Chapter 6
C H A P T E R
HIP-HOP MUSIC BLARED THROUGH THE SPEAKERS AT UPTOWN.
The crowd clapped and applauded as the dancers on stage clapped to the beat, twirling around the poles.
Money flew up to the ceiling rapidly as two dancers on the same pole performed together, causing the crowd to go into a frenzy.
But an entertaining performance wasn’t the only thing happening at the club tonight.
Thumps and grunts filled the room as fists connected with flesh and thick boots connected with bones.
Antonis Tsagkarakis’s men, who had just stormed into the building a few minutes ago, blending in with the dark shadows of the club and missing the eyes of the entertained clubgoers while slipping into the back, acted out their boss’s orders, punishing the man who owed him money, and Nikos stood in the thick of it.
Nikos watched as the crew he had come in with beat down Big Diamond, the club’s owner, and his people.
It felt like watching a massacre. Blood splattered like paint staining the tile floor, and Diamond’s woman screamed repeatedly, begging them to stop, but no one bothered to shut her up, knowing that no one could hear her from where they were.
In the front of the club, a party was happening, while in the back, it was a massacre.
Nikos clenched his fist and gritted his teeth.
He didn’t want to be here, but it was his first serious task outside of the work his uncle had him doing inside the clubs.
Knowing that he was being watched, Nikos pushed his disdain to the side and showed why he was the youngest of three boys.
Having two older brothers like his forced him to learn to defend himself early on.
Aris taught him how to fight, wanting him to be able to protect himself, while Pierce had always been his first bully, picking on him and throwing him around so that Nikos had to learn how to defend himself against Pierce.
By the time he was a teenager, he knew how to fight better than grown men, and that had always been his strength.
When a man with twists tried to throw a punch at him, Nikos easily dodged it before throwing a forceful right hook of his own.
The punch alone was enough to make the man slump to the ground and pass out.
It went like that for a while, throwing punches and thrashing, until all of Diamond’s men were down, including Diamond himself, who was curled up in a fetal position, trying to protect himself from the boots digging into his stomach, but it was futile.
“Shut up, bitch,” Jackson, one of his uncle’s men, barked to Diamond’s girl.
The Hispanic woman instantly stopped her wailing, her eyes bulging wide as she looked at the tall man looming in front of her.
Jackson sneered, glaring at the shorter woman before he stalked away.
Though he was gone, Diamond’s woman continued to stand there wide-eyed as tears fell down her face, refusing to look at the beating her boyfriend was taking.
Jackson came over to him and squeezed his shoulder, giving him a nod of gratitude for helping him earlier when one of Diamond’s men attempted to sneak up on him.
Nikos nodded back before turning his attention back to fetal-positioned Diamond and Christos, the man running the raid and the person Nikos had been shadowing for the past few weeks.
Christos slammed his foot into Diamond’s stomach until the man was coughing up blood.
There was a cold look in Christos’s brown eyes, different from the usual easygoing nature he had outside of this.
It felt like Nikos was looking at a different person until he remembered that all of Antonis’s men were like this, except for Jackson, who was like this all the time.
All of them had a switch inside them that turned on whenever they got one of these tasks, tasks that required fearlessness and physical strength.
Nikos would have to be the same way even though he didn’t want to be.
“Where is Antonis’s money?” Christos barked, and when Diamond didn’t respond, Christos kicked him again. “Huh?!”
“I-don- I don’t have it,” Diamond grunted out.
“You don’t have it?” Christos questioned as he bent down, yanking on Diamond’s jewelry. “Then what’s all of these diamonds on your neck, huh? Or are they fake?”
“I’m Diamond, man. My jewelry could never be fake,” Diamond said as he tried to sit up. Christos kicked him down again, releasing his jewelry.
“So, you’re using Antonis’s money to buy chains and watches, huh? Shouldn’t expect less from people like you,” Jackson said. Diamond lifted himself up again, but this time Christos didn’t stop him. Once he was on his knees, Diamond glared at Jackson, hearing what was insinuated.
“Like I said, I don’t have it,” Diamond said as he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. “Tell Antonis I’ll give it to him next week.”
