The limousine came to a stop in front of the horse track’s V.I.P. entrance.  The door was opened by the waiting doorman, and Elasaid Drakos, along with a young woman who was not his wife, stepped out of the backseat and headed across the sidewalk.  His two bodyguards, led by Manny, his security chief, hurried to keep pace, as Elasaid was always a man in a hurry.  Nobody walked in front of him.  Not even Manny.  It would be, in Fiskardo, a sign of disrespect.  The guards walked just behind him, looking around, careful to block anybody who would come within ten feet of him.  His lady friend walked behind the two guards.  She knew her place, and she kept it.

They entered the V.I.P. lounge and made their way onto the private elevator.  It was the weekly running of the Fiskardo Derby, and Elasaid’s non-routine routine landed him there.

One of Oz’s spies on the ground, also in attendance at the Derby, notified him.  “He’s on his way up,” he said into his wristwatch.  “Two bodyguards and one woman with him.”

“Linda Drakos with him?” Oz asked.

“Negative.  The woman with him I do not recognize.”

“Okay.  Thanks.”

And the spy, his job completed, headed into the stadium to place his bet and watch the race.

Elasaid, on the other hand, owned a skybox at the stadium, and made his way to the top floor where his private viewing box was located.  When he and his entourage stepped off of the elevator, they walked along a corridor that led to the skybox.  Elasaid himself opened the door and walked in.  But as soon as he entered, and the two bodyguards proceeded to follow, the door, from inside, was slammed shut.

The bodyguards immediately tried to open it as they reached for their guns, but it was already locked.  And coming out of a door across the hall, the door that led to the stairwell, were Oz’s men.  Four strong.  With their weapons already drawn.

“Remove those hands,” they ordered.  “Or you die!”

Both bodyguards lifted their hands in the air, as two of the four hurried to them, and removed their weapons.

“Let’s go,” they ordered.  At any moment another skybox owner could enter the corridor heading to his own skybox.  They had to be quick.  And they quickly ushered the bodyguards, and the frightened young lady, through the door that led to the stairwell.

 

Inside the skybox, Alex grabbed his father and pushed him down onto a chair.  The outer part of the partition in the skybox, the section that led upwards and out of the view of the public, still had its privacy shade down.  Alex, Oz, and Kari kept it that way.

But it didn’t matter.   Elasaid didn’t give that shade, Oz, nor Kari a second glance.  His entire focus was on his firstborn, and best child.  He could not take his eyes off of Alex.

“You came back,” he said.  “I knew you would someday.”

“You know why I’m here,” Alex said.

“I know you betrayed me.  I know you turned me over to my enemies.”

“You set me up to kill your enemies,” Alex said.  “You decimated them all.”

“And now I own them all,” Elasaid said with a smile.  “That is the power I carry.  You left me for dead.  But I survived and became even more powerful.  You failed once again, Alexio!”

“Where’s Linda?” Alex asked him.

Elasaid frowned.  “How should I know?  How should I care?”

“Don’t do it, Pop,” Oz said.  “He knows.”

It was the first time Elasaid had even realized his younger son was in the room.  “Another betrayer,” he said.  “But you, Oz, it was expected.  Don’t do what?” he asked him.  “And what is it that he’s supposed to know?”

“I know my ex-wife was your girlfriend,” Alex said.

Elasaid smiled.  “She was one of many, I assure you.  A nice piece of ass, that one, but one of many pieces.  So what?  You were done with her.  Why should you care?”

“Where is she?”

“Why do you keep asking me where she can be?  How should I know?  I haven’t seen her in months!”

Kari and Oz looked at Alex.  Alex was still staring at his father.  “You’re no longer with her?”

“No!  And she’d better hope I never be with her again.  I’ll kill that bitch if I ever see her again.”

“Kill her?” Oz asked.  “Why would you want to kill Linda?”

“She betrayed me too.  Not with love.  I never loved trash like her.  But she hooked up with my enemy.  An enemy I am still searching for.”

“Who?” Alex asked.

“Stavros,” Elasaid replied.  “William Stavros.”

Alex and Oz both were stunned.  Kari had no idea who Stavros was.  “Who?” she asked.

Elasaid was offended that she would ask a question.  Women, in his world, were to speak only when spoken to.

