The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (25 page)

“How did you burn it in water?”

“I don’t know.” Nova shrugged. “I think it was the pot. It was cheap and—”

Tino gave Romeo a look. “Yeah, it’s the pot’s fault.”

“So you’re okay?” Romeo asked like he couldn’t get past it. “Except for the cooking?”

“I guess, but I got this bum leg. That sucks. I was going to try out for a dance team in Bed-Stuy when I get my cast off. Nova thinks it’s a stupid idea.”

“What?” Romeo frowned at Nova. “Why? Activities are good for him. Keeping busy is good for him. Let him stay busy until I get out so he doesn’t do things like jump off the landing.”

Nova opened his mouth but then shrugged. “I just think he should stick with karate. I found a dojo in Dyker Heights for us.”

“He can do both,” Romeo said reasonably. “I think it’s good. I always thought that.” He looked back to Tino. “I felt bad you couldn’t go for the team in gymnastics. Now you can find a gym or do this dance team or whatever you got to do to keep busy.”

“Hey, you know, Otis Johnson is on the Bed-Stuy dance crew,” Tino told him, because he was still shocked by it, and added in English, “What are the friggin’ chances?”

“Really?” Romeo gave him a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “So you have friends there? At least one friend.”

“Yeah.” Tino nodded and then looked at the table before he said under his breath, “Carina’s nice too.”

“Carina?”

“Frankie’s daughter,” Nova filled in, looking uncomfortable.

“Oh, I didn’t know her name.” Romeo looked embarrassed by it. “I’m glad she’s nice. You’ve been spending time with her?”

“She’s cool to hang with. She’s funny.” Tino laughed when he remembered the tattoos. “She’s sort of different.”

“Very different,” Nova agreed with wide eyes. “She’s spoiled, but Tino likes her. So whatever.”

“And she’s got this best friend. She’s an awesome dancer,” Tino went on, because he was really looking for things to keep him from breaking down and telling Romeo everything. “She’s kind of cute. Brianna. The friend.”

Romeo grinned at him. “You like her?”

Tino shrugged.

“Stay busy, Tino,” Romeo said solemnly. “Stay outta trouble. Promise me. I worry about you with them. I spend every night staring at the top of my bunk worrying.”

“You’re worried about me?” Tino gestured to himself and then glanced at Nova.

“I already promised him,” Nova said without meeting Tino’s gaze. “I promised him the first day in here that I wouldn’t get caught up in their bullshit.”

Tino was silent for a long time, because he realized that promise was the reason why Nova made such a stand against Frankie.

It was the reason Tino ended up in the basement.

“You can’t let them suck you in,” Romeo went on. “Don’t let them sell you their bullshit. The money. The power. It’s not worth it. You have to trust me on this.”

Tino raised his eyebrows at that.

Like it was a fucking choice.

Did Romeo honestly think Tino and Nova could just decide not to buy into the bullshit?

Nova stepped on Tino’s foot.

So Tino nodded and said, “I promise.”

“Do your dance team. Go to the Dyker Heights dojo,” Romeo went on. “Stay outta trouble, piccolo.”

“I don’t want anyone to call me that anymore,” Tino said before he could stop himself.

Romeo pulled back in confusion. “Call you what?”

“Piccolo,” Nova answered for him. “He says he’s not a baby. We
know
he’s not a baby.” He looked at Tino and whispered, “Ma called you piccolo, Valentino.”

“Ma’s dead,” Tino snapped, making Romeo and Nova flinch. “She’s dead, and we’re here, and I don’t want to be called that anymore.”

“You’re not okay,” Romeo said knowingly. “Why are you so thin, Valentino?”

“’Cause Nova’s cooking sucks.”

“You look sick,” Romeo pressed with the harsh glare of a man who had once changed his diapers. “What is going on with you?”

For one long moment Tino considered telling Romeo. Instead he asked, “Why don’t you tell us what’s going on in here?” Tino gestured around. “Do you like jail? You’re the biggest guy here. It can’t be that bad, right?”

“No one likes jail.” Romeo seemed haunted all of a sudden. “Why do you think I’m telling you to stay out of trouble?”

“You have a roommate?” Tino asked, even though he knew Romeo didn’t. “Is he cool?”

Romeo looked away. “No, I’ve been in solitary. I just got out.”

