The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (54 page)

“We’re going now.” Brianna tossed her banana on Aaron’s tray and shoved her book into her bag with shaking hands before she said something she couldn’t take back three months into school. She was still out of place and trying to find her footing, because these kids were nothing like the ones at St. Francis. It was like she’d landed on another planet with a completely different set of rules than she grew up with, and she’d been looking for nice, normal friends to help her blend, but she decided right then Miranda wasn’t her friend anymore. “Come on, Tino.”

“I want details,” Miranda said without apology.

Brianna surged across the table and smacked Miranda before she could stop herself, angry, open-palmed against her smug face, hard enough to make Carina proud when her head snapped to the side from the force of Brianna’s anger.

“What the fuck was that for?” Miranda shouted as she cupped her cheek, and everyone in the cafeteria turned their way.

“I don’t know what things are like where you came from.” Brianna leaned in, keeping her voice low and narrowing her gaze at Miranda as she went ahead and handled it the only way she knew how. “But he came here to see me. That means he’s mine. Private property. You look at him. You speak to him. You even think about him, and you’re disrespecting me. I don’t like being disrespected.” She shouldered her bag and then turned back to Tino with a look of disbelief. “What is she? New?”

“I guess.” Tino put an arm over her shoulders. “Can you imagine what they’d do to her at St. Francis? The girls there get nasty about shit like that.”

“They’d bury her in two days.” Brianna leaned into him instinctively. “How was work?”

“Eh, it was all right.” He shrugged as they started walking away. “Hardly any blood.”

“I told you.” Aaron’s voice echoed from the table. “You better figure out a way to make it up to her, because I wasn’t exaggerating about what happened Saturday night. He made them disappear like a fucking phantom. You do not want to be on her bad side.”

Tino and Brianna nearly hurt themselves trying to stay cool and not start laughing. It wasn’t until they were outside that Tino looked at her with a wide, amused smile that reached his eyes and said, “That was very hot.”

“Thank you.” Brianna couldn’t hide her blush as she buttoned her jacket to cover up her tank top. She was wearing sneakers and hip-hugging dancer sweatpants with it, because she had just gotten out of dance class and hadn’t planned on a bike ride. She draped her bag over her front, with the strap stretching from her shoulder, down between her breasts, and across her other hip. She took the helmet when he handed it to her, and started working on the bobby pins in her dancer bun until her hair fell down into a messy ponytail. “What are you gonna use? I hate when you ride without a helmet.”

“We aren’t going that far.”

“Home?”

“No, somewhere else, actually. No one knows I’m back yet. I thought we could hide out until tomorrow. Carlo’s laying low too.”

Brianna stopped her work of pulling the band on her ponytail down to make room for the helmet and just looked at him in concern. “You said everything was okay.”

“It is. I just…” Tino shrugged and looked away from her. “I thought maybe we could talk about things.”

Her stomach lurched when she realized this could be some sort of breakup visit. “Things about us?”

He shook his head and met her gaze, his dark eyes reflecting so much pain. “Actually I wanted to talk to you about things
before
us.”

She frowned in confusion. “Oh.”

“Nova has this stupid idea about me talking about shit. Like it’ll help. It’s driving him crazy, and he has enough shit to worry about, so I just thought—” He shrugged again, looking very vulnerable all of a sudden, even with the way his leather jacket bulged at the sides with his guns. “I can’t talk to Nova. I definitely can’t talk to Carina. Romeo doesn’t even know, and Carlo goes sorta psycho whenever it comes up ’cause of Lola and—”

“Let’s go,” Brianna said before he could finish, even if a part of her was terrified to hear what he had to say. “Let’s go talk.”

“Maybe you’ll hate me.” Tino said it sort of hopefully, like telling her was a win-win situation for him. “Maybe it’ll turn you off. Disgust you so bad and—”

Brianna threaded her fingers into the hair at his nape and tugged his head down before he could finish. Then she kissed him outside in front of everyone. For one long moment, Tino moaned against her lips, taking over the kiss by cupping her face and thrusting his tongue into her mouth like he couldn’t help it. As if he’d been wound tight since last night like she’d been.

Then just as quickly, he jerked back. “There’s feds watching. You want pictures of you kissing me on the walls of the FBI?”