But Alex wasn’t offended at all.  “Stavros,” he said.  “The day I decided to leave the family crime business for good was the day we had flown to New York to find and kill the man who had killed our father’s uncle.  That killer was Bill Stavros’s father.”

“You didn’t find him that day?” Kari asked.

“We found him alright,” Oz said.  “We took care of him alright.”

“But his son wanted revenge,” Elasaid said.  “Linda knew it too.  I told her about it.  When I dumped her, after you cut her face and disfigured her in my eyes, she wanted revenge too.  She went to him and told him all about my operation.  They joined forces.  They joined forces to destroy the Drakos family.  I had no idea they were the ones who were going after you.  I assumed if they had any beef, it should be with me.  I was waiting on their asses to try and come for me.”

“But Linda wanted Alex.  She probably convinced him to start with Alex and his beloved.”

Elasaid nodded.  “Yeah.  She was always crazy like that.”  Then Elasaid looked at his sons.  “Both of you betrayed me.  But I never betrayed either one of you.  Never!” he said.  “I have nothing to do with Linda Drakos.”

And then there was a crash.  Everybody turned toward the front of the skybox.  There was an enclosure, out of view of the stadium crowd, and two men had been hoisted down from the rooftop, between the window of the skybox and the still-covered enclosure.  They crashed through the skybox window, firing, at first, blindly.

“Everybody down!” Alex screamed when he saw that first rifle, and he grabbed Kari and grabbed Oz and knocked them both down and out of the line of fire.  Elasaid knocked himself down.

Alex was on his back, but he and Oz pulled their own weapons and started firing back, killing both men before they could penetrate the covered partition and gain an advantage.

But as soon as they thought that sudden intrusion was over, two more men were being hoisted down.

“There’s more!” Oz yelled.

“Get Karena and get out of here!” Alex yelled to his brother as he ran toward the broken window and began firing before the men could be hoisted inside.  Elasaid beat everybody out of the room, while Oz grabbed Kari and ran out with her.  Alex was able to kill the two hoisted men, and then he got out too.

They ran, Elasaid, Kari, and Oz, with Alex pulling up the rear, into the stairwell.  The men who had been guarding Elasaid’s entourage were no longer in the stairwell.  They couldn’t rely on them for cover.  But they had to proceed.  They knew they didn’t stand a chance taking the elevator.

But as they ran down stair after stair, floor after floor, their mood changed.  They felt as if they were getting somewhere.

And when they made it to the bottom floor, Alex stopped them.  The boobytrap could be behind that stairwell exit door.

He and Oz instead, moved Kari out of the line of fire (Elasaid moved himself out of the way, and then, with their weapons at the ready, the quickly opened the stairwell door.

To their relief, nobody was waiting.  There were no surprises.  They relaxed again.

But Alex warned them.  “Stay on guard!” he said.

And they proceeded out of the stairwell, still with no problem, turned one corner, and then another corner, and then boom!  Gunfire erupted again, with four men running their way, undoubtedly after waiting for them at the elevator, firing in rapid succession.

“Get back!” Alex yelled, as he kept Kari well behind him.  But Elasaid, who had shouldered his way in the front of the pack, was the first man around that corner.  He took a bullet straight through the head, and then he dropped dead.

Alex, Oz, and Kari pulled back around that corner.  Alex pulled a second gun out and handed it to Kari.  “Cover us,” he said to her.  “But if you have to shoot, you shoot to kill, Kari,” he said to her in no uncertain terms.  “Don’t wound.  Kill.”

Kari’s look was as determined as Alex had ever seen it.  “Don’t worry,” she said accepting the gun.  “Don’t you worry about me!”

And to Alex’s own surprise, he wasn’t worried.  He believed in Kari.

“On three,” he said to Oz.  “One, two,” and on three they dropped down and rolled across the floor, shooting as they rolled.

The four men fired back, but the fact that they went low when they were expecting them to go high, stunned them.  But that moment of surprise was enough.  Alex and Oz, both on their backs, shot all four men.  They, too, shot to kill.  And they did.

The stadium was in an uproar, not over the gunshots, but because the horses were out of their stations and the race was on.  All gunshots were drowned out by the crowd noise.

