Page 6 of Marcellus: House of Drakos

The next morning Marcellus woke up to the wonderful sound of elevator music. Hall and Oaks singing, again, Sara Smile.

The song they fell asleep to last night had recycled around once again. Or a hundred times more, he wasn’t sure. It almost seemed like a sign to Marcellus, like it was their song now, as he attempted to hold Savannah even tighter.

But he realized rather quickly that he wasn’t holding a woman. He was holding a blanket. He swiftly opened his eyes.

“Morning Dad.”

Marcellus looked across the room and saw his son standing in the doorway of his bedroom. He was in a bathrobe and looked far better than he had last night. “How are you feeling?”

“Not robust yet. But good. Much better. Thank God the worst of it is over.”

“Thank God.”

“I can’t believe you spent the night in my humble abode.”

“This is a penthouse, come on,” he said as he threw the blanket off of him and swerved to where his feet were on the floor and he was seated upright. “Humble abode my ass.” He had irritation in his voice.

But Niko was accustomed to his mood swings. “I was comparing it to your usual haunts,” he noted.

Marcellus looked at him. His children often behaved as if he was to the manor born when he was homeless through most of his childhood. It was the oddest thing to him. They could never seem to reconcile the man he now was with the man he used to be.

But none of that consumed his mind like the other matter did. “Where’s Savannah?” he casually asked his son.

“She left just before day this morning. I had gotten up to use the bathroom when I heard her phone ring. She got an emergency call and had to leave.”

“An emergency? What kind of emergency? Where did she go? What was it about?”

Niko was taken aback by his father’s anxiousness. That wasn’t like him at all! “I don’t know,” he said. “She didn’t say.”

Marcellus was upset. “What do you mean she didn’t say? Did you ask her?”

“Why would I ask her all of that?”

“Maybe if you showed some concern for her you would have.”

“I do show concern for her, but her leaving isn’t my business. She saw I was doing better. She knew you were here with me.”

“It’s not about you!” Marcellus blared out. “I’m talking about her.”

Niko was puzzled. He’d never seen his father this unhinged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“That girl waits on you hand and foot and you don’t care enough to know why she suddenly had to run off?”

“Run off? She didn’t run off. She went to take care of her business. Damn Dad. I don’t sleep with the woman, I just work with her.”

It sounded like a dig of Marcellus. Did his son see Savannah sleeping on top of him?

“You want her number?” Niko asked him.

Marcellus frowned. “Why would I want her number?”

“Just asking damn,” Niko said and began to head to his kitchen.

Marcellus was letting his pride get in the way of his concern for Savannah. The fact that she didn’t bother to wake him up and tell him she was leaving disturbed him. but he was concerned. “Yes,” he said to his son just before his son made it to the kitchen.

Niko could have asked him yes what, but he knew what he wanted. He pulled out his phone and called out the number to his father. Marcellus put it in his phone. Then Niko shook his head. He’d never understand that man. And went into his kitchen.

Marcellus went into the guest bathroom. Debated whether he should call her at all as he peed for a long time.

Then he decided to phone her. But the phone rang and rang with no pick up nor voice mail. Which sounded just like Savannah.

Why would he even call her? They had nothing in common but fucked-up childhoods. That didn’t necessitate a bond. They were from two different worlds and were oceans apart. It was ludicrous for him to think for a second that she could be the one. Just ridiculous.

He ended the call and deleted her number. Once he was sure Niko had turned a corner and could care for himself again, he was out of there.

What the fuck was he doing anyway? He had a long overdue plane to catch and he wanted to play house with some secretary? That didn’t even sound like him!

He cleaned himself up, checked to make sure his son was still okay, phoned his chauffeur to come pick him up, and left that selfsame hour.

But as soon as he plopped down in his limousine and was listening to the overhead music the way he always did, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. And the music was R & B classics like he liked rather than that elevator shit Niko was playing. He should just let it be. But he couldn’t.

“Johnny?”

His bodyguard turned toward him. “Sir?”

“Find the address for Savannah Richardson. She’s Niko’s secretary.”

“Right away, sir,” he said as he pulled out his phone.

“Andre?”

“Sir?”

“When he gets the address, take me there.”

“Yes sir.”

Johnny got the address and Andre drove across town to a clean, modest apartment building.

But when Johnny got out and opened the door for him, and was about to follow him inside as per his job, Marcellus stopped him.

“Wait here. I’ll be back,” he said and entered the building alone.

If he was going to be humiliated, he didn’t need an audience.

He took the stairs to the second floor and knocked on the door.

A black man answered. “Yes?”

Marcellus didn’t expect to see a man in her apartment. But why wouldn’t he? A dynamic woman like her and no man in her life? He should have known. “I was looking for Ashley,” he decided to say.

“Ashley? Don’t no Ashley live here. Get on from round here bothering people this time of morning.” Then he slammed the door in Marcellus’s face.

Marcellus felt like a fool. He left that building and headed for his limo. Johnny, standing at the limo, opened the door for him.

“Where to, sir?” Andre asked him when he got in and Johnny got back in on the front passenger seat.

“Airport,” Marcellus said. He couldn’t get back to France fast enough. But then, as if to add insult to injury, the R & B group Tavares came on singing a song that made him wonder if he was the unluckiest man in the world:

“She’s gone -

Oh I (Oh I). Oh I.

I better learn how to face it.

She’s gone –

Oh I. . .

What went wrong?”

Marcellus leaned his head back. What was it about that woman? It felt like torture. Unadulterated torture! He wasn’t accustomed to such treatment and wasn’t going to become accustomed to it either.

“Cut that shit off!” he angrily ordered his driver.

Johnny looked back at the boss as Andre swiftly did as he was told and turned off the music. Then the driver and bodyguard looked at each other.

The boss was in a mood, their looks suggested. Which wasn’t unusual at all to either one of them. He was always in a mood. But they both had the same idea why.

What on earth, they wondered, did Niko do this time?

The idea that it could be because of a woman was too far-fetched to even enter into their minds.