“I don’t care,” she told him honestly. “There’s probably pictures of me doing everything else. Not like they don’t know I’m affiliated.”

Tino looked away at that, because it wasn’t like he could argue it.

She’d basically announced it to the entire school too.

Welcome to New York, first years. Cosa Nostra is everywhere you least expect it.

Tino huffed in defeat and put his arm around her shoulders again. “Come on.”

When they got to his bike, she fought with the helmet that was still adjusted to fit him. He pulled out his keys and put his sunglasses back on. When he got on the Ducati and she crawled behind him, Tino looked over his shoulder and flicked his hand under his chin before he flipped off the other building with extra flair like he wanted to make sure someone saw it.

She craned her head and looked in the same direction, seeing the flicker of two men disappearing behind the parking wall.

“Fucking government,” Tino mumbled under his breath as he kicked his Ducati to life with a loud roar. “Hold on, baby.”

So she did, just held on and left the gossipy school and the nosy FBI in the dust, not caring at all what anyone thought about it.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Brianna wouldn’t consider an old brownstone walk-up in the meatpacking district close, but she supposed in Tino’s world it was close enough. He took the Ducati to Brooklyn all the time like it was nothing.

The Ducati they’d abandoned four parking garages ago.

Now they were in an old black Mustang with white racing stripes and spinning rims, which Brianna thought was funny. Even when they were undercover and trying to blend in, Tino picked the most guido car ever.

Old-school guido, but still…

When she pointed it out, giggling as they parked, Tino laughed with her and admitted, “It’s one of Carlo’s ditch cars. He loves old Mustangs. He loves Camaros too. He bought Romeo’s old one off Nova. He still has it. Romeo would fucking freak if he knew that.”

“Oh my God.” Brianna laughed harder as she fought with the door, which was sticking. “He’s the worst enforcer ever.”

“Really?” Tino leaned over her and did something to the handle, and then he cracked the door open. “You don’t think he blends in an ’81 Mustang? You don’t think he looks like every other guido going to the gym after getting off the construction site? You don’t think that’d make it hard to pick him outta a crowd?”

Brianna turned to look at Tino with her eyebrows raised in shock as she said, “Oh my God,” for a completely different reason.

“Right?” Tino laughed. “Yay for stereotypes.”

“That freaks me out,” she whispered when she realized not only how good Carlo was at what he did, but how much he had taught Tino in the past two years.

“Yeah, well, the best lies are the ones closest to the truth.” Tino shrugged. “Like Nova says, you gotta play the hand you’re dealt, but I told Carlo if he gets his ears pierced and starts wearing wifebeaters three sizes too small, we’re not related anymore. I’d rather bail him out.”

Brianna laughed at the joke but couldn’t help but notice the way his voice hitched over the word
lies
. She reached out and grabbed his hand like she had that first time on the train when they were twelve. She pulled it into her lap, keeping it there in a protective gesture that was mostly unconscious.

Tino let her, which seemed important, because she noticed that sometimes he flinched away from affections like that.

“Why did we change cars so many times?” she asked. “Is it the feds or—”

“It’s everyone. The feds. The Borgata. I just don’t wanna be found for a little while.” Tino let his head fall back against the headrest and looked to the roof of the car with his sunglasses still on. “That first time with you in my old bunk bed. Cazzo, Bri, I just wanted to hide with you forever. I still want that. I never stopped wanting it. I need you to know how much it meant to me to have that before I tell you this other shit. I’ve been living off it for two years. I didn’t think it could get any better until what you gave me last night. Now it’s taking everything I have not to grab you and run away so fucking far that they’ll never find us. Any of them.”

“I would run away with you,” Brianna confessed. “Forget school.”

“That means you’re almost as fucked up as I am,” he said with a shake of his head. “You shouldn’t just agree to something like that. I’m not worth throwing your life away for.”

Brianna squeezed his hand tighter. “To me you are.”

Tino was quiet for a long time rather than return the affection, but it didn’t bother her. With Tino, it felt like it was a step in the right direction that he didn’t argue.