“What?” Nova barked at him. “Why were you in solitary?”

“I told the lawyer.” Romeo sighed and shook his head. “Not this one.” He pointed to Abram sitting next to them. “The criminal one.”

“I pay that motherfucker. He didn’t tell me you were in solitary.” Nova’s voice was shaking in fury. “What the fuck did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. They said something about me making threats, but you know I didn’t make any threats. I thought maybe—”

“Thought what?” Nova asked in disbelief. “They can’t legally put you in solitary without a good reason.”

“I thought maybe they were fucking with me to get you.” Romeo whispered it like he was confessing a sin. “But I’d rather they kill me than let them have you. You’re keeping your promise, right?” Nova was quiet long enough for Romeo to growl, “Casanova!”

“Yes, I’m keeping it,” Nova said without looking at him. “Are they hurting you? Is someone in here fucking with you? That’s not supposed to be happening.” Now Romeo was quiet for a long time. He looked at the table, and Nova snapped, “Romeo!”

“Not yet,” Romeo said, but Tino knew it was a lie. “They just put me in solitary.”

“Promise that’s it?” Nova asked him harshly. “You swear on Ma’s grave?”

Romeo nodded. “Yeah, I swear.”

Tino turned to look at Nova, seeing if he believed the bullshit despite the big-ass bruise on Romeo’s arm.

“They’re not trying to get you?” Romeo asked him and then glanced at the lawyer hesitantly even though they were speaking in Italian. Not that it made a whole lot of difference. Nova told Tino they taped these rooms, and were likely going to translate it. “They’re not telling you things?”

“I made a promise, okay?” Nova said it like he believed it. “Don’t worry about me. I’m good.”

Romeo turned to Tino and asked, “And you’re good?”

Tino could see how worn down Romeo was, how much jail was taking it out of his big, strong brother who was supposed to be unshakeable. Still, Romeo would rather be beaten to death than let the mafia get ahold of Nova.

There was something to be said for that.

It was noble.

Stupid and pointless, but noble.

Tino understood now why Carlo called their lives Neverland.

People on the outside didn’t understand.

Romeo included.

They were trapped in another world. A secret world that no one, not even his older brother, was allowed to know about.

Tino gave him his best little-brother smile. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Really?” Romeo asked like he couldn’t see the lie in Tino’s smile. Maybe he didn’t want to see it as he rubbed at his arm. “I just want you to be safe. I want you to stay outta trouble. I want you to be happy.”

“I’ll be safe. Nova’s got my back,” Tino promised him, even if it was the biggest lie he had ever told in his life, and then said in English, “Just, you know, get the fuck outta here as fast as you can. I can only take so much Brooklyn.”

“You’ll be happy?” Romeo asked again. “And you’ll help Nova? You’ll make sure he doesn’t get too angry? You’ll make him laugh. He needs to laugh, Valentino.”

Tino smiled at him again rather than tell another lie.

“Okay,” Nova agreed for Tino as he ran his hand over the folders in front of him and said in English, “I’m gonna hire you a different criminal attorney. We know someone better.” He looked to Abram. “Right?”

Abram nodded confidently. “Yeah, we got someone.”

“So it’s all good. Tino’s good,” Nova decided for all of them. “I got his back. He’s got mine. We’ll hire you a better attorney, and we’ll all be okay.”

Tino was the only one who knew they were fucking liars.

All three of them.

Chapter Twenty

Dyker Heights, New York

April 2006

“What’s gonna happen when Romeo comes home?” Tino played with the leather band on his wrist as he watched Nova pull on a black shirt. “I mean, seriously, what the fuck are we gonna do about that, Nova?”

“I’ll figure it out.” Nova walked to the mirror in the bathroom and worked on his hair. “Don’t worry about it.”

Is he joking?

Romeo was getting out in two weeks.

They had absolutely no game plan to hide the fact that everything they had told Romeo while he was in prison was a lie. The list of shit he was going to freak out about was epic, starting with Nova dropping out of school and ending with Tino being a soldier in the crew Nova had been running for their father.

“Lemme just enjoy my last few weekends, okay?” Nova ran a hand through his wet hair again. “Can you gimme that, Valentino?”

“Yeah.” Tino nodded. “I can give you that.”

Nova yanked Tino’s backpack out of his hand. “I’ll carry it.”

