“Your sister-in-law?” Jackson repeated, frowning. Nikos continued to stare, waiting for Jackson to say one wrong word about his family. It wasn’t just Mia, but Evelyn and even Raelyn. He wouldn’t tolerate disrespect on their names.
Finally, as Jackson leaned back in his seat, he said, “my bad.”
Christos chuckled as he pulled off. “Don’t bother with that asshole back there. He’s just always itching to fight. I forgot that Aris got married. Antonis wanted to go, but he had been too busy with everything happening down here.”
“He got married about a year and a half ago,” Nikos said as he turned back in his seat. Jackson pulled out two cigarettes, lighting one for himself and Christos. He offered one to him, but Nikos declined. He didn’t like smoking.
As he thought about Mia, it made him think of Honey, reminding him of the photo he had just seen her in.
“What’s the relationship between my uncle and Honey?” Nikos asked curiously. Their interactions had seemed strange to him, almost like Honey didn’t like his uncle at all. Nikos rolled his window down, not wanting to inhale too much smoke.
Christos glanced at him as he took his cigarette from Jackson. After taking a long inhale, he spoke through the smoke escaping his mouth. “To be blunt, your uncle is obsessed with her.”
Jackson laughed. “I can’t blame him. She’s the only one I would fuck.”
“Obsessed,” Nikos murmured. He wasn’t shocked. He expected as much, but this confirmed it.
“Antonis is constantly offering to give Honey a better life if she’ll be his, but she hasn’t given in yet,” Christos said as he looked thoughtfully. “What? Has it been about three or four years since he first saw her at that club?” He pointed back to Uptown, which was disappearing in the distance as they continued down the road.
“Your uncle won’t even let Honey perform backstage,” Christos said.
“He won’t even let her perform on the floor,” Jackson added. “When she first started working at the club, I was thinking about getting a lap dance myself, but Antonis held a meeting and said that if anyone touched her, he would break all of their bones before killing them, and he stayed true to his word. I had to break a couple of bones before.”
Nikos’s eyes widened upon hearing that.
“It’s a good thing for your uncle but not for Honey because she probably isn’t getting paid as well as the other women there,” Christos said. “To be honest, your uncle should give up.”
“What?” Jackson barked. “He’s already put in so much time. She’ll give in soon. That bitch just wants more money.”
“She won’t,” Christos said, exhaling again. “I know women like her.”
“You want to bet?” Jackson asked.
“You’ll lose,” Nikos said as he drummed his fingers against his thigh. “You said it’s been four years? If she only wanted money, she would have taken it by now. Four years is a long time to hold out, especially when most would lose interest.”
“Exactly,” Christos agreed.
“Y’all don’t know women,” Jackson argued, disgruntled, and Nikos shook his head.
Clearly, they knew women way better and judging from the way Jackson spoke about women, he probably barely had relationships with them beyond one-night stands. But Nikos knew women, and he could still remember the expression on Honey’s face when she was in the office with his uncle. She looked disgusted with him. His uncle had no chance, but it seemed that his uncle’s desire for her held no bounds.
“Is this all we’ll be doing?” Nikos asked after a moment of silence. It was as if Christos read his mind because there was an empathetic look in his eyes.
He shook his head as he flicked the cigarette out of the car. “There’ll be much more to do than this. Much more. Better get ready for it.”
Nikos sat back and held in his sigh. He wished he could just keep managing the clubs and shadowing. He looked down at hisbruised knuckles and wondered how much more of this he could take.
C H A P T E R
7
NIKOS AND CHRISTOS SAT ACROSS FROM ANTONIS IN HIS OFFICE, and on top of Antonis’s desk were two duffle bags. After making a pit stop to drop Jackson off, they had come straight here to deliver the money to Antonis. Christos relayed every detail to his uncle, and his uncle nodded whenever he was satisfied, and when he wasn’t, he laced his fingers together. So far, he had only laced his fingers together once.
“That’s good,” Antonis said as he set the two duffle bags aside. “Diamond has gotten too big for his britches. Look for people to take his place. I don’t care how the community takes it.”
Christos nodded.
“What about Joe?” Antonis asked. Christos and Nikos glanced at each other simultaneously before the former cleared his throat.
