Alex parked on the side of the dirt road that led to the pathway.  There was one way in and one way out, according to Reno, but Alex found another way.  He walked, fully armed, through thickets of trees and branches for half a mile away from the entrance.

When he saw the small cabin in those woods, he stopped walking to make sure there was no one on his tail, or positioned around the place.  All he heard were the night cries of the night insects.  But no human sounds.  He proceeded forward.

After carefully walking around the cabin, checking out the front door and the back door, he decided the back door was more vulnerable.  He therefore walked back around to the front of the cabin, banged vigorously on the front door, and then ran to the back of the cabin.

After several seconds, the front door was flung open by a man known around those parts as Snipe, and he opened that door with a sawed-off shotgun locked and loaded.  “Who’s the motherfucker banging on my door like that?” he yelled as soon as he opened up.

But while Snipe was distracted at the front door, Alex kicked in the backdoor, and entered in the house with his own rifle aimed and ready.

It was what they called a shotgun house, and Snipe turned around quickly to the sound.  But Alex was running toward him as soon as he turned.  Snipe fired a shot as soon as he saw the intruder, but Alex had already launched his body at him, knocking him down and causing him to fire erratically.  Alex knocked Snipe’s gun, along with Snipe, to the floor.

But when Snipe realized who it was that had tackled him down, he jumped back up and attempted to run away.

He made it to the back bedroom with Alex close on his trail.  But just as he was slamming the door in an attempt to lock it, Alex’s big body shouldered it back open, splintering it so violently that wood chips flew around the room like confetti.

Snipe backed up, looking around for something to grab in his defense, but Alex grabbed him, lifted his entire body up, and angrily threw him out of an unopened window, shattering the glass.

As Snipe lay on the ground outside, in severe pain from the glass breaking around him and the fall itself, Alex jumped out of that window, too, and made his way to Snipe’s side.

He grabbed Snipe by the shirt until Snipe was sitting up.  Cuts were all over his face and neck. “Why?” Alex asked him.  “Because I crippled your sorry-ass nephew?  Because I killed his ass?”

But Snipe wouldn’t answer him.

Alex punched him mercilessly in the face.  “Why, motherfucker?  Are you the one who sent those goons to Florida to try that shit there too?  Was it you all along, and not Vito?”

When Snipe didn’t respond, and Alex was about to rough him up some more, he gave in.  “Yes,” Snipe finally said, and he said it defeatedly.  “It was me.”

Alex stared at him, sizing him up.  “Lying motherfucker,” he said.

Snipe looked at him.

“I researched your ass before I came here,” Alex said.  “You’re the one who killed Vito’s old man, which happens to be your own brother.  You killed your own brother and did time in prison for it, too.  So I figure a man like that, why would he give a fuck about Vito?  He was a nephew to you in name only anyway.”

Alex pulled him closer, but this time he pulled out his handgun and placed it to Snipe’s head.  “Now you tell me the truth, motherfucker,” he said, “or when I leave, I’m taking your head with me.  Are you going to tell me the truth?”

Snipe quickly nodded that he would.  Alex just as quickly removed the gun from his head.  “Now talk,” he said.  “Who hired you to handle that Florida hit, because I know your ass didn’t come up with that shit all by yourself?  Who hired you to pull off that shit y’all pulled tonight?”

Snipe began shaking his head.

Alex grabbed him again, ready to put that gun back to his head.

“Your brother,” Snipe blurted out.

Alex stared at him.  “What?”

“Your brother hired me.”

Alex fired.  “My brother?”

“Since I did to my own brother what he wants to do to you, he figured I would make the perfect person to pull it off.  I’m experienced at this shit.  And I would have done it, too.  But I hired out.  I figure why get my hands dirty?  That fucker paid me in advance, anyway.  And the guys I hired weren’t the best, but I figured it wasn’t that hard a job.  You were just a rich business man, what could you do?  But you took them out in Florida, and when I hired a second crew to do the job in Vegas, you took them out too.”

Snipe shook his head as if he was mighty regretful.  “They failed,” he said.  “Every one of those fuckers I hired failed.  But I won’t!” Snipe said suddenly and grabbed Alex’s gun in a desperate attempt to wrestle it away from him.

Snipe was strong.  He had prison yard muscles and he and Alex tussled mightily for control of that weapon.  But he was not strong enough to overpower Alex Drakos.  Alex took control of his own weapon, turned it toward Snipe’s terrified face, and fired.

But when Alex made the run back to his vehicle, and then sped away from the scene, he was still reeling from the news.  He called Jimmy Hines, his conglomerate’s chief investigator.

“Get to Greece, Jim,” he ordered.  “I was just told that Odysseus ordered a hit on me.  I was just told that my own brother wants me dead.  Find out if it’s true.”

“Yes, sir,” the chief said, his voice as stunned as Alex’s. 

And when Alex made it back to the Presidential suite at the PaLargio, Alex was impressed with the level of security around the place.  His men had arrived, but Reno had men in place, too.

Inside the suite, Reno and Trina had gone, and Kari was sitting up in bed asleep, with a book called The Unauthorized Biography of the Billionaire Playboy, a biography on Alex’s life, sitting on her lap.

Alex, with his hands in his pockets and his brows knitted, stood at the bedside and stared at her.  If they stayed together, he thought, she would have no idea what she was getting herself into.  He had thought he could keep it separately.  Other than this drama with Vito Visconni, there had been no issues.  But suddenly there were plenty of issues, and not least of which might just involve his own brother.  If it turned out to be true, he knew keeping it from her would be an impossibility.  And he was so damned attached to her already.  Could he let her go, to save her?

But just as that thought entered his mind, Kari’s eyes opened.  And when she saw Alex standing there, in one piece, a brilliant smile came over her face.  And she tossed the book aside, jumped from the bed, and fell into his arms.

“Oh, Alex, you’re safe!” she cried as she held him.  “You’re safe!”

He might have been safe tonight, he thought, but that wasn’t the question.  Was she going to be safe, he thought, was the question.