait for her shock to ease.  “Get his gun,” he ordered her.

Kari knew that four men were waiting to ambush them, so she quickly did as she was told.  She moved closer to the front seat, and took the chauffeur’s gun from out of his pocket.

“Use it,” Alex ordered.

“I will,” said Kari.  She’d held a gun before when she was fooling with Vito’s crazy butt.  Shot one before too.  But this felt far more dangerous.

And as soon as the limo, driven by Alex, approached the waiting vehicle, four armed men got out of the car.  But Alex was ready for their asses.  He rolled down his window and Kari’s window, who sat just behind him, and swerved the limo away from the car.  Then he began shooting and took out numbers one and two before they could raise their weapons, while Kari quickly took out number three.  Number four, however, got off some rounds.

“Get down, Kari!” Alex yelled at her.  “Get your ass down!”

Kari dropped down as Alex sped away from the incoming fire.  The gunman got into the middle of the street and fired round after round after round after round.  He aimed to kill and was firing and firing.

Until he was firing, and no more bullets came out.

As the man quickly tossed aside the empty gun and ran to grab a gun off of one of his fallen colleagues, so that he could fire more rounds, Alex hit on brakes, got out of the limo, and it was his turn to walk toward the gunman firing round after round toward his ass.  Alex shot the gunman repeatedly, until he, like his comrades, was dead in the street too.

Then Alex went around to the front passenger side of the limo, pulled the chauffeur out and tossed him onto the street, too, and then closed the door, ran around, and got back into the limo.  He was looking around for more action.  But none came.

But he took no chances.  He got back behind that wheel and sped off.  “Are you okay?” he was asking Kari, and looking through the rearview at her, as he drove.

“I’m good,” she said, sitting up.  “I’m good.”

“Come up here,” he ordered, and she did as she was told.

Alex, to her surprise, pulled her into his arm as he drove.  He was breathing heavily.

“Where was security?” Kari asked him.  She was breathing heavily too.

“I didn’t think I needed any,” Alex responded.

Kari was surprised to hear it, since he kept security on her in Apple Valley at all times.  But she didn’t say anything.  She knew he was already upset with himself.

But Alex was more than upset.  He was disgusted with himself.  And that disgust, and anger he felt toward himself for being so shortsighted when he knew Kari would be with him in Vegas, was palpable.

He held her tighter.