Page 39 of Marcellus: House of Drakos

After evading the press horde with the shades pulled down over all of the windows, and the darkest tint placed on the front windshield, the limousine drove through the guard-manned gate of Marcellus’s estate and up to the main house.

As soon as the limo stopped and they were getting out, the doors of the mansion opened wide and Natalia, with Peggy hurrying behind her, ran out of the house.

“They got our baby, Marci,” the usually sophisticated Natalia said as she ran to Marcellus. “They took our baby!”

“They called?” Marcellus anxiously asked her.

“No. We haven’t heard a word. It’s just awful, Marci,” she said and fell into his big arms. Marcellus caught her and held her. He knew what she was going through.

Kari leaned against Savannah. “Who’s that?”

“Kalayna’s mother.”

“Um. I see.” Then Kari looked at Savannah as they all began walking toward the home’s entrance. “Better watch that one, girl.”

Savannah nodded. “I already know.”

Although Marcellus knew Natalia could be overly dramatic when she wanted to be, he didn’t feel this was one of those times.

He knew how much she loved their children.

He knew the pain she had to be feeling because he was feeling it too.

And just seeing her reminded him so deeply of Kalayna, who was the spitting image of her mother, that it nearly broke him.

He kept his arm around Natalia’s waist as he walked with her into the house.

Alex stood aside and allowed Savannah first and then his wife to walk in front of him.

But Olivier, Freddy, and Scottie, who were inside the house coming into the foyer, were shocked when they saw Alex Drakos walk into their father’s home. They looked at each other as if they were seeing a mirage when they knew they weren’t. But it felt just that surreal.

“Peg, get Nattie,” Marcellus said to Peggy. “I’ve got to figure out what’s happening with Kalayna.”

“I want to know too,” a still-crying Natalia said as she dapped her eyes with his handkerchief. “She’s my baby too.”

“You’ll know later. Right now, rest,” he ordered her.

“Come on, Nattie,” Peggy said to her fellow baby mama.

“He’ll let us know as soon as he hears something.

” She held Natalia as she walked with her into the bedroom just off from the foyer.

Juliet and Sharon, the other baby mamas who had come to see what was going on too, went, instead, back to the family room.

Unlike Natalia and Peggy who stayed in Marcellus’s face, they made it their business to stay out of his way.

Which, they felt, would make them more attractive to him in the long run.

But Marcellus didn’t care about any of that palace intrigue. He wanted his daughter back. “Let’s talk in my office,” he said to Alex Drakos. Kari followed her husband. Then he looked at his sons. “Scott, Olivier, Fredrick- in my office now!”

They all nervously followed behind Alex Drakos and the woman they knew to be his wife, knowing they were going to get the brunt of their father’s anger. But it wasn’t as if they had a choice.

But then Marcellus, in his anguish, realized he had forgotten about Savannah.

When he glanced back and saw her standing there as if she didn’t know what to do with herself, his heart dropped.

He stopped all movement, causing everybody behind him to stop too, and reached out his hand to her.

He was going to make it his mission to never let this woman feel out of place in his home or in his world. “Come here,” he said to her.

Savannah’s heart soared. She thought she was going to be cast aside because she had no wife standing like Kari Drakos, nor any blood-relative standing like his half-brother and his sons.

But she apparently had standing with Marcellus.

And he was all that mattered to her. She hurried to his side, took his hand, and walked with him, ahead of everybody, to his sprawling home office.

Olivier and Freddy glanced at each other. They still could not believe that their father would show deference to any lady. But he was showing it to a secretary of all people? It boggled their minds.

Alex was still surprised that the image he had of his half-brother as some great-looking playboy who treated women as sex toys rather than human beings could not have been further from the truth if how he was treating Savannah was any indication. He seemed to adore that woman.

Kari seemed to notice it too as she smiled and raised an eyebrow as Marcellus and Savannah led the way.

But in the office, Savannah’s presence was not the issue at all. Getting Kalayna back home was.

Marcellus walked behind his desk and stood there. Savannah stood by his side. “What do we know so far?” he asked Scottie.

But Scottie looked at Alex. They all knew the bad blood that existed between the families. And Scottie was a man who spoke his mind. “You want me to speak in front of him?”

Marcellus forgot that he hadn’t introduced anyone. “Alex, Kari, these are my sons: My oldest two: Olivier and Scottie.”

