When Alex and his crew made it back to the hotel in Munich, after traveling in separate vans, all Alex wanted to do was go to bed and try to get some sleep. He was given the key to his new suite, as the presidential suite now needed serious repairs, and he began making his way to the elevators. But Belvins stopped him with news about Kari.
“As you know, we never turn on our phones when we’re on assignment in the field.”
It was only at that moment did Alex realize his cell phone was still off.
“That’s why,” Belvins continued, “I didn’t get the call in time.”
“In time for what? And what call are you referring to?”
“The call about Miss Grant, sir.”
Alex stopped walking. His heart dropped. “What about Miss Grant?”
“She somehow found out about the incident, about the shooting, and is on a plane, sir. She’s on her way to Germany.”
Alex couldn’t believe it. “She’s coming here?”
“She’s on her way, yes, sir. She was already in the air before I knew anything about it, or I assure you I would have stopped it.”
“But how is she getting here?” His private plane was already in Germany. “Is she on a commercial flight?” Where she could be unprotected, he wanted to add. Or disrespected! Alex was getting red hot with anger.
“It all happened so fast, sir. Her security detail back in Florida tried to contact us, but, like I said, we were in the field and you were being interrogated. None of us had our cell phones on. And they had no choice but to let her fly commercial. Sending your aircraft would have taken 12 hours just to get to her, they didn’t have permission to send it anyway, and they said she wasn’t about to wait that long to get to you. She had booked her flight and was on her way to the airport before they even realized themselves what was happening. They had to get tickets last minute and board that plane too.”
Although Alex was angry by the lack of notice, he still felt thrilled that he would be seeing her again, even though it was a thrill he wasn’t about to share with his men. But he was concerned about Kari, too. “Her security had better be airtight on that plane,” he warned.
“Yes, sir. It is, sir. I already told them myself. They understand.”
“Jordan with her?”
“No, sir. He’s still in Apple Valley. He’s going to stay with the Church family while she’s here.”
“Tighten security around him.”
“Even more than he already has?” Belvins asked. The chief was surprised because Alex already had more elaborate security on Kari and Jordan than he had on himself.
But it was a question that went to the heart of the matter for Alex. In his heart, he was responsible for those two people unlike he’d ever felt responsible for anybody in this world. And that included his own flesh-and-blood deceased son and incarcerated daughter, both of whom were brainwashed into hating him by their mother.
But that ambush left him not only reeling by how close a call it had been, but by how unsettled it left him. Not because of what would have happened to him per se. But because, if he would have died in that ambush, who, he found himself wondering, would take care of Kari and Jordan? “Yes,” he responded, in answer to his chief. “Even more.”
But as Alex turned to head to the elevators, the GM hurried across the lobby and called his name. “Excuse me, Mr. Drakos,” he said when he made his way up to him. “But you have a guest waiting. A Miss Kari Grant?”
Alex looked at Belvins. He was just as surprised as Alex. “I thought she was still in flight,” he said. “When I got the call, when we were heading back, she was still on her way. I thought I’d have time to tell you long before her plane landed. But it was a long drive back and I got that call a couple hours ago.”
But Alex didn’t wait to scold his security chief. He didn’t give a fuck about scolding anyone. He needed to see Kari. He needed to make sure she was okay! He hurried across the lobby where Kari was waiting, leaving the GM and his chief well behind him.
And when he saw her, sitting in an oversized wing-backed chair, her head leaned back and her eyes closed, his heart swelled with pride and happiness and love. Great love. Because he knew she came all this way, spending money she did not have to spend like that, just to make sure he was okay. No other woman, no other human being, had ever cared for Alex the way Kari did.
And as her security detail, the men he paid to keep his woman safe, rose to their feet when Alex entered the area, he didn’t even think about scolding them for not keeping the chief aware of her location moment-by-moment. His heart, mind, and eyes were on Kari, even as her eyes remained closed and oblivious to his arrival.
When he made it to her, he knelt down in front of her and placed his hands on the arms of the chair. And he looked at her smooth dark skin. At her perfectly symmetrical face. He inhaled her always clean, always fresh scent. “Kari,” he said to her so softly it would have been amazing for her to have heard him.
But she heard him. And opened her eyes. When her eyes opened, and he saw that softness he loved so much, and then she smiled at him, his heart melted. And he smiled too. “Hey, babe,” he said.
When Kari suddenly realized she wasn’t back home in bed, but remembered she was in Germany making sure Alex was still alive and kicking, her look turned panicky. “Are you alright?” she quickly asked as she sat up in her seat. She even placed her hands on his face and chest as if she were feeling, he thought whimsically, for bullet holes.
“I’m perfectly fine, darling,” Alex said to her, amused and gratified. He stood up. She rose to her feet too. And he embraced her with an embrace that nearly smothered her. And then, ignoring the GM and security chief and anybody else who would want his attention, he took her upstairs.