Chapter 48
C H A P T E R
ALTHOUGH DR. brIDGE TOLD HIM TO REST AND STAY OFF HIS FEET AFTER UNDERGOING MULTIPLE SURGERIES, Nikos had never been one to follow the rules.
If he had been, he wouldn’t have gotten shot three times by his own uncle in the first place.
And that was why he was outside playing with Kai when he should have been resting.
They raced each other from the tree to the gate back and forth to see who would win, but on the lap back to the tree, Nikos felt his calf muscle flex in a way that it shouldn’t have, causing him to stop midway and for Kai to win for the first time.
“I beat you, Nik,” Kai said, laughing breathlessly. The kid was full of energy, way more than Nikos had ever had even when he wasn’t recovering from injuries.
“Yeah, yeah. You beat me, kid,” Nikos laughed and gave up on reaching the tree and instead plopped down on the ground.
When he felt a heavy glare over his shoulder, he peeked behind himself and saw Honey standing off to the side, with her hands on her hips and a sharp stare on them both, that reminded him of his mother whenever she’d caught him and his brothers doing something wrong.
Nikos scratched his neck, sheepishly. “Sorry,” he said, responding the same way he had to Vicky Drakou whenever he did something wrong. Honey had the ‘it’s-going-to-be-trouble-if-you-continue’ mother look down pat, although, he didn’t remember it being sexy.
“Sorry, Mom,” Kai said with the same sheepish look as he rocked on his heels.
Honey shook her head.
“Go over to the table and eat because dinner’s ready,” Honey told her son. Kai pouted but did as told, and then Honey only focused her glare on him and said, “You’re supposed to be the adult here.”
“I’ll always be a kid at heart,” Nikos said, winking, and Honey rolled her eyes.
“Stop playing around, so you can heal like the doctor said,” Honey chided before she walked over to the outdoor table where Kai, Ava, and Lefteris sat, eating the dinner that Ava and Honey had prepared together.
Grimacing, Nikos stood, taking careful steps before he sat down on the bench near Ava’s flower beds that covered the left side of her backyard. Immediately, the smell of marigolds hit him, along with the sweet scent of primrose.
He had to admit that Honey was right, and he had definitely overdone it. But ever since Kai had seen him with bandages all over his body, the kid had been worried, and Nikos wanted to put Kai at ease, so the kid wouldn’t be sad about his injuries anymore.
Nikos adjusted his leg, ignoring the discomfort that still lingered there, reminding him that he had been shot. He looked at Honey and Kai and couldn’t help but smile, feeling warm and like he was looking at home.
The night when Honey had come here, he had immediately sent one of his men to pick up Kai from the motel and bring him here.
Ava had been kind enough to let them stay there for the time being, knowing that right now, her place was the safest place for them to be because most people didn’t know who she was or where she lived.
He doubted his uncle would think that Honey was here of all places.
Initially, he had planned on focusing on his recovery first and then going to see Honey.
He thought since Antonis was so obsessed with Honey, he wouldn’t harm her.
But after hearing the stories from Honey, and even Kai, who told him how he protected his mom from a bad man, Nikos knew he couldn’t let Honey return to her apartment or the club again.
Antonis was now pushing his affections on Honey even more, and Nikos was scared of what would happen if he took it a step further. Clearly, his uncle had lost it, and nothing mattered to him anymore but Honey.
“What’s your relationship with Honey?” Aris asked bluntly as he sat beside him after coming in from the gate.
His brother shouldn’t have even been in America right now after Mia had given birth so recently.
But he had come immediately after he received a call from their father, telling him that his youngest brother was dead, only to receive another call from Ava a mere hour later, telling him that his youngest brother was heavily injured, but very much so, still alive.
That day, Nikos thought it would be his last. He knew his uncle had been suspicious of his relationship with Honey, but with him having no proof, Nikos thought he had time.
But he had been wrong, and when those bullets hit him, he thought it was the end for him until he had woken up in the back of the car with his cousin Theo racing down the street in panic, talking to Christos over the phone, telling him that he didn’t know what to do.
Fortunately, he had been lucid enough to tell Theo through agonizing pain to take him to Ava’s address.
When they had gotten there, Ava immediately called Aris, and Lefteris brought in an old family doctor, who wasn’t connected to their family and wouldn’t alert Antonis that his dear young nephew was still alive.
By the time he had become lucid again after undergoing surgery and being heavily sedated, his brother was no longer in Greece, but in America, in Ava’s home, explaining to him that their father told him to come down and investigate his death.