“Hello,” Alex said.

They grumbled their hellos.

“And this is my youngest son Fredrick.”

He and Alex spoke as well.

“Nikolas is recovering from some injuries he incurred during the rescue. Guys,” he said to his sons, “this is Alex Drakos and his wife.”

“We know who he is,” said Olivier. “What we don’t know is what is he doing here?”

“He’s helping me, that’s what.”

“How?” asked Freddy.

“He and his brother Oz have connections we don’t have. That’s how! Now focus on your sister. What do we know so far?”

“Kalayna told me she needed to go by her house and pick up some items,” Freddy said. “She didn’t want anybody going for her. You know how private she can be.”

“So all she had to do was bat her eyes at her big brother and you just said okeydokey go right ahead?”

“No. But Ollie did. I told her no.”

“She didn’t get in her car and go on her own, Pop,” said Olivier. “She was driven by an entire detail, and with a second car backing that car up. She wasn’t alone.”

“Then where’s all of this security?” Marcellus asked. “Where the fuck is all of this security since she was so secure?!”

A distressed look came over Olivier’s handsome face. “We don’t know. We can’t find them either.”

“Motherfuck!” Marcellus yelled out. “I told your ass to not let anybody out of this house while I was gone and you defied me anyway. And you expect me to keep you in control of my entire corporation when you can’t even control your baby sister? When you can’t even manage a simple order?”

Olivier didn’t know what to say. He knew it was all on him. “I fucked up, Pop. What can I say?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing!”

Then Scottie’s cell phone began ringing. Because they knew it was Scottie those kidnappers had gotten in touch with when they took Niko, they all looked at him. He placed the call on Speaker and then answered. “This is Scott.”

“Put Daddy on the line.”

It was a male’s voice. The same distorted male voice that had spoken with Marcellus when those planes collided across the street. Scottie handed him the phone.

“Hello?”

“I got your beautiful baby girl, Daddy. Because that’s what she calls you, doesn’t she, Daddy?”

“Is she alright?”

“Oh yes. She’s most attractive. She’s just fine.” He laughed. “To look at her, she looks pure black. Like an African princess. But you, a white man, is supposedly her father? Did you take a DNA test, Daddy?”

Fuck you, Marcellus almost said. Although he did take DNA tests to confirm parentage of all of his children eventually, that was none of his business. “Put her on videocall. I want to see her face.”

“Nope. Not yet. You haven’t earned that right yet.”

“Then how do I know you have her?”

“Say something girl.”

“Daddy?” Kalayna called out.

Marcellus nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard her voice. “Are you harmed in any way?”

“No sir.”

“Now that’s enough talking for now,” said the caller.

Kari looked at Alex. Do something, she wanted to say, although she knew he was as powerless in this situation as Marcellus was.

But Marcellus was even more distressed. “You take my children,” he said to the caller. “You down my planes. But you won’t tell me what you want from me? We can swap. Is that what you want? You give me back my daughter and you can have me. How’s that for a bargain?”

“Nope. Not good enough.”

“Then what do you want?” Marcellus cried out. The anguish in his voice stunned his sons. Savannah was so heartbroken for him that she placed her hand around his waist.

“I want you to suffer,” the caller said in a lower tone. “How’s that?” Then he screamed it out: “That’s what I want and that’s what I will have!”

“If you take me you can torture me day and night. Just release my child.” He had a plea in his voice.

Savannah was near tears. Alex and Kari were too. His sons were fighting back their tears with all they had. They wished they could comfort their father the way Savannah was doing, but he would never let them in that far.

“You know you’re proving my point,” the caller said, “with all of that release my daughter and take me bullshit. That shows you care more about her than you do yourself. That’s why I have her.

That’s why you’ll never see her again if you go to the authorities or try that same shit you pulled with Niko.

My way is the only way so get that through your thick skull.

Just because you’re rich doesn’t make you invincible.

Because you know what? I can do anything I want to you.

” Then he laughed again. “I’ll be in touch within forty-eight hours with an exact ask.

Your ass better be ready.” Then he ended the call.

Marcellus was about to angrily throw that phone, but he knew it was the line that caller used to contact him. He, instead, tossed it on his desk for Scottie to retrieve.

“Daddy, she’ll be okay,” a distraught Freddy said. Seeing his father like that did something to him.