The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (45 page)

“I don’t know. I thought about smack,” Carlo confessed. “But you’re already shot, so an overdose won’t work. It’ll have to be a bullet.”

“I like a bullet. That works,” Tino decided, remembering Rosie in the bedroom. “Where?”

“Chest,” Carlo whispered. “So we can have an open casket.”

“Deficiente,” Tino cursed and looked back to Carlo. “Make me eat it.”

“No. Fuck, no.” Carlo looked even more horrified, as if that were possible. “That’s a horrible way to go. Nothing’s pretty about it.”

“I know,” Tino choked as he remembered the horror in the bedroom. “That’s how Rosie went.”

“Fucker.” Carlo shook his head. “I’m not making you eat a bullet, Tino. Nova would lose his fucking mind. Literally. He’d go insane, and what the hell happens then? I have no idea, but it can’t be good for anyone. He told me to remind you what he’ll turn into if you say no. I promised him I would. So there, I reminded you.”

“What would you do?” Tino asked.

“I’d take the bullet.” Carlo said it without hesitating. “Nova’s a shit storm waiting to happen. Right now he’s controllable, but there’s gonna come a day when he’s not. Either he’s gonna take over, or his name’s gonna be on a piece of paper. It’s gonna happen. I promise you. I have nightmares about it. The only thing worse than me getting that piece of paper is you getting it.”

Carlo dropped his head to his knees and whispered, “Take the bullet, Tino. Don’t let them turn you into this. Nova doesn’t get it. He’s all fucking charts and graphs, but I’ve been doing this a long time. I’m telling you the bullet’s easier.” A broken sob came from the center of Carlo’s chest as he spoke in that unique mix of Sicilian and Italian he used. “You don’t wanna be sitting here. I don’t want you to be sitting here either. Jesus, I may take the bullet too. I don’t think I can survive this one. We’ll let Nova bury both of us. I’ll be the one to fucking eat it; that way he doesn’t have to look me in the face again.”

Tino just watched Carlo fall apart for a long time, but eventually he had to say, “Gimme water, stronzo.”

“Right, sorry.” Carlo jumped up and wiped his face. He found the cup they’d used earlier to give Tino the aspirin and went to the sink next to the washer. Then he helped Tino sit up and held the cup to his lips. He caressed Tino’s hair while Tino drank. “You’re burning up.”

“They gave me an aspirin,” Tino choked out, even as his stomach lurched.

“An aspirin? For a gunshot wound?” Carlo said incredulously. “What the fuck is wrong with the Savios?”

“You got anything?” Even if Tino kept his oxy habit private, he did have a fucking bullet hole in his leg. “Like some pills or something?”

Carlo caressed his hair again and then sat next to him and reached into his back pocket. When Tino saw the small amber-colored glass vial Carlo pulled out, he said, “Fuck, no. If you don’t have oxys, forget it.”

“If you like oxys, you’ll like blow,” Carlo assured him and opened it. “What the fuck do you care?”

Tino snorted the blow, ’cause Carlo had a very good point.

The don always said people liked the drugs that were worst for them.

Like Nova, who was all about the pussy and downed ecstasy like candy, which made an arguably bad problem a whole lot worse.

Or Carina, who was already in the clouds, loving weed as much as she did.

Tino always thought cocaine would affect him like it did Nova, leaving him paranoid as fuck and unblinking for days. Cocaine had never been on his radar. Just what Tino fucking needed, something to make him more hyper.

He coughed on the chalky aspirin taste when it hit the back of his throat.

Instead of paranoia, the high hit him like the best kind of summer day, making everything feel a little bit brighter much faster than pills or weed would. All the stresses that haunted him faded to the background. It was like eating a fistful of oxys without the fogginess. Instead he felt strong, powerful with that false sense of well-being narcotics were known for. His shoulder didn’t hurt as bad, and his leg was still an issue, but it was a whole lot better than before the blow.

Most of all, he was overcome with this deep and profound love for Carlo.

As fucked up as it was, Tino appreciated that he was willing to show up and do the dirty work. Carlo loved Tino enough to make sure he didn’t die like Rosie, messy and degrading and likely rotting in a minefield, never to be found, and never to be buried by her family.

Enforcers were the most underappreciated members of the Cosa Nostra. They didn’t just protect the family, they took care of them in a way few could. It was the shittiest of shitty jobs, but Tino still agreed to do it.

