Page 40 of Marcellus: House of Drakos

Marcellus ran his hand through his hair, upsetting the balance, but he didn’t give a shit. He almost felt unwell. He sat down behind his desk because he had to.

“Why don’t you eat something, Marcellus?” Savannah said. “You haven’t eaten all day.”

Eat? It was the furthest thing from Marcellus’s mind. “No,” he said.

But Savannah could see his coloring. “You’ll feel better.”

“I said no!” Marcellus screamed out and slammed the palm of his hand on his desk.

It was so dramatic that it startled Savannah. Although his children had seen it many times before and Kari had seen it in Alex before too, Savannah had never witnessed it in Marcellus.

Not that she didn’t understand why he was so enraged.

She understood perfectly well. That was why she didn’t yell back at him.

But she did remove herself from beside him and walked behind his desk to his window.

All of this drama was getting to her too.

As soon as she could, she was going to go home and get out of his way.

She was useless there anyway, and nobody really wanted her there but him.

And she wasn’t at all sure if he still did.

He did. Desperately. That was why, as soon as he blew up at her and saw her leave his side, he looked back and saw where she was.

Then he got up himself and went to the window and stood beside her.

Scottie, shocked that he would even care, looked at Olivier and Freddy.

They’d never seen their father so solicitous to another human being in the entirety of their lives.

It was kind of startling for them, but sad too.

He never treated their mothers that well.

He took care of them, but not like that.

He stood beside Savannah for a few seconds. “I apologize,” he said in a voice only she could hear.

“Worry about your daughter, Marcellus. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

Marcellus had never felt so vulnerable. But he had to let her know. “I’m scared,” he said, and then looked at her. “If it is Bob Grishom, I keep feeling it’s my fault. I sued him and took everything he owned. I didn’t have to destroy the man.”

Savannah frowned. “What do you mean? He had no problem trying to destroy you. This is not your fault, Marcellus. None of this.”

He looked out of the window. He knew she meant well. And he appreciated her presence more than she would ever know. But he still felt how he felt.

“Please go take care of your business. I’m fine.”

He could tell she wasn’t, but he had to put first things first. He turned around and leaned against his window sill. “Have you looked at all of the CCTV footage from here to her house?”

“I was already tracking her every movement with the GPS Scottie installed on every detail car,” said Olivier.

“And?”

“It stalled out two miles from her house on a backroad that has no security cameras anywhere,” said Scottie.

“She never made it home. But I sent a team over to her house just in case, two more teams to that backroad where the GPS stalled out, and another group went to every location with security cameras and secured the footage.”

“And?”

“They turned her house inside out, but she wasn’t at home. We didn’t find either one of her detail cars. And all of the footage showed those cars traveling from your house to that backroad nearly two miles from her house, and then nothing after that.”

“What we did find, however,” said Scottie, “was the GPS equipment from both security detail cars on the side of the road as if the equipment had been dismantled and thrown there.”

“Geez,” said Kari. “This keeps getting more horrific by the second.”

“What did the CCTV footage show?”

“Everything,” said Scottie. “We saw the cars heading for her place. But when they turned down that side street two miles from her home, those detail cars were never seen on video again. We couldn’t find them showing up on any of the video we saw and we looked at a radius of ten miles in front of that backroad and ten miles behind it. We turned up blanks.”

Then Alex’s phone rang. “It could be Oz,” Kari said.

Alex pulled it out and saw that it was his brother. He placed the call on Speaker. “Hey.”

“We found Grishom,” Oz said.

Marcellus stood erect. “Where?” he asked before Alex could.

“The Blade nightclub on Deander Road.”

“We’re on our way,” Alex said and ended the call.

“Who’s Grishom?” asked Scottie.

“Robert Grishom,” Marcellus said as he was heading for the exit too.

But his sons were floored. “He worked for us,” said Olivier.

“Yes, I know.”

“You think he’s behind all of this?”

“I’m about to find out.”

“Pop, let me go instead,” said Scottie. “You stay here.”

“Not a chance,” said Marcellus.

“Marcellus, can I go?” asked Savannah.

“No,” he said without hesitation, looked back at her as if there was no way he was letting her go on a dangerous mission like that, and hurried out of the door behind Alex.

“You go and protect Dad, Scott,” Olivier said.

“No matter what happens,” Freddy added, “you stay with Daddy.”

Scottie nodded and hurried behind their father.

Kari looked at a worried and disappointed Savannah. When Savannah looked at her, she smiled. “You’ll get used to it,” she said.

But that was little comfort to Savannah.