When Nikos told his brother the real person behind his ‘killing’, Aris, who had never been a man of many faces, had even been shocked.
As of now, his uncle still thought he was in the ocean where he had told Theo to take him.
“We haven’t made anything official yet,” Nikos said as he looked at Honey, who was conversing with Ava with that gorgeous smile of hers, that smile that she only reserved for people she liked, a smile that his uncle so desperately wanted to monopolize for himself that he was willing to harm anyone to have it.
“But she’s mine,” Nikos finished.
A few months ago, he never thought he would be calling another woman his again, especially Honey. He thought he had closed off his heart, and Honey had made it very clear that she wanted nothing to do with him, and that she would be the only girl in the club to never sleep with him.
But now, everything changed.
She allowed him to know her, taste her, have the privilege of being in her presence, and he would never give that up, especially to someone like his uncle, who didn’t deserve Honey. Honey was his, and he would do everything to protect her from his uncle.
“When she came here, she described herself as your coworker,” Aris said, and Nikos laughed, knowing that was something that Honey would say.
“We’re still working the titles out,” Nikos said, winking. Aris nodded as he also gazed at the table where everyone else sat.
“I remember seeing her perform once,” Aris admitted, “and I had seen how he looked at her then. No wonder he tried to kill you. He would have probably tried to kill me too if I had done the same.”
Nikos arched a brow because if he weren’t mistaken, Honey didn’t start working at the club until after Aris returned home. He thought they had never met before, and he would think they had never met before with the way Honey still acted cautiously around his brother.
“It was when I was ambushed here. I had gone to his club while I was hiding, and he helped me.”
Nikos looked down, knowing that Antonis was the uncle that Aris was closest to.
When people questioned Aris’s position because he wasn’t blood, Antonis was one of the few who spoke up and rallied for him to take their father’s position.
He knew his brother was stuck between a rock and a hard place and could still remember the blank expression his brother had when he explained to him what had happened.
Maybe things would have been different if he had taken heed to his uncle’s warnings, but it was too late now. He had already tasted the forbidden fruit, and he wanted nothing else. He would kill his uncle before he allowed him to take her away from him against her will.
When he had first come here, he did it to run away from the relationship he had formed that nearly destroyed his family and helped their enemies, and now, he was in New York, doing the same thing again.
He was certain that his brother was disappointed in him, and when his father found out, he would be too, and he didn’t even have to bother to guess with Pierce. Nikos already knew he wouldn’t hear the end of it once Pierce found out that he had let a woman be his weakness again.
Nikos wanted to say that he regretted his actions, but he didn’t. Not at all, actually.
Still, Nikos said, “Sorry, brother,” because he knew his brother was losing someone because of his actions.
“Antonis made a mistake trying to kill you and should have handled it differently,” Aris said, and Nikos was pretty sure that differently was speaking to his father, who probably would have instructed him to stay away from Honey. But Nikos doubted his father’s orders would have changed anything.
He had been drawn to Honey since the moment he first laid eyes on her. The only person who could stop him from having Honey was Honey herself, and he wouldn’t give her a reason to.
“Familiarity doesn’t matter to me. You’re my brother. You always come first.”
Nikos clapped his brother’s shoulder, grateful to have his brother’s support, though he had never doubted it for a second. Nothing mattered more to Aris than family, and it was why whenever he needed help, Aris was always the first person he thought of.
“So, how do you want to handle this?” Aris asked. “Do you want to bring Father into it yet?”
His father still thought him dead from the call he had received from Antonis. Even though Aris had received a different call from Ava an hour later, who told him that he had arrived at her place wounded, Aris still hadn’t told their father yet, waiting for his word on the matter.
Nikos was grateful his brother respected him enough to wait for his decision because this was his problem and his matter to handle. His father was still under the impression that he was dead, and Aris was investigating, and Nikos wanted to keep it that way.
He knew the moment his father learned the truth, he wouldn’t hesitate to come down here and handle it himself. But Nikos was his own man now, and with his time spent in New York, he had built his own power.
He would handle it on his own.
“No,” Nikos said, ignoring the guilt of having his family still mourn him, especially his mother, who he was certain hadn’t taken the news well at all.
“You’ll have to handle it soon. Father is expecting an answer from me and a head to roll, and Pierce is ready for a bloodbath after what happened with Evelyn.”
Nikos clenched his fist.
He would handle it soon. This was his fight, and unlike the last time, he would win.