The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (15 page)

New York hadn’t gotten rid of either problem.

No war could exterminate them.

There were always more coming out of the woodwork.

And nothing brought them out faster than gunfire.

Tino wasn’t real sure what his plan was, but he was having a hard time with the idea of leaving Nova behind. “Nova!”

“Go! Run, stronzo!” Nova shouted when he came up behind them, and for one heartbeat Tino felt free when he realized his brother was running with them.

Like they could make it.

All three of them could get to the car and just fucking leave.

It was a dumb idea.

Something a twelve-year-old came up with as he grabbed the metal railing on each side and lifted his feet, because he’d been practicing this shit. Stupid cast. Tino went first, but Carina was right behind him, with Nova at her heels.

Tino was halfway down when the others came from around the pool.

The gunfire must have sent them running.

“Grab those fuckers!” Frankie’s voice was gravelly and furious.

Tino didn’t turn around, but he heard Nova go back up, felt the tackle shake the entire staircase. Tino had other problems, namely the four big, thick men in front of him and Carina behind him.

He lifted his legs higher as he slid the rest of the way down and nailed the first guy in the chest, which made the pain explode in his foot like a nuclear bomb.

He couldn’t outrun these assholes, and he suspected they weren’t going to start shooting with Carina in the mix. So Tino fell onto the guy he kicked and hit him like he meant it. It was a Nova sucker punch, something meant to knock someone out rather than just play.

And this motherfucker obviously wasn’t expecting it. He hadn’t even thrown his hands up to protect his face. When he dropped his gun, Tino grabbed it, though he didn’t have the faintest idea how to shoot one.

Tino did, however, know how to slam a blunt metal object into the face of the second asshole who came up from behind and tackled him, but these Sicilians were just like rats. They didn’t go down easily, and they worked better in packs.

Maybe if he’d been a full-grown Sicilian instead of a twelve-year-old, he wouldn’t have ended up choking on grass and blood after fighting for his fucking life. Someone’s knee dug into the back of his neck so hard it cut off his air supply. Then he felt the cold press of a gun against the back of his skull.

“I think this little shit’s on amphetamines. Did you see him coldcock me?” the guy growled, sounding completely breathless. “What the
hell
are you feeding these bastards, Frankie? I think he broke my friggin’ nose!”

The gun clicked.

Tino still couldn’t breathe, but something about that sound made his body fall still.

“Is he the smart one?”

“Nah.” The stairs shook again, as if Frankie was lumbering down them. “This one’s useless, but it’d be really traumatizing to watch your brother get shot right in front of you, wouldn’t it, sweetheart?”

Carina’s and Nova’s screams blended together. Tino wasn’t even sure which of them Frankie was talking to, and maybe it didn’t matter. Tino still wasn’t breathing. His heartbeat got louder in his ears the more the world started to fade out, and he wondered how long it would take them to notice he’d died.

Without the fucking bullet.

* * * *

“You better nip this shit in the fucking ass, Frankie. He downed you like you were his bitch. He doesn’t respect you.”

“No, he doesn’t, but that’s okay. He can fear me instead.”

Tino blinked, feeling like all the blood in his body had run to his head. It wasn’t until he blinked a few more times that he realized the lights were dim, and that was why he was having a hard time focusing.

“Drop him right there.”

If Tino had stayed passed out for a few more seconds, he wouldn’t have tensed before whoever was carrying him over their shoulder dropped him on the cold cement floor, and it might not have hurt so fucking much.

Tino shouted when he landed wrong on his already broken leg. His neck still hurt like a motherfucker. Really, all of him hurt, and he rolled over, struggling to keep breathing. His eyes stung, and he blinked again, fighting tears because he was fucking terrified.

Tino knew something horrific was about to happen.

And he was fairly certain it was going to happen to him.

’Cause, as his father pointed out, he was pretty much useless.

Strangely, he saw Nova first, maybe because someone was forcing him to his knees, and it made him more eye level. Nova’s nose was bleeding. His shirt was torn. His eyes were wide, his chest rising and falling in sharp, hard breaths.

