Kari didn’t know who he was.  All she saw was the front door fly open and a larger-than-life character almost as tall as Alex, and almost as big as he, walked in.  And although it was a cool day in Fiskardo to a point where Alex made Kari put on one of his jackets before they left the plane, this guy wore a full-length fur coat and a big-rimmed, stylish hat.  He also had a cigar between his teeth and entered grinning.

Alex had already risen to his feet, and so had his father, but it wasn’t until Zylena broke away from the group and ran toward the door yelling, “Oz is home!  Odysseus is home!” that Kari realized who he was.  He was Alex’s younger brother.  He was the man who might have been responsible for that ambush in Vegas, and the earlier attempt, in Florida, on Alex’s life.  Kari rose to her feet, too.

Unlike Alex before him, Odysseus Drakos hugged his baby sister vigorously.  It appeared to Kari, after only just laying eyes on him, that he was the kind of man who did EVERYTHING vigorously.

And then he, and Zylena, made their way to them.

Also, unlike Alex, Odysseus went over, removed his cigar from his mouth, and kissed their mother on the cheek.  Their mother, for the very first time in Kari’s presence, actually smiled.  He was apparently her favorite.

“How are you, Mother?” he asked her.

“I am wonderful,” she said as if she wasn’t the gloomy person she presented herself to be earlier.  “You?”

Odysseus stood erect.  “Good.”

“I heard not good.  I heard drunk and disorderly in town last night.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear.  I’ve never been disorderly a day in my life.”

“Ha!” his mother responded, not believing him for a second.  “Tell that to the birdies,” she added.

But then Odysseus nodded at his father, but turned his attention to their guests.  To Alex and Kari.  He left Zylena’s side, who was still clinging to him, and walked over to his big brother.  They were now face to face.

“So you made it,” he said to Alex.  “Papa said you were coming, but I had to see it to believe it.”  Then he looked at Kari.  “And to bring such a beautiful lady with you.”

He smiled at Kari.  “I am Odysseus,” he said to her, “but I am also known as Oz.  As in the Wizard of?  As in the man who can make all your dreams come true?”

His charming was contagious and Kari would have smiled if she didn’t know his backstory.  But she knew his backstory.  She remained stoic.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Oz continued.  “And the answer is yes, you are correct!  We have so little life in this forsaken land that we are movie buffs here.  English is our first language, as it is fluently spoken by more than half the village.  Greek spoken only where needed.  That is the strangeness of Fiskardo.”  Then he grinned and extended his hand.  “So nice to meet you.”

He was charming as hell, Kari thought, with those kind of ruggedly good looks ladies undoubtedly loved, although Kari wasn’t crazy about it.  But she did not shake his hand.  If this man did what Alex was told he had done, it would be like shaking the hands of your tormenter.

But Oz, being smooth as silk, Kari thought, didn’t withdraw his hand.  He merely turned it toward Alex, and extended it to him.  “Hello, brother,” he said.

But Alex didn’t shake his hand, either, forcing him to drop it.  His parents might have kowtowed to him.  But Alex didn’t.

“It was really wrong what you did to Linda, big brother,” Oz said, seemingly out of the blue.

Kari and Alex looked at him.

“Oh, yes,” Oz said, “I know about that.  The idea of harming such a beautiful face.  To shame, Alexio!  But no worries.  She is working with a plastic surgeon.  She’ll be back to being her beautiful self in no time!”

“You know an awfully lot about the woman,” said Elasaid, Alex’s father.

But Oz would only smile about that.

Fuck Linda, Alex thought.  It was high time to get down to business.  “Did you order those attempts on my life?” he asked his brother.

Oz was grinning again.  “A pointblank person,” he said.  “You have not changed a bit, big brother.”

“Did you order those attempts on my life?” Alex asked again.

“That would be a rude question,” Alex’s father chimed in, “if it turns out to be untrue.”

“True, untrue,” said Leda, the mother.  “What does Alexio care?  He left us when we needed him most.”

“But he is back,” said Oz, “when we need him even more.”

“Answer my question, Odysseus,” Alex said.  “Were you the man who gave the order?”

Oz stared at his older brother.  And then he nodded. “Yes,” he said.

When he affirmed that it was true, Kari expected shockwaves to reverberate throughout that household.  But they all looked if it was no news to them.

The father, at least, acknowledged the strangeness of it.  “I told Odysseus that it was not good form,” he said, “but he did it anyway.”

Not good form, Kari wanted to say.  Ordering his brother’s assassination was not good form?  Was he for real?

But Alex didn’t give his father’s comment a second thought.  His only focus was his brother.  “Why?” he asked him.  “Why would you do such a thing?”

