“Are you there yet?”

Alex and Kari smiled and shook their heads as Jordan, on Speaker, phoned them for what seemed like the hundredth time and asked that very same question.  Even before they left the states he was phoning and asking that question.

“No, Jordan, we aren’t there yet,” Kari responded.  They were in a rental car Alex secured at the Kefalonia airport and was making the almost two-hour trek to the village of Fiskardo, Alex’s hometown.

But Jordan, his mother’s keeper, still wanted clarification.  “So what you’re saying is that you’re in Greece, but you haven’t made it to Mr. Drakos’ family home yet?”

“That’s what I’m saying, yes.  We’re on our way there now.”

They could hear Jordan exhale over the line.  “Just be careful,” he told Kari.  “You and Mister D both.”

Alex smiled.  He leaned toward Kari’s cell phone.  “Does that mean you aren’t still upset with me, Jordan?” he asked.

“I wasn’t upset with you, sir,” Jordan said.

“Yes, you were,” Kari said to her son.  “Be honest, Jordan, no matter what.  Always be honest.”

“Yes, I was,” Jordan admitted.  “You promised you would keep my mom safe, and you didn’t.  But I know you tried.”

“Tried doesn’t mean shit, and you know it,” Alex said.  “You had a right to be upset with me.  I brought her with me because I wanted to make sure I protect her.  And believe me, son, nobody’s going to protect her better than I am.”  Then he corrected himself.  “Except maybe you.”

Jordan laughed.  “Yeah, right!  But I hope you guys can have some fun, too.  Mom needs a vacation.”

“Speaking of vacation,” Kari said, “how’s Vegas?”

“Lively,” Jordan said and they all laughed.  “It’s like the carnival on steroids!”

They laughed again.

“Where’s Mr. Gabrini?” Alex asked.  They dropped Jordan off in Vegas, so that Reno Gabrini could personally look after him while they were abroad, and Alex was curious to know if it was working out.

“He’s in the casino.  Dommi, that’s his son, took me around and showed me everything.  It’s exciting, sir.  I even got to see Mr. Gabrini in action.  That man doesn’t play!  He took a guy who was trying to steal from his casino and beat him down right there in front of everybody.  He’s a stone-cold gangster!”

Alex and Kari looked at each other.  Jordan had never really seen Alex in action.  He had no clue his soon-to-be stepfather was just as “gangster” as Reno Gabrini.

But Kari felt a parental obligation.  “Don’t glorify that, Jordan,” she admonished him.

“I won’t.  But that son of his?  That Dominic Gabrini?  Even more gangster than his dad!  He’s a handful, Ma!  That boy be trying to do things regular people wouldn’t even dream of doing in a million years!  It was scary at first.  And then just a little unsettling.  I had to sit him down a time or two and school him on proper behavior already.  It’s crazy.”

“Did he listen to you?” Kari asked.

“Oh, yeah.  He listened,” Jordan claimed.  “Anyway, I’ve got to go.  Mr. Gabrini’s other son, Jimmy, is downstairs.  He’s going to shoot some hoops with us.  They have a basketball court right inside the PaLargio!  It’s dope, man.  It’s insane!”

Kari wasn’t accustomed to her son speaking in so many adjectives.  But, then again, she realized, her son had very little experience with the outside world.  He lived, by and large, a very sheltered existence in Apple Valley.

They said their goodbyes, and Kari ended the call.

“I’m glad he’s schooling that terror I know as Dommi,” Alex said with a grin.  “Because he’s right: that kid can be a handful.”

“I just hope Jordan isn’t falling prey to that Vegas lifestyle that’s so foreign to him.”

“From what J is saying,” Alex said, “he’s not.  Instead of Dommi imposing his will on Jordan, Jordan might just be imposing his will on Dommi!”

But then Alex and Kari looked at each other.  They’d met Dommi before.  They knew what that kid was capable of.  “In our dreams, maybe,” Kari said with a grin, and they both laughed.

 

But it was hardly funny when they finally arrived at Alex’s childhood home in Fiskardo.  Kari couldn’t believe it was the same house she saw not all that many months ago.  The security gate was completely torn apart.  Grass was overgrown around the estate.  And as Alex drove toward the mansion, the house itself looked so badly maintained that it appeared abandoned.

“What’s happened, Alex?” Kari asked as she sat up and looked at the strange views around them.  Although she’d admit it was a cold and uninviting place when she last was there, it was still a beautiful place high up in the mountains that overlooked the Ionian Sea.  Now it looked like a dump.

“What in the world is going on?” Kari asked as Alex stopped the car at the steps.

“I don’t know,” Alex said as he unbuckled his seat belt and got out.  “But we’re about to find out.”

He walked around to the passenger side door and opened it for Kari, all the while looking around at a home he could not ever have visualized could look this grim.  And the lack of upkeep!  Discarded food containers and trash were all over the property as if it was the village garbage hole.  “It looks like the day after a Coachella festival,” Alex said.

But Kari had a different view.  Especially the way the trash seemed to be scattered about. “The first time I came to this house, I learned that nothing was what it seemed.  This looks like controlled chaos to me,” she said.

Alex looked at her.  “Controlled?” he asked.  Then he looked at the trash again.  And she was right.  He saw it too!  But that only made it more worrisome for him.  “Come on,” he said, as he took her hand.