Kari ran to Alex when it appeared as if it was over.  “You guys okay?” she asked them.

“We’re okay,” said Alex.  “But they aren’t.”

Kari looked at Alex, and then looked where he was looking.  And Oz’s four men, and the bodyguards and woman that they had escorted, via gunpoint, out of the stairwell, were shot dead already.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Alex asked, fearful of another ambush.

And they took off.  Alex wasn’t waiting another second!

The threesome ran out of the V.I.P. lounge and across the parking lot that led to Alex’s rental car.  They had their guns still drawn, and were looking side to side, backwards and forward and upward for any sign of activity.

But they saw nothing.

Oz and Kari were beginning to sigh relief.  “We got those motherfuckers,” Oz said.  “We’ve got those motherfuckers!”  But a part of him was sad too.  They got his father.  His father, at last, was dead.

But Alex had already written his father off.  He was not the kind of man Alex was going to mourn.  His focus was on getting Kari out alive.  And he wasn’t convinced they were in the clear yet.  Stavros and Linda, if it were them, went through all of that planning, even killing the most powerful mob boss in Greece, and that was it?  No backup attack?  Alex wasn’t convinced!

And as they approached the car, he stopped them.  He pulled Kari and Oz back and stopped them in their tracks.

“What is it?” Kari asked him.

Alex didn’t speak.  He, instead, utilized the automatic crank-up feature on his car’s key fob and pressed the button.  It worked.  His rental car cranked up automatically.  But as soon as it did, the car buckled, and then exploded.  Alex knocked Kari down, and Oz took cover too.

But as Oz and Kari tried to recover from that shock, Alex was still looking around.  Not for another attack.  This, he was convinced, was going to be their coup de grâce.  But he was looking for the onlookers.  For the planners.  For those who set this shit up, without getting their own hands dirty.

That was when he saw the car.  It had stopped some four lanes over in the parking lot.  They could have been onlookers, but Alex wasn’t betting on it.

“Stay here,” Alex ordered Kari and Oz, and he took off through car after car, running toward the stopped car.  When the driver saw Alex coming their way, he took off!

But Alex jumped on top of cars and ran from car to car, getting him a good enough view, the perfect view, and then he fired repeatedly.

He got the driver by the third bullet.

The car rammed against other cars, and then flipped.

Oz and Kari ran toward Alex as Alex ran toward the flipped car.  He wasn’t letting anybody get away!

Kari saw when a woman crawled out of the upturned car and began running as Alex bent down and grabbed the driver out of the car.  It was Linda Drakos, her arm in a sling, and Kari took off after her.

It was easy to run her down.  Kari knocked her to the ground.

Oz went up to the car.  “Is he dead?” he asked Alex.

“He’s dead,” Alex said.

“Is it Stavros’ son?”

“It’s his son, yes,” said Alex.

And that was when he heard the ladies.

He and Oz looked and saw that Linda had gotten out of the car on the opposite side, and she had made a run for it.  They also saw how Kari had ran her down.  The two ladies were on the ground.  Kari had her gun out, and Linda had her gun out.

“God, no,” Alex said, when he saw what was about to happen.  He took off after them.

“What are you upset about?” Oz asked, running after him.  “Karena’s got the better shot!  She’ll handle that bitch!”

And Oz was right.  Kari had the upper hand.  She was on top of Linda, and her gun was pointing at the side of Linda’s body.  She was just about to pull the trigger.

But Alex didn’t’ want her to handle that bitch.  He didn’t want that on Kari’s conscience.  She was about to pull that trigger, because it was kill or be killed time, until Alex pulled his own trigger, and shot Linda between the eyes.  Killing her instantly.

Kari, shocked, jumped up.  She looked back and saw Alex as he made his way to her side, his gun still smoking.

“Why did you do that?” she asked him.

“So you wouldn’t have to,” he said to her.

And then Kari, who had been surviving on adrenaline since the first shot was fired, gave out of adrenaline and fell against Alex.

Alex held her tightly.  These people, people like his father and like Linda and even like Stavros’ son, got what they had coming to them.  They started a fight that he had to finish.

But that didn’t mean he liked that shit.

“Let’s go home,” he said to Kari, and began walking her away from there.