And for the first time, Kari could see pain in Alex’s eyes.  Before she could not read the depth of emotion she was seeing in his troubled eyes.  But now it was clear.  His brother had not only betrayed him, but had hurt him to his core. There was a time, Kari believed, when Alex and Odysseus had been close.

But Oz reverted to his natural habitat, and smiled once again.  “You are needed here,” he said.  “I could not think of any other way to get you here.”

Alex was as shocked as Kari.  “You couldn’t think of any other way?” he asked.  “Speak plainly!” he added.

“I ordered those attacks,” said Oz, “knowing full well that you would survive them.”

Kari could not believe it.  She could hold her peace no longer.  What he had just spoken begged the question.  “And if he didn’t survive those attacks?” she asked Oz angrily, and everybody, except Alex, looked at her.

Oz, especially, was taken aback by her spunk.  Who was she to question him?  But he liked spunk and could not dismiss her.  “If he did not survive,” he said in his usual deadpan way, “then he would no longer be the man he used to be, and would be of no use to us anyway.”

But as Kari absorbed the shock of that statement, Oz had a different problem on his hand.  Alex’s heart was already filled with rage.  Now, with that statement, it was overflowing with rage that Alex could no longer contain.

Before anybody saw it coming, Alex took his sizeable fist and slammed it into the side of his brother’s face.

Oz stumbled back, as his cigar went one way and his hat went the other way.  He looked at Alex.  He was shocked by the hit.

But Alex showed no mercy.  He grabbed his brother and began punching him and punching him.  Oz grabbed his brother, fighting back, and they both fell over a table, breaking it.

“That is enough, Alexio!” his father was yelling.

“Do something, Elasaid!” yelled his mother.

“A fight!  A fight!” yelled his silly sister.

And the fight was on.

But Alex proved why he was the king of the mountain when he lived on that mountain.  He beat Oz’s ass.  Kari could not have been prouder of her man.  Alex beat Oz from one end of that room, to the other end.  Everybody was on their feet.  Nobody could believe the rage Alex held within him.

“Karena was with me, you asshole!” he was yelling at his brother as he grabbed him up from the floor once more, and continued to pound on him.  “Kari was with me!”  Blood was everywhere, but he kept on beating him.  “She could have been killed, you crazy fuck!  She could have been killed!”

But something else shocked Kari: Alex’s father had changed his tune.  Instead of trying to break up the fight, or urge his sons to cut it out even more, Elasaid began chanting, that’s my boy, that’s my boy, over and over, as if he was in a trance.  Alex was making Elasaid proud too.  He had never had a member of his syndicate as vicious as Alex could be.  That was why he was thrilled that Odysseus had gotten him back home.  Alex had that killer instinct.  He had what it took to take them all out just like he was taking out his own brother.

But when Alex was on his knees, continuing to plummet his nearly unconscious brother, it was Kari who knew she had to intervene.  It was one thing to beat his brother’s ass.  That bastard deserved every lick, in Kari’s view.  But did Alex really want his brother’s death on his hand?

She went to Alex, and placed her hands on his shoulders.  “You’re going to kill him, Alex,” she said to him. “You’re going to kill him!”

It was only then, on hearing Kari’s voice, was Alex able to get out of that dangerous zone, and come back to himself.

He stopped beating his unresponsive brother.  But he remained there, staring at his brother.  And then rose to his feet.

His mother and sister, now horrified by what they had just witnessed, ran to Oz’s aid.

Elasaid, however, had been so mesmerized by Alex’s pure power, and the fact that his oldest child still had that instinct in him, that he, too, was shocked to realize that it had gone this far.

“Everybody to their quarters,” the father said.  “This is enough for one afternoon.  Meet back, at seven, for dinner.”  He looked at Alex.  “Then we will talk business,” he said, and left the room.

Oz was being helped to his feet by his mother and sister.  He looked at Alex, through nearly swollen eyes, and smiled, even as his own blood had trickled onto his pearly whites.  “You’re the only man alive who could have done this to me,” he said.  “That was why I made that order.  You’re the only man who can help us.”

And then Oz, a mighty warrior in his own right, allowed the ladies to help him out of the room.

Kari was staring at Alex.  Was he ready to leave this hellish place?  He got his revenge.  Was he ready to go?  His father and brother were behaving as if they knew he wouldn’t leave them high and dry.  They were talking as if they knew he would be there for dinner, when business, as his father called it, would be discussed.  Kari didn’t know Alex like they knew Alex.  She wasn’t at all sure about what he would do.  Stay and help this family, a family who didn’t deserve his help, or get the hell out while he could?

“Come on,” Alex said to Kari as he placed his hand around her waist, and escorted her out of that room too.