Page 12 of Marcellus: House of Drakos

“Why on earth are you so worried about them white folks?”

“Why you got to say it like that? I’m not worried about no white folks. I’m worried about Niko. That’s all.”

“That’s the crazy part to me. You’re worried about the same white boy that just fired your ass two weeks ago. That’s who you’re worried about. He fired you, Savannah!”

“How many times I got to tell you Niko wasn’t the one that fired me? I keep telling you he wasn’t even there. His asshole fashion director fired me. Probably so he could give the job to his girlfriend or some other barely twenty-year-old.”

“That’s not how I see it. I’m certain he fired you with Niko’s blessing.”

“And I’m certain Niko doesn’t know anything about it.”

“How can you be so sure about that, Savannah? He hasn’t even called you not once.”

Savannah leaned back in her chair and stirred the lime wheels in her gin and tonic.

She knew telling her best friend anything at all about her situation would be a risky proposition.

Although Tyla meant well, she had an unshakable habit of viewing everything, no matter what it was or who it was, as black or white.

You either loved her or you didn’t. You either trusted her with your life or you didn’t trust her at all.

There were never any gray areas. There was never any middle ground with Tyla.

She loved hard. She played hard. She was hard.

So Savannah knew what she was opening herself up to just by bringing the subject up. But she had to tell somebody!

They were in the Brewery Bottom, a popular sports bar in Chicago, after popping in for drinks after work. At least, after Tyla got off work. It had been two weeks since Savannah was let go. She was still unemployed.

“It’s been two long weeks and he still hasn’t returned any of my calls or my text messages. That’s not like him, Ty, I’m telling you. That’s not like him.”

“Who cares what he’s like? He fired you, Vanna. End of story. How much of you’re fired don’t you understand?”

“I’ve been his secretary from day one when he first started that company eleven years ago. He always, and I mean always returned my calls and texts. This isn’t like him.”

“Okay okay. It’s not like him. He fired you, but it’s not like him.” She smiled and shook her head.

“I’m not going to tell you again that he didn’t fire me. He wouldn’t have fired me.”

“That semantics shit is ridiculous, and you know it. But maybe you don’t.

Maybe he’s got you so twisted up in the head that you actually believe your shit.

So okay. Let’s say he didn’t fire you. Let’s just say his company fired you, how’s that?

He’s the boss of said company, but so what right? Is that what we’re doing?”

“Forget you,” Savannah said with a frown on her face. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you anything about it.”

Tyla looked at her best friend and let out a harsh exhale.

She’d never met anybody who felt as deeply as Savannah felt.

Even when they were in high school she was always the crusader and always loyal to a fault.

Even to the man whose company fired her, she remained loyal to a fault.

But that was Savannah. Always giving of herself to all those jokers who didn’t deserve the time of day from her.

All those men that used her and abused her and tossed her aside like she was stale bread.

But she gave them her all anyway. Got her heart broken over and over and over again as if she never learned from the last time.

That was the one thing about Savannah that drove Tyla nuts.

But the rest of Savannah? She wouldn’t change for the world. “Alright alright, I’ll stop,” she said. “But why him is what I don’t understand.”

Savannah was puzzled. “What do you mean why him?”

“Why would you want somebody like him? That’s all I’m asking. He’s like what? Thirty years old? You’re nine years older than him. I thought you liked older men. At least every single one of your boyfriends have been older men. When since you went around robbing cradles?”

Savannah stopped stirring her drink. She could not believe what Tyla had just said. “No you did not just say that. Me and Niko? What I look like wanting him, Ty?”

“Too young for you?”

“He’s thirty-one and I’m thirty-seven, but that’s not the point. I don’t fool around with my boss.”

“You’re fired. He’s not your boss anymore.”

“I don’t want him. And I never did. But that’s not the point.

The point is I’m unemployed. The point is I’m sending resumes everywhere I can send them trying to find employment.

And then I’m pounding pavements going into those companies personally just in case they aren’t paying attention to those resumes.

I barely had savings to begin with considering this high behind Chicago rent, and I’m almost flat broke.

And you think I’m worrying about a romance?

You think that’s what this is about? Girl bye! ”

Tyla laughed. “Okay okay, don’t bite my head off. I’m just saying.”

Then she exhaled. She could see the real stress on Savannah’s anxious face. How she could still be man-less was the mystery of the universe to Tyla. “So nobody’s heard from him in two weeks and you think that’s unusual?”

“It’s highly unusual that I haven’t heard from him in two weeks. That’s what I’m saying, yes.”

“Wait a minute. Instead of saying nobody has heard from him in two weeks, you said you haven’t. Which implies to me that somebody has. Am I right?”

Savannah hesitated. She knew that wasn’t going to help her case. “His older brother received a couple text messages from him, yes, and a couple phone calls too.”

“Texts and phone calls from Niko? What did he say?”

“I don’t know. Olivier, that’s his brother, would only tell me that he sounded fine to him.”

“He sounded fine? Then what’s the problem if his own brother says he sounded fine?”

“Because they aren’t brothers in the traditional sense.

They don’t get all involved in each other’s business like that.

Niko said he could go months without hearing from any of his siblings.

They all have different mothers and were never raised together.

They only come together once a month for their father’s family dinner.

But that’s usually to discuss their father’s corporation.

And as you know, Niko doesn’t work for his father like his siblings do. ”

“And all they discuss is business?”

“That’s what Niko said. I don’t know though.

Niko’s always been guarded and too contradictory about his father.

One minute he’s talking about him as if he’s his role model and just a wonderful father to all of his siblings and that he can do no wrong in his eyes.