“When we first got to Dyker Heights, we didn’t have cable for months,” Tino started cryptically and then pulled off his sunglasses to toss them on the dash. “We were always looking for something to keep our attention. Or maybe Nova was just looking for something to keep
my
attention so I wasn’t bouncing off the fucking walls from the nerves.”

Brianna smiled. “I remember.”

“So me and Nova used to play chess when he wasn’t working for the don. Nova didn’t know Mary had already started showing up.” Tino closed his eyes as he said it. “He didn’t know why I suddenly gave a shit about his geek game.”

Brianna forced herself not to flinch, even if everything in her lurched at the mention of Mary.

“I lost every time, because Nova doesn’t know how to throw a game. At least he didn’t back then. Now he could, but it doesn’t come easily to him. Which makes playing against him so much fun”—Tino’s voice was heavy with sarcasm—“but I was looking for something to do with my mind. I’d rather lose to Nova playing stupid chess than think about Mary coming back that night, even though she did every time, because Nova was always out late with the don.” Tino swallowed hard and kept staring at the roof of the Mustang. “There’s this rule in chess. If a pawn gets to the other side of the board, he can be anything he wants.” He turned to look at Brianna. “Did you know that?”

She shook her head. “I know nothing about chess.”

“Once it hits the other side, it can be any piece. A knight. A rook. A bishop. Anything.” Tino sounded awed by it, like they were talking about something other than chess. “I couldn’t win against him, so I started changing my strategy. All I wanted was to save one pawn. To get him to the other side so he could be something different. It started fucking with Nova’s mind. He couldn’t figure out what I was trying to do because I wasn’t playing to win, and that’s all he knows how to do. Play to win.” Tino closed his eyes. “I wanna get to the other side, Bri. That’s all I want.” He confessed it like a dark secret. “I don’t wanna win like Nova does. I don’t wanna save the world. All I want is a chance to be something else.
Anything else.
”

“What would you be?” she asked curiously. “If you could be anything?”

Tino turned to her, like he hadn’t expected the question. He gave her a sad smile and said, “I have no idea.”

“You never once considered what you’d be if you could be anything?” Brianna couldn’t understand that. She spent more and more of her spare time fantasizing about the future, about all the possibilities. “You don’t have any ideas?”

“Nope.” He shook his head, seeming very lost. Then out of the blue, he blurted out, “She used to make me eat dog food.”

“What?” Brianna couldn’t hide her horror.

“Mary. When I fucked up.” He looked away from her when he said it. “That was one of the things she did. It was one of the nicer things, actually. It’s just one I can say to you. I practiced it in my mind on the way over. Saying it.”

“Well—” Brianna nodded, having no idea what the right response was for something like that. Anger surged through her, and she wanted to lash out at Mary somehow, but Mary wasn’t in this car, and Tino was, so she said, “You did it well. Saying it, I mean.” She took a deep breath to clear her head, because she understood Tino talking about this was more important than her anger that wouldn’t fix anything at this point. “That was good.”

“Yeah?” He turned back to her, looking relieved. “The first time, it was after that fight with Dominic in seventh grade. Jesus, I couldn’t look at that motherfucker for a year afterward and not taste it. They all find ways to punish that doesn’t damage anything.” He gestured to his chest. “I mean, I’m not unique. I’m not saying I had it worse than anyone else. All sponsors do fucked-up shit like that, but she was
really
good at making her point. At fucking with my mind. She had a special gift for it. She could make me believe the bullshit. I mean, my mother
was
a whore, and I don’t know why I ever tried to deny it. No one can argue that any more than they can argue that I’m one. My ma did fuck Mary’s husband. She did get knocked up twice. Why do Nova and Romeo worship her like they do? I think about dog food when I think about my ma. I think about being dirty. I hate being dirty, and Nova’s always walking in on me in the shower. I don’t like to lock the door in case there’s an emergency, but it’s the only fucking time I have to feel clean, and he just walks in and starts talking. I hate that.”

“Carina walks in on me too,” Brianna said, not surprised by Nova’s behavior. “It must be genetic.”

There were so many other things she could’ve focused on. Internally she wanted Mary to fucking die, because she hadn’t realized it’d been that awful for Tino. She didn’t think any of them had, but Brianna sensed it was important to keep things light so he could keep talking.