The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (28 page)

It was just so fucking hot, and Tino had a goddamn jacket on to keep the gun hidden. The gun that was digging into the small of his back, making it impossible to get comfortable, especially in the heat, and this was all such bullshit. He closed his eyes, trying and failing to push the anger down before he ate a fistful of E to escape it.

“What are we selling?” a low, snarky voice asked over the thump of music. “It’s like an international buffet. Mexican. Chinese. Or cheap Italian.”

Tino turned to see Dominic Brambino standing there in front of him, eyeing the three of them like they were for sale.

Which, really, they were.

Every fine hair on Tino’s body stood on end. Don Moretti, Nova, and Carlo didn’t know what the band on Tino’s wrist meant, but Dominic recognized it Tino’s first day at St. Francis.

It had made the past three and half years of school really wonderful.

“It’s not actually cheap Italian, is it?” Tino mused rather than take the bait. “More like one of those authentic places that’s hard to find. Something you hear about everywhere. Real Italian you wanna taste more than anything but can’t, because you don’t have the connections to get in.”

“I do have the connections, though,
troia
,” Dominic reminded him. “And I will get in. One of these days, I’m getting in.”

“I would eat a bullet before I let you taste my Italian, and I would take you with me,” Tino assured him, making his voice extra loud like Dominic had to be heard over the music, even though they were in the far corner. “What can I do for you?”

“I want what you’re selling.” He turned and let his gaze run over Meilei. “I like Chinese as much as the next guy.”

Tino couldn’t kick his ass, because Mary would definitely make Tino suffer for the fuckup in the most unpleasant ways possible. Tino knew it because he had tested it one too many times already.

So he lifted the bag of ecstasy on his chest.

“Do you want it or not?”

“Yeah, gimme three.” Dominic pulled out one twenty and held it out to Tino. “Family discount.”

“You’re not in my family, motherfucker.” Tino fished three out of the bag. “You’re not in my Borgata either, but I’ll float you the extra two if you get the fuck outta my face for the rest of my night and leave all the bands alone. Boys and girls.”

“Deal.” Dominic snatched the three small baggies out of Tino’s hand. “I already have company. I heard you’re supposed to be bringing your own pussy to these parties.”

“Pity the pussy, then.” Tino grabbed the twenty out of his hand and dropped his head back to Meilei’s thigh. He pointed out to the dance floor. “Now go where I can’t see you.”

“You have an attitude,” Dominic growled at him. “For an indebted whore who rents by the hour, you’ve got an attitude.”

“But that’s what they like about me. That’s what makes me so expensive,” Tino said as he turned on his side and glared at Dominic. “I know how to pull their hair, and they love it. Ask your mother about it sometime if you don’t believe me.”

Dominic’s jaw fell slack, as if he didn’t want to believe Tino, but he did.

He should.

Tino wasn’t bullshitting him about it. He left out that Dominic’s father always watched, which was very high on the list of things Tino could barely stomach about his life. There was no way Carmine was going to let someone fuck his wife unless he was watching. Then, for some reason, it was perfectly fine. The Brambinos were twisted.
All of them.
No wonder Dominic was so fucked-up.

“I floated you the pills,” Tino reminded him. “So unless you feel like coughing up another forty bucks, get outta my face.”

“You know, if I told my ma—”

“But you’re not going to, because if you did, you know I’d tell all of them you’ve been trying to taste my Italian ice for two years, and that doesn’t really fly in Cosa Nostra, does it? Especially since I’m pretty fucking sure the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and you jerk off thinking about me fucking you from behind just like your mom does.”

“One day the Borgata’s gonna be mine,” Dominic reminded him. “I’m gonna own all of it.”

“One day you will,” Tino agreed. Dominic had all the perfect qualifications to take over the Brambino Borgata, including a complete lack of conscience. God help them all when that day came. Luckily, Tino had learned not to think too far ahead. “But right now you’re getting outta my face.”

He rolled on his side, dismissing Dominic before he kicked the shit out of him instead.

“You’re my favorite kind,” Meilei mused as she grabbed his hand and caressed his leather band.

“I hear that all the time,” Tino admitted and closed his eyes tiredly. “
All the time.
”

“You matter,” Carla said as she rubbed his thigh. “Did you know that?”

