Page 1 of Marcellus: House of Drakos
CHAPTER ONE
EIGHT YEARS EARLIER
He lifted up again, she placed the deep bowl in front of him again, and he threw up once again.
“I’m dying, Vanna.”
“No you aren’t.” She handed him a bottled water.He dropped it to his side. “Drink it, Niko.”
He drank, cleaned his mouth, and spit the water into the bowl. She took the bowl and bottle away from him, and he plopped back down onto his pillow. “I can’t take this any longer. I swear I can’t.”
Nikolas Drakos could feel the bowels of his very being shifting within him. He had been sick, throwing up and nauseous when he wasn’t throwing up, for three long days. If it wasn’t for his secretary by his side the entire three days, he would have suffered this indignity alone. But good old Savannah came to the rescue. He couldn’t depend on anybody but her. That was why he obeyed her every command as if she was his boss. Because, in his miserable state right now, she was.
Another hour would past and he would feel better. His pancreatitis would seem more manageable. But then, like clockwork it seemed to him, he’d upchuck again, Savannah would help him get through it again, and he’d lay his head back down on his pillow once again. “I’d rather be dead than live like this.”
“If you don’t stop complaining,” Savannah said in her always sincere, but no-nonsense tone, “your wish might just come true. Through me,” she said with a smile.
Niko would have normally smiled, too. They had that kind of boss/secretary relationship. But he was too weak and sick to even try.
Savannah stood there and looked at the handsome younger man with concern in her eyes. He was only a twenty-three-year-old kid trying to make it in this rough and tumbled world. She started working for him when he was twenty. When he had just received his inheritance and was starting his very own fashion house. He was the talk of the town back then, after a successful launch at Chicago Fashion week. She, a girl from Indiana, had just been laid off from the factory and needed employment bad. A secretary’s job in an air-conditioned office seemed like a life line to her.
It turned out to be more like a hook, line, and sinker. She’d never worked harder in her entire life. Fourteen-hour days were not unheard of working for Niko. She’d go home well after midnight and would be back in the office before eight am. Still tired from the day before.
But it was always work to be done. Hard, honest, good work. There was never a dull moment in that office either, and over time she grew to love it. But there was a hefty price to be paid for that love. That was why she’d already made up her mind. That was why she’d already typed up her resignation.
“You’re getting better, Niko,” she said to him, her voice less no-nonsense and more encouraging now. “Every single day you’re getting a little better.” Then her voice turned Savannah again. “So stop with the complaints, get over yourself, and just get through it.”
“But I’m dying here, Vanna. You don’t seem to understand what I’m saying to you. It’s easy for you to say getover it. You act like it’s just that simple. I can’t get over it. I’m dying here!”
“Then die. Or shut up. You think I wanna be here smelling your puke all day?”
Niko’s face turned red with anger, which was what she wanted from him: Some fight. “Then why haven’t you left already? Since you don’t wanna be here. Nobody’s got a gun to your head. You can just take your ass out of my house and leave right now!”
“Okay. I think I’ll do just that,” Savannah said, and she turned to leave his bedside.
“Vanna, no. Please don’t go,” he cried out, grabbing her arm, his bright blue eyes revealing his terror. “I was just messing with you. Please don’t leave. I need you. Don’t leave me here alone. Please stay.”
He was a child in a man’s body as far as she was concerned. But at least he was finally showing some gratitude, which was something he too often forgot to show. “I’ll stay this time. But if you keep complaining I’m telling you I’m leaving, Niko. I’m a human being too. I can’t take much more of this.”
Then her look turned more worrisome. More seemingly introspective. “As soon as you’re out of this bed and able to take care of yourself, I’m out of here. I can’t do it anymore.”
“Once I’m up and about again, then I’ll want you to go. You won’t have to be cramped up in this apartment not a second longer. That’s a given.”
“I’m not talking about this apartment. I’m leaving the company. I can’t do it anymore.”
Niko frowned. “You can’t do what anymore?”
“Work these crazy hours every single day and half the night too. I can’t keep putting my life on the backburner. And all for what? To be somebody’s secretary? I have dreams too.”
Niko looked at his secretary as if he was seeing her for the first time. She was his tower of strength. What was she talking about? “I’m sure you have dreams too. And I’ll understand when you leave. But you saw the numbers, Vanna. We had a tough season for the first time in three years. My last collection barely broke even and that was the strongest collection I ever had. I ran through my inheritance just getting the business off the ground, but now I’m barely keeping the lights on. You know that. I need you to keep everybody in line just a little longer. Then you can move on and I’ll completely understand. But just give me one more season, please Vanna. To get it right. So I can get back on top again.”
But before Savannah could say another word, he was coughing again, and then lifting up again, and she was placing the bowl in front of him, and he was upchucking again.
When he laid back down, he fell back. It was an especially rough round that uncharacteristically came within minutes of the last round. And Savannah, who knew the heart of Niko better than anyone, knew she wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. He was a pain in the ass, but she was devoted to him.
She left his bedroom, just to get a breather, and went into the guest bathroom to flush the contents of the bowl and to clean it out the way she’d been doing seemingly every hour on the hour for the past three days. She looked in the mirror over the vanity as she scrubbed the bowl. She looked like death warmed over. Even older than she actually was. She felt as if her life was off-track somehow. As if she was so busy taking care of somebody else’s house while her own house was falling apart.
Then the doorbell to Niko’s penthouse apartment rang. Surprised since no one requested to come up, she wiped her hands on a towel, tossed it aside, and made her way to the front door.