Then the next minute he talks about him as if he’s the most despicable human being on the face of the planet. ”

“But back to his brother. The one that heard from him. You said his name was Oliver?”

“Not Oliver. O-Li-Vee-A. Like Lawrence Olivier.”

Tyla frowned. “Who’s Lawrence Olivier?”

Savannah shook her head. “An actor, Ty.”

“But if Niko’s brother is saying Niko’s okay, then again what’s the problem?”

“Something’s wrong, that’s the problem. I can’t describe it, but I can feel it. I call him. I text him. I get nothing. That’s not like Niko.”

“It’s not like his company to fire you either. You’ve been his devoted secretary from the very beginning just like you said. You helped him build up his company. But guess what? Your ass got fired. No matter how you slice it, you’re fired.”

“I was fired two weeks ago. I’ve been trying to reach him for days before I got fired.

I haven’t seen him or heard from him in two weeks now when he used to call me at all hours of the day and night confessing his sins and asking for my advice like it truly mattered to him.

And to go from all of that to now nothing?

” Savannah took a swath of her thick, bouncy hair and flung it back.

“I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what Olivier says. That’s not like Niko.”

“I still say you have blinders on when it comes to that white boy, whom I heard is gorgeous by the way.”

Savannah frowned. “What does that have to do with it?”

“Be that as it may,” Tyla said, “what about his other siblings? I heard his father was a hoe of the first order. Doesn’t he have fifty more siblings or something like that?”

“You need to quit. You know that boy don’t have no fifty siblings. He has three brothers and one sister.”

“Okay then. What about them? Have you told them about your concerns?”

“I called each one of them.”

“What did they say?”

“None of them returned my calls. They don’t know me like that.

Olivier doesn’t really know me either, but he’s at least been to Niko’s office a couple times and met me.

So I called Olivier again. He said Niko is just being Niko and taking some time away.

He told me he does it all the time. He told me to let it go. ”

“But you can’t. Or you won’t?”

“I won’t. Niko has taken time off many times in the years I’ve worked for him.

Many, many times. Olivier is right about that.

But he always kept in touch with me. Always.

And if I called or text him, he always took my calls and answered my texts.

Something’s wrong, Ty. I don’t care what anybody says. Something’s not right.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

Savannah didn’t immediately respond.

But Tyla knew her too well. “What you got up your sleeve girl?”

“I heard on the news this morning that his father was flying in from France today because of that plane crash that killed all those people. It was one of his father’s planes.”

“And?”

There was a hesitation. It was the hardest decision Savannah ever had to make. “I’m going to try to talk to his father.”

Tyla was astonished. She knew about her encounter with Marcellus Drakos eight years ago. “I know I didn’t hear you right.”

Savannah pressed on. “I’m going to Drakos Aeronautics corporate office building tomorrow to see if he’ll at least hear me out.”

“Hear you out? The man that held you in his arms all night, but wouldn’t call you at all the next day? Especially when you had that family emergency. He didn’t even check on you? And you’re going to pay him, that billionaire asshole, a visit? And at a time like this?”

“I know the timing’s not good. He’s got a lot on his plate, I know it. But I can’t let what happened eight years ago hold me back. All he knew was I left. He didn’t know my mother had died. He didn’t know any of that. Niko didn’t even know.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell your boss?”

“Because that was my business. I don’t bring my business to my job. Besides, Niko was still recovering at home and once he got back to work he was way behind on his collection. He didn’t have time for me nor my problems.”

“But you had time for him and his problems.”

Savannah sipped her drink. There was no convincing Tyla so she stopped trying.

“Didn’t Niko say he gave his father your phone number?”

“That’s what he said, yes.”

“But his father still didn’t call you?”

“I don’t know if he did or not. I had a bunch of missed calls on my phone during that time, almost all of which was from the office.

If none of those calls didn’t come from management, I deleted them.

If he tried to call me it would have been an unknown name, unknown number and I wasn’t trying to figure out who, what, or where when I got the news about my mama.

I wasn’t thinking about none of that. Besides . . .”

“Besides what girl?”

“If he truly wanted to get in touch with me he would have phoned back.”

“Bet that!” Tyla was nodding her head and pointing her finger. “Now I agree with you on that one.” Then she looked at her best friend. “But you’re still gonna go see that man anyway, aren’t you, for Niko’s sake?”

“He could be in danger, Ty, so yes, I’m still going to go see him.”

“You do realize they aren’t going to let your black ass get within two feet of that rich man? You’re just a lowly secretary to him. And a fired one at that! Men like that don’t meet with no secretaries.”

They don’t hold them all night longer either, Savannah thought. But Marcellous Drakos did that very thing once upon a time.

But it wasn’t about her. It was about Niko. Something was wrong with him and somebody needed to look into it before it was too late. Her pride aside.

“This is the thing for me,” said Tyla. “Niko might care for you. Yes he might. Although I don’t know how you could fire somebody you care about.

But anywho. Niko might care for you, but his father already has proven to you that he doesn’t.

He don’t give a damn about you or your opinion about his son.

Especially with his big brother telling you he spoke to him and he’s fine. You do know that right?”

Savannah was getting irritated with the back and forth concerning something she’d already made up her mind about. “Yes! I know it.”

“But knowing you and your stubborn ass, you’re going to try it anyway. Aren’t you? Aren’t you, Savannah?”

Tyla was acting as if Savannah wanted an encounter with that man again when she dreaded the very idea of being face to face with him! She didn’t want that. But she wasn’t going to give up on Niko because of her own hangups. That was why she didn’t respond to Tyla. She didn’t say a mumbling word.

But Tyla knew her all too well. Her silence said it all.