“Yeah, I knew that,” he whispered to himself, feeling like he wanted to take a shower, because if the heat didn’t make him feel dirty, Dominic Brambino sure the fuck did.

Screw it.

If Nova couldn’t survive one night, then they were all fucked.

Tino marked three lines on his arm for three Lost Kids who were wasting drugs and doing it just for the fucking roll.

’Cause it felt good.

He had exactly three glow sticks left, and those were the ones he used because they were worth it.

They fucking mattered.

To one another, if no one else in the world.

Tino hadn’t done anything with girls before Mary fell into his life. He noticed them, sure, and he had lots of friends, but nothing past that. He’d been sort of caught up in the whole mother-dying, brother-being-wanted-by-Cosa-Nostra, losing-benefits, and social-workers-knocking-down-their-door problems that filled those years between eight and twelve.

So it wasn’t until Meilei slipped a hand under his shirt and caressed his stomach, tracing the muscles there, that he realized he didn’t know how to be touched without it being a job.

Without performing.

Without pain or death or humiliation being the punishment for failing.

Maybe Meilei understood, because she made it less about sex and more about curiosity. It wasn’t like any of them were shy about their bodies. “You wax.” She slipped one hand beneath the fly of his jeans.

“Yeah, I wax.” Tino shrugged. “I make it look good.” Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her forward. He kissed her open palm and said, “You don’t have to, sweetheart.”

“I know.” She smiled, which made her look coy and beautiful, with long, silky black hair falling over his face like a veil and hiding him from the world. “I want to.”

“I don’t know how to be normal,” he confessed.

“Me either.” Her smile grew broader, letting Tino see what she might have been if the yakuza hadn’t stolen her childhood like Cosa Nostra stole his. “We’ll wait for the roll. Maybe it’ll be nice. Everyone says it’s nice.”

Tino realized Meilei didn’t fuck recreationally either.

“For the roll,” he agreed and turned on his side, watching his brother dance like he didn’t have a fucking care in the world, and waited for his turn.

They had a few more buyers, and Tino started stressing over having that much fucking cash on him and rolling on ecstasy. He didn’t take a half. He took a full one like an idiot. It had been a really stupid idea and was probably going to end with him getting robbed by an asshole and beaten by his father.

Maybe this time Frankie would kill Tino, even if the don had so kindly put a limit on how many times his father could hit him.

Not that Tino had a lot to complain about.

There were so many others who had it so much worse.

He leaned down and pushed Meilei’s dress up, feeling the smooth skin of her thighs. She had great skin, really soft, because like Tino, she made it look good. Meilei smelled nice, pretty and feminine. Carla did too, and he sort of wanted to know what it was like to fuck like Nova did, to do it because he wanted to, not because he
had
to.

For the first time, he felt guilty when he closed his eyes and imagined it was someone else’s soft skin. A different scent of shampoo. The tease of red hair tickling his face. Other times it was survival; this time it left a hollow feeling in his chest, because neither Carla nor Meilei deserved a man who was fantasizing about someone else. But Tino was pretty good at hiding the sin that had kept him sane for a long time now.

Carla’s hand was under his shirt, pushing it up, exposing his chest, and this part Tino knew how to do. He shrugged out of his jacket and then pulled off his shirt.

He put himself on display for both of them.

And they seemed to appreciate it.

“Pretty boy,” Carla said in amusement as she caressed his chest. “The prettiest boy.”

“That’s what they say,” he agreed.

“No wonder that pendejo wants a taste of your Italian ice.” Carla laughed. “What does it taste like? Spicy. Sweet. Caramel or vanilla.”

Tino laughed with her. “Definitely not vanilla.”

“I think he likes vanilla, though,” Meilei cut into their conversation, her fingers still in Tino’s hair. “Your flesh-dealing friend. She has no band.”

“Not yet,” Carla added. “She’d be expensive. He’ll find a way. She has someone she cares about. They’ll suck her in. They get the pretty
gringas
all time. Especially the Italians. They like the gringas.”

“She can dance,” Meilei said thoughtfully. “Vanilla that can move like there’s spice in there somewhere. She
would
be expensive.”