Nova thought it was because Tino knew his brother would turn into their father if he didn’t agree.

And Carina thought it was for revenge on the northern motherfuckers who’d tried to get the better of them.

Carlo thought it was because of the blow, and maybe it was, because Tino ended up agreeing to be an enforcer so his zio wouldn’t have to shoot him in the chest and eat a bullet rather than face his only friend after doing it.

That was Tino’s weakness.

His deep loyalty to his family, and it fucked him every time.

Chapter Thirty-Three

They told Tino later that he’d walked out of the Savios’ basement.

God bless cocaine, ’cause he had no idea how he’d managed that with a bullet in his thigh, and as usual, he didn’t remember it.

He was like the anti-Nova.

Always
forgetting shit.

But whatever. They said he’d walked out like a fucking boss in front of all those commission assholes from the other families and then passed out in the limo. Carlo claimed it was lucky they were alone when Tino went down, because Nova freaked the fuck out, and Tino was inclined to believe him because the first memory he did have was back in the don’s basement.

Tubes running in him.

High as hell, but conscious enough to hear Nova puking his guts up.

Tino didn’t know how long he’d been down there, and he really wished the don could set up something a little more wiseguy-friendly than a basement.

What mafioso liked a fucking basement?

Tino in particular had a rabid hatred for them, and as usual, no one stopped to think about this shit. So there he was, high as fuck, but not nearly high enough to be in a goddamn basement again, with Nova throwing up like he was ripping his soul out in the bathroom. The sound echoed off the cement loud enough to wake Tino up despite the no-sleep, bullet-hole-in-his-thigh, fever, infection, dehydrated, back-torn-up, and dislocated-shoulder issues.

“He’s been looking for Tino for three long fucking days,” Carlo’s hushed voice whispered in Italian. “He’s just exhausted. It’s the stress. He wanted to come pick you up, but he sent me because he didn’t want to leave Tino. Now you’re here. Tino’s safe. He’s crashing.”

Tino knew it was Carlo even in his hazed state, because Carlo’s Italian was more Sicilian leaning, instead of traditional Italian like Tino’s mother had taught him to speak it. Tino didn’t like to think about it, but though his mother’s parents were full Sicilian, they’d moved to New York from Northern Italy, and their Italian was more conventional because of it. He didn’t know his grandparents, but he pictured them as snobby Sicilians who were trying to forget where they came from and kicked their only daughter out when she got knocked up with Romeo, rather than shame the family. How very northern of them, even if their coloring said something different, but Carlo was Sicilian through and through, and his Italian was always a little faster, a little edgier, a little more filled with the slang of their people.

Tino was used to it.

Nova could mimic it exactly, and usually did when he was with Carlo.

But the person he was talking to said, “
Che cosa?
”

Tino tilted his head, blinking past the lights that were far too bright for a fucking basement, and frowned at what he saw.

Romeo was sitting there, deep lines of concern etched on his forehead as he stared in the direction of the bathroom. Tino visited him all the time in prison, but right then his oldest brother looked so much bigger than the Romeo who went away all those years ago, meaner, more cut, as if the pen had drained out any softness in him and left this huge, angry man in its wake.

Tino thought maybe it was a hallucination. He was good at nothing if not using his imagination to survive, but Romeo looked very real and on the verge of losing his lunch like Nova, so Tino told him, “He puked when you got arrested too. Forget about it. It’s what he does.”

“Ehi.” Romeo turned his full attention to Tino. He ran one big hand through Tino’s hair that still felt dirty and sticky from Tino being held too fucking long by the Savios. “How are you feeling?”

Tino raised his eyebrows at that, giving his brother a smile that probably looked stupid as hell.

“Okay, I get it. Dumb question.” Romeo nodded, still speaking Italian the way their mother spoke it, making Tino realize he and Nova had picked up that zip slang from the don and Carlo too. “What the hell happened? Who fucked you up like this? I want to hear it from you. Not Nova. Not this motherfucker.
You.
”

“I told you,” Carlo cut in, sounding calm, but he squeezed Tino’s other hand as he said it. “Another family got him. A Savio caught Tino in bed with his wife. These Mustache Petes. They’ll start a war over this shit. How fucking old-school is that? I couldn’t make this shit up.”

