Chapter 20
C H A P T E R
IT HAD TAKEN THE GIRLS A FEW DAYS TO ADJUST TO THE NEW RULES AT THE CLUB, and Nikos had lost the privilege of fucking a few of the girls, including Allison, who felt betrayed when he told her that he would have no choice but to fire her if she kept missing work.
But eventually, order was restored in the club again.
Nikos stood at the bar with Rickman, nursing a glass of whiskey as he observed everything. The club was full again, with many patrons watching Sweetie and Amber perform on stage together. He took notice of the floor when his eyes caught onto someone familiar.
Nikos’s glass clattered on the counter.
“What’s wrong?” Rickman asked curiously, but Nikos ignored him as he strode across the room to grab the person who wasn’t supposed to be there.
“What are you doing here?” Nikos barked as he glared at Rheagan, who looked at him coyly.
“Working,” Rheagan said as Nikos took in her appearance. She wore a skimpy white fur bikini with white platform boots to match. Nikos was confused until he remembered that recently Georgios told him he would hire some new girls and hold an audition just a few days ago.
If Nikos had known Rheagan was going to be one of the girls auditioning, he definitely wouldn’t have allowed Georgios to hire her.
“Does Georgios know that I know you?” Nikos asked suspiciously.
“I may have told him we’re acquaintances,” Rheagan said, shrugging, and that made sense because usually they didn’t hire Black women here, and Honey had been the one exception.
Nikos let the idea settle in his mind, wondering if Georgios had hired Rheagan with sinister thoughts to get back at him or out of kindness.
If it were the former, Nikos would have to handle that.
He didn’t care for the idea of killing people, but now that he had done it before, there was no point in not adding to that count, and Georgios would be a part of it if he ever did something to go against him.
He was only keeping him alive at this point because he was Antonis’s family.
But if Georgios caused problems inside the club, he would have to go.
“Why would you even want to work here?” Nikos asked, exasperated as he pulled her over to the side. He knew Rheagan had still been trying to force her way into his life, but this wasn’t the way to do it. The club was too dangerous for a young girl like herself, especially the lifestyle.
From what he knew of her, Rheagan wasn’t built for something like this. She had been coddled and protected, unlike Raelyn. She wouldn’t be able to handle the patrons here, and she definitely wouldn’t be able to handle the girls either. They were thick-skinned and tough because of the job they had.
“I need to make money,” Rheagan said, shrugging. “Since my sister left me high and dry, and I don’t have my aunt anymore. I don’t have anyone.”
Nikos clenched his jaw, feeling the guilt wash over him from her words because she was right.
“I need to make money for myself, right? You told me that, right?”
He did, but she did not have to do it here.
For the past two months, he had been trying to live his life and leave the past in the past, but Rheagan wouldn’t let him, and now he felt directly responsible for Rheagan because she didn’t have her sister and aunt anymore, and that was his fault.
He wanted to tell her to leave, not wanting to be reminded of the past and not wanting to give her false hope because he would never do anything with her again. But his guilt made it impossible for him to do so.
“I’ll give you a chance, but if you’re not doing good out there, and I see you doing more playing than working, then you’re gone.”
Rheagan smirked. “I’m going to be the best. Better than any of the other girls here.”
Sweetie and Allison’s performance finished, and after they cleared the stage of money, the free-for-all show started, where any girl could come up on stage and perform. Usually, the girls who didn’t have main stage performances did that, and it could only be up to six girls at a time on stage.
Rheagan swept away from him and took the stage.
She couldn’t necessarily work the poll in the way the other OG girls did, and she could barely lift herself high or do a spin for long, but her beauty was doing wonders for her, and she had a certain infectious energy to her that reminded him of wild college party girls.
Some of the patrons were loving it as they tossed money at her.
When she took her top off, Nikos looked away as he went to sit down, not wanting to see her that way.
He didn’t look at exotic dancing in a bad light as he had before, but still, he couldn’t help but feel that she was doing this right now because of him, and that wasn’t something he could easily stomach.
He waved the bottle girl over to him and asked her to go get him a drink, and as he waited, Honey came over to him, looking just like her stage name. She wore a gold fishnet bodysuit that matched her skin tone. Brown glitter covered her body, sparkling under the strobe lights.
Nikos had been so busy tonight that he had missed her performance, but now that he saw her, he wished he hadn’t. Nikos shamelessly drunk in her looks until something dawned on him.
