Iris leans over and whispers, “I feel like I’m in an old gangster movie.”
I turn my gaze toward her, trying my best to hold in my laughter, which doesn’t seem right in this situation. “Same.”
“So, I’m okay? It’s done?” she asks, her hair spilling over my arm as she looks across the table at Malakai.
“It’s done,” I tell her, squeezing her leg again. “Lucas lied.”
Malakai wasn’t going to come after Iris, and Lucas knew that. Whether he was just trying to get back in her life romantically or looking to score some moneyoff her to keep Malakai off his back, I’m not sure yet. It might’ve been a combination of both.
“I’ll kill him myself,” she hisses as she straightens up in her chair.
“I’d help, but I think Malakai will handle it for us,” I say to her as I reach for the pitcher of beer.
“I almost feel bad for Lucas. Almost,” she says.
“Men like him don’t need your pity,” I reply.
Iris clears her throat before saying, “Can I ask something?”
Malakai’s green eyes move toward Iris, finally focusing on her for the first time since we sat down.
“May I ask what he borrowed the money for?”
Malakai shrugs. “I don’t ask questions, darlin’. They ask, I loan.”
“Well, that doesn’t seem like a good business practice,” she says casually, as if she isn’t talking to the head of the most powerful Irish crime family in all of Chicago.
I stop breathing as soon as the words leave her mouth. This could go bad in a heartbeat. Malakai doesn’t seem like a man who has a sense of humor, even though he’s had a smile on his face almost the entire time we’ve been there.
But to my surprise, Malakai’s lips curve up before he lets out the loudest laugh I may have ever heard. “It probably isn’t, but it’s served me well over the years. I like you,” he says, waving a finger at Iris. “I like a woman who speaks her mind.”
When I glance at Iris, she’s white as a ghost, even though she’s smiling back at him. I don’t think she meant to say those words out loud, but she did, nonetheless. “I’m sorry,” she says quickly, realizing her error but ignoring his reply.
“What do you do, Iris?” Malakai asks, which is something I haven’t bothered to do yet.
“I’m a painter,” she says.
“Like a house painter?” he shoots back.
I stare at her. I can’t imagine her in overalls covered in paint from head to toe. I mean, women do all sorts of things now, but I can’t wrap my mind around her on a crew of painters.
She shakes her head. “Canvas.”
“An artist,” he whispers. “I love it. Oil?”
“Mixed media.”
His eyebrows rise in surprise like he has a clue what she’s talking about. I sure as hell don’t. Mixed media sounds like something I’d watch on television, not a form of art.
“Impressive.”
“What’s that?” I ask, sounding as stupid as I clearly am when it comes to the art world.
“I use different things,” she explains, and I know she’s dumbing it down for me because “things” isn’t an art term I’ve heard used before, “to create one piece of art. Like, I may use oil paint, along with spackle and foam or really anything I can get my hands on, to create a single piece of art.”
I wonder if she creates her artwork half dressed, trying to avoid ruining her clothes. I can picture it in my mind, her hair flowing over her shoulders in a messy ponytail, a long white button-down shirt, and spatters of paint all over the exposed parts of her skin. I shake the image out of my head, clearly having watched one too many unrealistic movies about artists.
“Do you make a living off your work?” Malakai asks, lifting his hand and motioning at someone across the bar.