“I wasn’t asking you,” Romeo growled and pointed at Carlo over Tino’s bed. “I know what you are. I know who you are, and what you’re telling me means jackshit because I don’t believe a fucking word you say. I told you that in the car, and I’m telling you now.”

“Yeah, what am I?” Carlo held out his hands, like he couldn’t resist. “Tell me what I am, big man.”

“You think I’m scared of you?” Romeo asked him in English, his voice dark and dangerous in a way Tino had never heard it before. “After I’ve been in the fucking pen all this time. You wanna intimidate me? I dare you to try it. You motherfuckers have bled me dry, and the next time one of yous hits me, I’m hitting back.”

“Look, man, I’m not starting anything. You got the wrong Moretti for all this anger. I didn’t do this. I didn’t put your brothers in this family.” Carlo held up his palms in surrender that was unusual for him. “But I’d take a fucking bullet for Tino. I’d take one for Nova too. So we’re cool. You’re their brother. That means you’re my fucking brother too, even if you don’t want me to be. That’s how it works.”

“You’re not my brother, and if I ever hear you say it again, I’ll lay you out,” Romeo snarled at Carlo and then turned back to Tino. “Tell me what happened, Valentino. Have you been doing the dirty work for them? Has this motherfucker been making you do the dirty work with him?”

Carlo dug his fingers into Tino’s arm.

Tino was high, but he got the message.

So he said, “You got a haircut.”

“What?” Romeo frowned down at him.

“Your hair.” Tino pointed at it. “You cut it.”

“He’s stoned,” Carlo said with a laugh. “The doctor pumped him full of morphine when they dug the bullet out. Nova told me he had to hold him down. That’s probably why he’s puking now. He said it was bad.”

“Yeah, I cut my hair before I got out. Cleaned myself up,” Romeo whispered, obviously deciding to ignore Carlo as he looked back to the bathroom when Nova threw up again. “I didn’t know I was going to end up in a Moretti basement my first night out.”

“Basements suck,” Tino agreed.

“You look like merda.” Romeo caressed Tino’s hair again, even if he was obviously still so pissed off he was shaking. “I’m sorry they hurt you, piccolo. So sorry. Whatever you did, you didn’t deserve this.”

“Don’t call me that,” Tino whispered on instinct as his eyes got heavy again.

“Yeah, I guess you’re not ma’s baby anymore.” Romeo choked as he said it. “You haven’t been for a long time.”

Then his brother, who’d spent almost three years surviving in prison and a year of jail before that, broke down and started sobbing. Why, Tino wasn’t real sure. The hole in Tino’s thigh or Nova puking in the basement, or Carlo standing guard over them even if Romeo didn’t want him there.

Luckily, the rest sort of faded out for Tino.

That was all he remembered the first night, both of his brothers losing their ever-loving shit and Carlo like a rock, protecting the Borgata’s secrets from Romeo, hiding his own emotions like his breakdown at the Savios’ never happened. Instead letting the world see the Washington Heights guido with a big mouth and bigger attitude designed to hide the darker sins.

Unappreciated as usual.

Taken for granted, even by Nova, who left him there with Romeo, knowing he would protect him the best he could.

That was what enforcers did.

They protected the family, and they hid their pain deep, deep down, after lots of practice, because enforcers always had the worst fucking luck and the saddest stories. So maybe it wasn’t Nova’s fault he ended up selling Tino’s soul in the back office over Raul’s Cantina on Ninth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen.

Maybe it was his fucking destiny.

Something impossible to hide from, and Tino couldn’t blame anyone for it.

It was just who he was.

A whore for Cosa Nostra.

Only this time he was a whore with a gun.

* * * *

Recovery sucked ass.

Aided largely by being stuck in the fucking basement and Romeo being pissed the hell off the entire time.

Not kinda pissed, but biblically pissed. Part-the-Red-Sea and kill-armies pissed. Hate-everyone-in-the-don’s-mansion pissed.

Pick-fights-with-the-Morettis’-lead-enforcer pissed, to the point that Carlo said one morning when Romeo went to meet with his probation officer, “I know you love him, but I think I have to clip your brother on principle. I haven’t had a motherfucker talk to me like that”—Carlo paused as if thinking—“ever.”

“We lied to him all this time. Now, to get out and find Tino beat down by another Borgata…” Nova sighed and rested his head against his folded arms on Tino’s bed. “He has a right to be pissed.”