Tino just rolled his eyes and let Nova believe he was still the big brother protecting him from shit.

What a fantastic job Nova had done with that. Tino felt very protected as a high-quality sex-trafficking product, part-time drug dealer, and full-time Cosa Nostra thug at the ripe ol’ age of sixteen.

Though the sex-trafficking issue wasn’t totally Nova’s fault.

Since Tino had never told him about it.

But for a guy with a big brain, he sure missed a lot of shit.

They were busy. Nova was distracted with the joys of being a Lost Boy on his downtime, and Tino wasn’t too pissed off about it anymore. Most days it wasn’t too bad a gig.

Tino still hated Mary.

That never changed.

He despised getting on his knees for her, but after a while when Tino started to grow into himself, she started renting him out, and some of the other women were okay. They made up for the weekly Mary time Tino still had to put in when Nova was caught up with something.

Tino didn’t know how much Mary was getting for him, but he knew he wasn’t cheap. He worked very, very hard to make sure he wasn’t cheap, because Mary still threatened on a regular basis to sell him to men if he lost his value to women, and Tino was pretty sure Romeo would be fucked if that happened.

Tino would have to eat a fucking bullet.

Women, they had higher standards.

Rich women, even more so.

So Tino made sure he was up to their standards.

No one knew he was sixteen; everyone assumed he was much older. Nova thought it was because he worked out like crazy, but Tino noticed most sex slaves looked older than they were.

Even if their sponsors didn’t want them to.

It just happened, which was unfortunate. It meant human traffickers grabbed them younger and younger because there was billions of dollars in the sex slave industry and most of it was made off minors. The Brambinos were just sick, sick, sick bastards, and Tino hated Don Moretti for tolerating them when he had the power to annihilate them instead.

But he still didn’t mind his personal gig, as whore to all those rich, lonely mob wives who weren’t allowed to touch another man but didn’t seem to mind renting Tino.

Nova thought he was mowing their lawns.

Or shoveling their driveways.

And he let Tino do it, because Mary made him nervous, and he liked to keep her happy. Gold star to Nova for having enough survival skills to notice keeping Mary happy was always the wisest choice.

Mary was the crowning glory in a long list of reasons why Tino’s life was totally dysfunctional, and he was starting to suspect that somewhere along the way, he had become highly and irreversibly fucked-up. Like the fact that seeing pills in a bottle made his dick hard, and seeing naked women made him think about being high.

If he went too long without seeing Mary or getting a job, he started to get itchy. He didn’t know if he was itchy for the drugs or itchy for the sex. He supposed he could solve it by taking the drugs when he wasn’t fucking, but that seemed wrong for some reason, and he could never bring himself to do it.

Drugs were for survival.

At least to Tino they were.

Others had different reasons for them.

“Why do you like the weekends so much?” Tino asked Nova as he followed him down the stairs. It was dark out, past nine, which was about the right time for Lost Boys to head out and play.

“It’s a break. A few days off. I don’t owe anyone anything,” Nova explained very reasonably.

How nice for Nova. It wasn’t Tino’s day off.

Tino didn’t really have a day off.

He was always doing something for someone.

School.

Karate.

Dance team.

Dealing.

Fucking.

Crew work.

What the hell would he do if he had a day off? Probably exactly what Nova did.

“That’s not what I meant,” Tino argued, still following after Nova, who was motivated to get the hell out of Dyker Heights for the night. “Is it the E or the girls?”

Drugs.

Or sex.

Which one was it that made him sweat for more?

“It’s both.” Nova walked past his Porsche in the driveway. “They sorta go hand in hand.”

Instead of catching the bus, Nova called a car service to get to the subway. The lack of stops in Dyker Heights
never
stopped being annoying. Nova carried Tino’s backpack, but Tino was still packing heat, so chances were they were both going down if they got stopped.

They never did.

The Borgata had most of Brooklyn in their pocket, but they could never be too careful.

When they got on the train, Nova dropped his head back against the seat and looked up. Tino tugged at his leather bracelet again, still worrying about Romeo and wishing today was a Monday instead of a Saturday so he could work off some of the nerves.

Tino fucked on weekdays, when men went to work.

Nova fucked on weekends when party girls came out to play.

“What the fuck are we gonna do about Romeo?” Nova sighed, still staring at the roof of the subway car. “Cazzo, Tino, we are screwed.”