The fear off him was potent, maybe even more than Tino’s. He thought it was because Frankie had a gun against the back of Nova’s skull. Maybe Nova picked up some self-preservation while Tino had been out, but then Tino noticed the guns on him too.

He rolled onto his back, looking up at the three guys who all had their guns level at his chest. Which, really, was probably overkill. His heartbeat was thundering again, so deafening he might not have noticed Carina’s screams from somewhere far away, if one of the men with a gun on him didn’t say, “Damn, Frankie, she’s got some lungs.”

“She gets it from her friggin’ mother. You ever hear Mary scream? Jesus.”

“Look, man, I’ll give it to you. Your balls make some tough kids. Ain’t got an ounce of respect, any of ’em, but they’re tough.”

“You think you’re tough?” Frankie jammed his gun against the back of Nova’s head. “Huh, smart-ass? You feel tough now?”

Nova didn’t say anything. He just lifted his gaze to Tino, the dim lighting in the basement reflecting the tears and fury.

“Let’s test how tough you are.” Frankie looked worse than Nova. His face was swollen and bruised. He was tilting his head like his neck was bothering him, but he didn’t let on that he was suffering as he pushed his gun against the back of Nova’s head again. “Take your shirt off, tough guy.” Nova didn’t even flinch. Didn’t hesitate. He just pulled his shirt off, and when he went to toss it aside, Frankie caught his arm. “Eat it.”

Nova turned to look at him. “What?”

“Shove it in your mouth,” Frankie said slowly. “Don’t you think we’ve traumatized your sister enough for one day?”

Tino jerked on instinct, making a move to get up, because he understood more than he wanted to. They didn’t want Nova’s screaming to upset Carina.

“It’s okay.” Nova shook his head quickly at Tino, his eyes wide and pleading to shut up. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Nova said it like a chant, as if he was willing it, because Nova didn’t do well with situations he couldn’t fix.

He tended to freak the fuck out.

“It’s
not
okay, sweetheart,” Frankie assured him as he wrapped a big, meaty hand around the back of Nova’s neck. “You wanna know what happened to the last person who ate a shirt for me?” He gestured toward Tino. “See those black marks on the floor. Couldn’t get ’em up. Motherfucker didn’t respect me either. Trust me, chief, he was respecting the hell outta me when we took a blowtorch to him.”

Tino rolled over and looked at the floor, seeing there wasn’t just one black mark.

There were hundreds.

“No blood. Nice and neat. The high heat cauterizes it,” Frankie went on as if he were talking about the weather. “Keeps them alive longer.”

Tino scooted back, trying to get away from the black marks. Then he turned around, searching for a fucking blowtorch. He found it hanging on the wall behind him.

That moment when you realize your father isn’t just a drug-dealing asshole, but also a sadistic murderer.

Not too many people can say they know what
that
feels like.

“Do you know what the punishment is for hitting a made man?” Frankie growled in Nova’s ear. “Someone’s gotta die for it.”

“You kill him. You hurt him. You even
touch
him,” Nova rasped, his voice quivering despite the fury. “I’ll eat a bullet. I swear to God, Tino dies, I’ll kill myself.”

“You still got another brother in jail,” Frankie reminded him. “You die and I’ll rent him out. I’ll get my money one way or the other. Then I’ll sell him to the Brambinos once he gets out. The underground sex trade is such a nasty business. How much do you think Romeo will fetch?”

Nova looked over Tino’s shoulder at the blowtorch, and then he swallowed hard, as if he might be sick. Thank God he didn’t puke again. Instead he whispered, “What do you want? Just tell me what you want. You want me to run your fucking scheme and launder your money.
Fine.
”

“I want more than that now. You disrespected me in front of my crew. No one disrespects me.”

“I respect you,” Nova said quickly. “I’m fucking stressed out. I’m not handling this well, but I respect you, okay?”

“I want you to grovel.” Frankie wrenched Nova’s head back and got in his face again. “I want you to cry. I want you to lose all that fucking arrogance. I want you to be my bitch. That’s what I want.”

“It’s gone,” Nova assured him, and Tino believed him because he was shaking. “I promise. It’s gone.”

“No, it’s not, but it will be.” Frankie picked up Nova’s shirt, shoving at his face. “Eat it.”