“Why are you still here?” Nikos blurted out as he glanced at his watch. Honey usually left directly after her performance. She never lingered around until now.
“To talk to you,” she said, and Nikos moved over, gesturing for her to take a seat next to him on the half-round sofa.
“What is it?” Nikos asked. “You miss me?”
“You’re insufferable. Did you know that?”
Nikos laughed. He couldn’t help himself.
“Okay, seriously. What do you have to talk to me about?”
“I want to work in the back.”
“No,” Nikos immediately said.
“Nikos.”
He ignored her as he took his drink from the bottle girl. He took a sip of the strong whiskey before he spoke to her again.
“Just because my uncle isn’t here right now doesn’t mean that I can break his rules.
He didn’t want you working in the back, and if he found out that you did, that would be my head,” Nikos explained.
If he didn’t have to worry about his uncle, he would have no problem letting Honey work in the back.
She was a grown woman who could make her own choices.
But he did still have to worry about his uncle. He wasn’t dead. He was in a coma, meaning that at any time he could come back, and Nikos was always aware of that fact. He thought of it with every decision that he made. This power he had now was only temporary.
Honey sighed, clearly annoyed, and Nikos felt bad about that, but there was nothing he could do.
“What about floor performances?” she asked.
“Honey—”
“They’re just floor performances.”
But his uncle hadn’t wanted Honey to do that either because he was a possessive bastard.
It even annoyed Nikos to know that his uncle was doing that with a woman that wasn’t even his.
Honey wasn’t his uncle’s property, and Nikos hated that he had to give in to that, but there was really nothing he could do.
“We have enough girls doing floor performances,” Nikos said, gesturing to the handful of girls out on the floor that was currently performing. But really, it was just an excuse. One more girl out on the floor wouldn’t hurt.
“But none of them can do it as good as me,” Honey said, and Nikos snorted. He knew that Honey was good on stage. Really good. But even that was arrogant to say.
To his reaction, Honey grabbed his wrist and pulled him from the sofa over to a chair near the stage, pushing him down. She made a hand gesture to the DJ, and the upbeat song faded to something slower, and Nikos realized that Honey was going to give him a floor performance.
Before he could think to stop her, his uncle’s warning in his ear, she started to dance.
The perfect word to describe Honey was temptation.
She danced around like a forbidden fruit you weren’t supposed to eat.
The music became her weapon and him her slave as she rolled her hips in front of him, captivating all of his attention, and though she danced only for him, the eyes of other patrons followed her and not the other women on stage.
They looked at her with desire and looked at him with envy.
Honey circled him, throwing her arms across his shoulder and dragging her hands along his skin.
Each tiny hair on his arm rose as she made her way back in front of him before she softly dropped on his lap.
His hands felt heavy with the weight of etiquette and his uncle’s words as Honey swirled her hips on him.
He desperately wanted to touch her, but he knew he couldn’t.
Honey got up, and he nearly followed her until she swirled around, dropped her foot between his lap, and brought her finger under his chin, forcing their eyes to connect. There was triumph in her gaze, and Nikos sighed.
He could still feel eyes on them as men walked past, looking at Honey expectantly, probably hoping to get a chance with the dancer who didn’t do floor performances until tonight.
“Okay, okay,” Nikos yielded begrudgingly. “But only floor performances. You can’t go behind the stage.”
Honey smiled, and Nikos was rattled.
“Don’t do that. I can’t take it when you smile,” he said.
Honey arched a brow with suspicion as if she were trying to figure out if he were being honest or flirtatious. But honestly, it was both, but mostly, the former.
“If anyone asks, you threatened to leave,” Nikos said, making sure to cover his bases now rather than later. He didn’t know where his uncle was or if he was coming back, but he knew he wouldn’t be happy to see Honey doing floor performances.
Honey nodded, understanding before she immediately went to leave.
“Wait. You aren’t going to finish the performance?” Nikos asked.
“Ask one of the other girls,” she said, smirking as she winked before she stalked the floor, easily evading the men she didn’t want to work with before she found a customer, and Nikos had to say he was impressed. He knew that man, and he had a lot of money.
Nikos sighed as he slumped in his seat, thinking to himself that Honey was truly the best girl here, and he couldn’t even have her, whether his uncle was an obstacle or not because she didn’t want him. It was the first time a girl had managed to charm him without him charming her first.
He guessed it was for the best, though.
It was never good for anyone’s health to taste the forbidden fruit, or in this case, poisoned honey.