They walked up the imposing stairs that led to the front entrance.  It was locked.  But instead of knocking as Kari assumed he would, Alex took her hand and began walking along the wraparound porch.  All of the windows had closed curtains to them, so they couldn’t see inside.  But he knew of a different entrance.

He walked around the porch, until they were near the back of the home.

“There’s nothing back here,” Kari said.  “How are we going to get in?”

“Through the door,” Alex said.

Before Kari could ask what door, Alex pressed his finger between what appeared to be a natural crevice in the building’s structure, and a side panel door opened.  She smiled.  It was a bold new world she was living in!

They entered the residence.

 

Upstairs, in the bedroom, Odysseus Drakos, known the world over as simply Oz, was naked and spread eagle on his bed, while a woman, herself naked too, was between his legs sucking him hard.

He had his eyes closed, trying to get into it, but the problem was that she wasn’t very good.  She was a hard worker.  She was sucking the shit out of him.  But she wasn’t very good.   He had to hold her head still more than a few times, and ram his long rod into her mouth, and then mouth-fuck her himself over and over the way he liked it, until he got the feeling.

He relaxed and closed his eyes again, and let her do her thing again, and she began to get a bit better.  Until that secret panel door was breached, and the alarm on his cell phone beeped. Oz the lover ended at that very moment, and Oz the fighter took over.

He pushed that woman away from him, jumped off of the bed, and grabbed the loaded semi-automatic rifle he kept by his bedside and took off.  Naked as a jailbird he ran out of the bedroom and onto the upstairs landing.

Downstairs, Alex and Kari were inside the house and were just making their way from beneath the stairway and toward the living room, when Oz began firing.  Alex had to snatch Kari back behind him, pull out his own gun, and proceed to fire back when he suddenly heard his brother’s voice.

“Show yourself, motherfucker,” Oz yelled, “or I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”

Alex relaxed.  He didn’t know why. According to Linda, Oz was the one who was trying to take them out in the states.  But Oz, to Alex, would always be his kid brother.  Oz, to Alex, could never defeat him!

“It’s me, asshole,” Alex said.  “If you shoot me I’ll kill your ass!”

“Show yourself,” Oz ordered.

Alex shook his head.  That twisted motherfucker!

“Alex, don’t,” Kari said nervously as Alex began to walk from beneath the stairwell.

Alex looked back at Kari.  “It’s okay,” he said to her, and then showed himself to his brother.  “It’s Karena and me,” Alex said.

Oz grinned when he saw that it was indeed Alex and not some impersonator.  “Why didn’t you announce yourself, idiot,” he said happily and began running down the stairs, his long, thick hair flapping as wildly as his long dick was, as he made his way to his brother.

Kari hurried to Alex and took his hand.  “You okay?” she asked him.

“Yeah, it’s just Oz being Oz,” he said.  “I’m okay.”

But when they realized Oz was coming toward them naked as the day he was born, Alex quickly stood in front of Kari.  “Cover yourself, brother,” he yelled.  “What’s the matter with you?  I told you Karena was with me!”

Oz looked down and seemed to realize for the first time that he was actually naked.  He then looked up at his big brother and grinned that roguish grin women loved.  “Oops,” he said, and then yelled upstairs, in his native Greek, to his woman.  “Patura!” he yelled. “Patura!  Fére mou tóra mia rómpa.  Then he realized she was among the villagers who spoke English too.  “Bring me a robe now!” he said in English.

It took a minute, but the woman that had been “performing” on Oz was now fully dressed herself and made her way downstairs with a silk robe in her hand.  When she made it downstairs, she angrily tossed the robe at Oz and began heading for the exit.

“What is the matter with you, Patura?” Oz asked her as he put on the robe.  “Throwing it at me like that!  What is your problem?”

“I’m leaving.”

“How?” he tied the robe.  “My car is garaged!”

“I text a friend.”

“What’s the matter with you?  It was just a little gunfire!”

A little gunfire, Kari thought.  Was there such a thing?

The woman found Oz’s comment weird too.  “You play too much, Odysseus,” she said.

“I wasn’t playing actually.  I thought we had an intruder.  But come on, Patura!  Is that what ails you?” he asked her.

She looked at him but kept walking.  “My name is not Patura,” she said bitterly, and then headed out of the door.

Oz looked at his brother and Kari.  He had too many women!  “Oops,” he said again, with another roguish grin.

“Now,” he said, as if that settled everything, “welcome back!”  He reached over to give Kari a hug, and then to hug his brother.

But Alex stopped him before he could touch Kari.  “Are you serious?” he asked him.

“Oh, you think I play too much as well?  What am I doing wrong?  I wanted to greet you and your lady, and to ask what you two are doing in Fiskardo.  Is that playful too?”

Alex snatched the rifle Oz still carried, removed the cartridge, and tossed it aside.

Oz was dumbstruck.  “It was not an unreasonable reaction, brother,” he said.  “I thought you were an intruder!  I get one a week lately.”

“Who would want to intrude on this dump?” Alex asked him. “What’s happened to this place?”

Oz smiled.  “Nothing that I didn’t make happen,” he said.  “Sit down, brother,” he added.  “Sit down.”