Tino had to give Nova credit. He shoved the shirt in his mouth without complaint. Then he knelt there and closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling harder.

“We’re gonna play a game. You like games, don’tcha, champ? Five-to-one odds.” Frankie tugged at his belt, unbuckling it. He pulled it free from his pants. “For every one you take, Tino wins five. If he lives, we’ll give him a pass. If he dies, the debt is paid. As long as you play along, your brother Romeo will do just fine in prison. If not, things could get very uncomfortable for him in there.”

Nova jerked in shock. He pulled the shirt out of his mouth and turned back to their father.

“
Ten to one.
” Frankie raised his eyebrows before Nova could say anything. “Say another word, and I’ll get the blowtorch. It’s your choice, but I promise you, he’s not living through it if we get out the blowtorch.”

Tino’s heartbeat was nothing but a
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh
in his brain.

At some point, he’d curled up into himself, hands wrapped around his legs, as Nova whispered, “Oh my God,” and shoved the shirt back in his mouth.

Then Nova folded his arms over his chest, maybe to hide the shake in them.

Truth.

Tino and Nova didn’t grow up in one of those houses where kids got time-out. When they fucked up, they felt it. They weren’t pampered. They really couldn’t be, not where they came from. Babying them would’ve hurt them. They needed thicker skin, and they had it. They could both take a beating.

When that belt hit Nova, buckle side up, the look on his face, the way his eyes went wide, it was like he couldn’t believe how much it hurt.

The second hit had Nova on his hands and knees.

Tino was
not
going to be able to do this. He certainly wasn’t pulling it off and maintaining any sort of street cred and pride. He wasn’t going to be kneeling there on his hands and knees and just taking it.

Truth again.

Nova was
not
normal.

Granted, that was a given. He was a freak by default and most everyone picked up on it pretty fast, but there were little things to his weirdness that only people who lived with him his whole life knew about.

What Tino knew and these motherfuckers didn’t was that Nova had an insanely high pain tolerance. As in, something-wrong-with-his-brain, not-feeling-things-like-a-normal-person type of issue.

Tino asked him once if that affected his jacking off, ’cause yeah, he was curious and he was twelve, and that was sorta what he spent most of his time thinking about before his life went to hell.

Nova told him to fuck off with his questions.

Which meant it probably
did
affect it.

That seemed like a really fucked-up trade-off to being a genius, but right now, Tino would give up jacking off for the rest of his life if he could have Nova’s pain tolerance.

He seriously hoped his brother was acting and doing a spectacular job of it as Nova dropped his head to the ground. He fisted both hands in his hair, like everything in him wanted to protect himself.

Tino was watching his face, but when he started sobbing, biting his shirt so hard a red stain blossomed on the white material, Tino looked away.

It was a street thing.

Not to acknowledge it. To give him the space so they could pretend later Tino didn’t see it, but looking away meant he saw his back.

Oh fuck.

Screw street cred.

Tino’s father was going to beat him to death.

There was something about that buckle and the way he did it that was cutting Nova. There weren’t welts on Nova’s back. There was blood. Lots of it. Tino didn’t know if Nova was sobbing from the pain, or from the knowledge that Tino was going to die from this shit.

What sort of candy-coated, edited-for-television world had Tino been living in that let him survive without considering what went into his father being underboss of the largest crime family in the country?

What the fuck was Nova thinking to throat punch him?

And what the hell had Romeo been thinking to keep them in New York?

They should’ve all run to fucking Siberia to avoid this motherfucker. He was second in charge of the fucking mafia.

The rip-people-apart-with-blowtorches mafia.

Not like they had some golden seal of approval from the church like Carina that made Frankie fucking obligated by God to keep her alive.

They were bastards.

They were expendable.

Tino in particular.

But Romeo had been so worried about Nova.

So fucking bothered over the idea of him getting involved with something criminal.

And Nova had been so caught up in saving Romeo once he did go down. So mad his brother had gone to jail he throat punched a mafia underboss.

Tino wanted to run; he really did and it must have shown, because one of the guys behind him said, “Don’t. It’ll make it worse.”

Worse?