Page 29 of Marcellus: House of Drakos
Then Marcellus made up his mind. “That secretary,” he said as he stood to his feet. “The one that showed up here earlier.”
“Savannah Richardson. What about her?” asked Olivier.
“Scottie, I want you to run a deep background on her. If she clears, I want you to find her and take her to my house. Olivier you’ll personally escort her there.” Marcellus began buttoning his suit coat. “Bring her to me.”
“When?Tomorrow?”
“No, next month. What do you mean when? Now. This is urgent. Now!”
“But what do we need her for?” asked Olivier.
“Why do you think?” Marcellus yelled out. “Use your brain! She has intel that could be valuable to finding Niko. She’s been his secretary for over a decade. She may know something without realizing it.”
And there was another reason. Despite the fact that he still harbored some resentment toward her, he wanted her at his estate for her own protection too, just in case those kidnappers discover she had a wealth of information to provide as well.
Olivier hated when his father blew up at him for no good reason. But they were used to it. “Yes sir,” he said.
“I want everybody at my house asap,” Marcellus said as he walked toward the exit. “That includes you too, Scottie. I don’t want another one of you snatched because of our carelessness.”
Scottie didn’t like it. He felt he could take care of himself. But he knew there was no arguing with his father. He didn’t salute him with that compliantyes sirthe way his siblings always did, but he didn’t come back at him either.
“What about our mothers, Pop?” asked Freddy. “They could go after them too.”
Everybody looked. Marcellus hesitated. He truly didn’t want that drama in his house which was always prevalent when those women got together, but he knew Freddy was right. “Including your mothers,” he said, giving the okay. “But make sure you tell them nothing until they get to the house, and confiscate their cell phones. And double check Natalia with her slick ass. She probably has two phones.”
Freddy and Kalayna glanced at each other. Natalia was their mother.
And then Marcellus left the office.
The siblings looked at each other.
“I'll send cars for our mothers," said Kalayna.
“I’ll run deep background on that secretary,” said Scottie, “and then get over there too.”
“She’s his former secretary,” said Olivier. “Remember that. She was fired a couple weeks ago.”
“He fired her? What reason?”
“She claimed there was no reason. And she said it was Alberto who fired her.”
“Niko’s fashion director?”
Olivier nodded. “That’s the one.”
“I can’t stand his ass,” said Freddy.
“Me neither,” said Scottie. “I’ll check him out while I’m at it too. Make sure he’s not up to no good. And listen up brothers and sisters,” Scottie added, “I’m going to have heightened security on each one of you. You’d better not try to evade them this time. If something happens, Pop won’t blame your stupid asses, he’ll blame mine. And that’s not happening. Understood?”
They all were so drained from everything all at once that this news was threatening to tip them over. They didn’t have the emotional energy to oppose. “Understood,” they, to a man and lady, replied.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Two weeks ago, when she was first fired, Savannah believed getting another job would be easy for her. She was a well-experienced executive secretary with over a decade working for a major fashion house under her belt. What she failed to take into consideration was that she was terminated from that fashion house. And before that big job, she worked low-wage positions as a factory worker, a file clerk, and even at McDonalds. She had to use the job she was fired from or she would have little to show. She would be back on the line at McDonalds, which was where she was headed if she didn’t get a job soon. Her savings were dwindling fast.
Seated at the desk against the wall in her living room, she looked away from her computer screen and at the mirror just above the computer. She wore bike shorts and a Chicago Bulls jersey, and her long, thick hair was in a less-than-perfect pony tail with a bang. She was thirty-seven years old and looked every second of it. From the slowly-forming bags underneath her large eyes, to the long eyelashes and full eyebrows, both of which she used to adore because they were natural and gave great definition to her face, time was catching up with her. She was aging fast.
That didn’t used to be the case. There was a time when she had to beat men off of her. But after those first five years of working fourteen-hour-days seven days a week for Niko, where she’d work until midnight every single day and was back in the office at eight a.m., those same men gave up. She couldn’t remember the last man that invited her for a drink, let alonedinner. After over a decade of that constant grind of work, work, and more work, even lowlife men she would have never considered in her past life wouldn’t give her the time of day. Her dream of having a husband and kids dashed before her very eyes. It seemed too late. Who wanted to be a first-time mother pushing forty? But even forty would have been a stretch: She still had no takers.