“You think someone like Antonis is going to wait to get his money on your time? You’re the one that wanted the responsibility of a man, and so now you must be a man and pay what you owe. Did you only think you’ll get to reap the benefits of selling snow?” Christos asked. Diamond gritted his teeth.
“You know the crackdown that’s been happening on the hood lately.
I can barely get my men on the street. I’ll be a little late with the payment, but I’m still paying,” Diamond said.
“This isn’t even necessary. Running up into my club, scaring my woman, damaging my property.
This isn’t going to make me get the money to Antonis faster. ”
For a beat, nothing was said as Christos stared at Diamond, who was still trying to catch his breath. Christos then turned to look at Jackson, who nodded in turn and pulled his gun out, pointing it at Diamond’s woman, who looked stunned as she looked at the barrel of the gun pointed at her face.
“Woah! Woah! Woah! Hold up! That’s not even necessary.
I just told you I’ll pay the money!” Diamond shouted as he stared helplessly.
There wasn’t much he could do, not when he was surrounded by a group of seven individuals, all of whom were armed.
And with all of Diamond’s men beaten down on the ground with no fight left in them, it was just Diamond on his own.
“You seem to be mistaken, thinking that we came here to negotiate with you. Antonis doesn’t negotiate with anyone. Either you come up with the money now, or your woman will be no more,” Christos said.
Nikos stood motionless, wishing he were anywhere but here.
He wasn’t even really participating, more of a bystander, and yet this was still too much for him.
The fear in the woman’s eyes was not something he cared to see.
He liked entertaining women, loving them, and leaving them with good sex that left them breathless, not making them terrified and physically hurting them.
But this lifestyle promised mercy for no one.
Diamond looked torn as he looked between the locker in the corner of the room and his woman, and though Nikos felt a smidgen of empathy for the man’s plight, knowing that there was real humiliation in being weak and helpless in front of your woman, he could tell from that look alone that Diamond did have the money to pay Antonis.
Because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t look torn as if he had an option. He would look distressed instead.
“Just leave my woman out of it! I told you I don’t have the money!”
Christos nodded, and Jackson started counting down from ten. With each number that went down, Diamond grew more anxious, and his woman grew more terrified.
“I told you I don’t fucking have it!”
“Five,” Jackson continued, ignoring him as he eagerly smiled at the girl. “Four—”
“Just come up off the money,” Nikos said, exasperated. “If that’s your woman like you claim, you wouldn’t let her go through this right now. Look at her.”
The Hispanic woman stared at the barrel of the gun, tears falling down her eyes rapidly.
No words would fall from her mouth though her lips were parted.
Nikos was certain she would piss herself soon.
That was real terror on her face. Diamond stared at her face until he gritted his teeth, but he still didn’t look like he was ready to tell. Greed was truly a curse.
Jackson arched a brow, shocked that Nikos interrupted him, but Nikos couldn’t take it anymore, especially when this was easy to solve.
“You got two options,” Nikos told Diamond. “Either I’ll take the money on my own, and you pay two times more than you owe, or you save us all the time and tell me yourself.”
Diamond frowned. “You don’t know where the money is.”
“Try me,” Nikos said. “I have nothing to lose, but you do. It seems that threatening your girl won’t get you to say anything, but I bet you won’t be too happy if you lose everything you’ve been saving.”
Diamond gritted his teeth, and again, his eyes flitted over to the corner of the room where the locker was. Christos noticed it too, this time.
“Either you’re going to make the choice yourself, or I’ll make it for you,” Nikos said.
“Damn!” Diamond cursed before he lowered his head. “It’s in the locker.”
Christos nodded to two men from their crew, who went over to the locker. They broke the chain on it, and there were a couple of duffle bags filled with money stuffed inside the locker.
“One bag is enough to pay Antonis,” Diamond said, glaring. “Now, can you take the fucking gun off my girl? Shit.”
Jackson smirked as he lowered the gun, and Diamond’s woman fell to the floor, breathing wildly as she tried to catch her breath.
Nikos shook his head. No morals. Diamond wasn’t a man at all.
He would never put his woman in a situation like this.
Not even his brothers would, which was why Aris kept Mia away from this life, and even Pierce, when he had been with Evelyn, had protected her as much as he could from the war.