Tino frowned and looked out to the dance floor.

For one minute he thought it was the roll. That it very conveniently slipped his pretty girl of choice into the fantasy. Then he realized he really wasn’t high. Brianna was dancing with Carina. The two of them looked like any other party girls out for the weekend. Dominic Brambino was behind Brianna with his hands on her back like he owned her.

Tino jumped off Meilei and Carla before he made the conscious decision to do it. They both look affronted, and he pointed out to the dance floor. “That’s my sister that motherfucker brought with him!”

He didn’t have to say any more.

Meilei tossed his bag at him, and he stormed into the crowd, shirtless, with his gun showing. Not too many people were paying attention anyway. It’d been about an hour since he got there, which meant everyone was already rolling their asses off.

He snatched a glow pen out of a party girl’s hand, because she’d been writing on her boyfriend. Then he walked right up to Carina and caught her arm.

She gasped, clearly in full defense for about two seconds before she yelled over the music, “Tino! What’re you doing here?”

He was dealing for their father, but he didn’t explain it to her.

Tino just leaned down and wrote on his sister’s forehead in big block letters that glowed under the black lights.

MORETTI

“If it says moron, I’m gonna be really fucked off!” Carina shouted at him. “Why are you coloring on me?”

“Why are you here?” he screamed and then pointed to Dominic. “With him?”

“’Cause he said he knew the location!”

“You’re not allowed to go to raves!”

“Since when do I only do what I’m allowed to?” Carina shouted back at him.

Well, yeah, there was that.

He turned around and grabbed Brianna, making her gasp. She was wearing one of those low-cut V-neck shirts that Tino was sure Dominic really enjoyed. Dancers, for some reason, were way too comfortable in very little clothing. So he wrote it across her chest, above her tits in capital letters.

MORETTI

In big, bold letters that glowed blue under the black light.

Brianna stared down at it and then looked at him. “What does this mean?”

“It means private property!” Tino looked at Dominic when he said it. “You’re leaving! Step out right now, or I’ll have you thrown out!”

Dominic shrugged. “Then you owe me twenty bucks.”

“For what?” Tino followed his line of sight to see him staring at the water bottle in Brianna’s hand. “Oh, you motherfucker.” Tino pulled his Beretta out and pointed it at Dominic. “Get out! I will fucking kill you! I swear to God!”

People screamed and backed up, but Carina and Brianna jumped forward and caught his arm, which was a really dumb, extremely naive thing for them to do. Fortunately, Tino and Nova had been practicing with Carlo for the good part of two years, and Tino wasn’t one to misfire on accident. In fact, he was pretty fucking sure he could put a hole right through the center of Dominic’s forehead.

“It’s okay!” Carina screamed at him. “We asked him to bring us! This is our fault!”

“Did you ask him to drug you?” Tino shouted at his sister without taking his eyes off Dominic.

“I took it!” Carina was still holding on to his arm. “I’m the one who took it! I wanted to.”

“You took E with Dominic Brambino around.” Tino cast a side glare at Brianna for that one, just quick enough to let her see how fucking disappointed he was in her. “He gave it to you so he could fuck you! He told me that’s why he gave it to you! He said he brought his own pussy! Who do you think that is, Bri? ’Cause it’s not Carina!”

“I didn’t take the ecstasy he bought,” Brianna assured him. “I’m not stupid. I just came to dance and make sure Carina stayed safe.”

“Who gave you the water bottle, then, if you’re so fucking street-smart!”

Brianna looked at the mostly empty water bottle in her hand and glanced back at Tino with wide eyes.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you,” Tino told Dominic, and he was dead serious about it, because the Brambinos had taken so much from him. Now that motherfucker was going to drug and screw Brianna just to piss him off. That felt like a murder worth going down for. “I just wanna kill you. I wanna put a bullet in your brain.”

“You know what will happen if you do that?” Dominic didn’t even look nervous about it. Like he was so fucking secure in his family’s control over Tino he was fearless in the face of Tino’s gun pointed at his head. “Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”

“What the fuck is going on?” Nova shouted before Tino could decide. “Valentino!”

“He drugged Brianna’s water,” Tino explained without lowering his gun. “And he gave Carina E.”