The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2) (37 page)

He looked behind him and said, “Oh shit.”

“What?” Alaine glanced back, seeing that Romeo had come out of the house.

“Put on your belt,” Tino said as he threw the Ferrari into reverse.

Alaine gasped and ended up grabbing the dash as they backed out of the driveway. Her eyes were wide when Romeo chased after them, but Tino must have been a race-car driver in a past life.

He threw the car into gear and punched the gas before Romeo could catch up. She looked behind them, seeing that Romeo was standing in the road like an angry Italian Hulk as they drove off with his car.

“You’re in trouble.” She turned to Tino with wide eyes. “You just stole Romeo’s car.”

“Yeah, I’m screwed,” Tino agreed as he looked in the rearview mirror. “He is going to fucking kill me when we get back.”

“Why didn’t we just take my car?” Alaine barked at him. “They can’t arrest us for taking my car.”

“But this car has a million in cash in the trunk,” Tino said as he gave her a look. “I didn’t pack. Did you pack? We need cash. Untraceable cash. I needed the Ferrari.”

“Oh my God,” she choked as she gave him a look of horror. “You just stole a Ferrari with a million dollars in it.”

“I’ll pay him back,” Tino said as if it wasn’t a big deal. “He’s still gonna beat my ass, but he knows I’ll pay him back. I’m not stealing. I’m borrowing.”

“Do you have a million dollars?” she asked him with surprise.

“I do, actually. I have a lot more than that. I’m hot and rich,” he said as he switched gears when they got onto a wide, open road, pushing the car past eighty. “You scored.”

She glared at him. “I’m going with you for Chu.”

“Aw, I’m all heartbroken over here,” Tino said with a grin. “What happened to our thing?”

“There is no thing,” she said with another glare. “I’m throwing up just thinking about it.”

He laughed. “Madonn’, princess, you better be worth protecting for him, ’cause I swear, if you sell Chuito out after this, I’m gonna break one of my own rules. I just pissed off both my brothers for this shit, and it’s a long fucking drive to Florida.”

“We’re driving to Florida?” she whispered in horror. “I’m stuck in this car with you all the way to Miami?”

“That’s what you’re bitching about?” Tino countered, giving her a harsh, cold look that was intimidating in a way she didn’t expect from him. “Nova is gonna go insane when he finds out about this. I guarantee you Romeo’s on the phone with him right now. I’ve got a fourteen-hour drive to figure out what sorta bullshit I’m gonna spew to him that’ll fix this, because I can’t just say Chu lost his mind and I have to go get him. Nova’s not the easiest guy to lie to, okay?”

“What happens if you say Chu lost his mind?” Alaine asked fearfully.

Tino shook his head slowly, his eyes still on the road. “I don’t know, but I’m not gonna find out. I owe Chu my life. I would go down to save him in a New York fucking minute, and that scares the shit outta me. That is a problem.”

“Why?”

He glanced to her and admitted, “I’m not nice when I’m protecting someone, Alaine. Not nice at all.”

Alaine looked at her lap at the admission, hearing that same string of self-recrimination she heard from Chuito all the time. The difference was, this time she understood what he was confessing.

“What if I hadn’t gone with you?”

“You did come with me,” he said rather than explore it. “Thank God.”

“Would you have hurt me?” she whispered as she studied Tino, seeing something so different from the playful, teasing man she’d come to know him as.

“Are you going to sell him out?” he countered. “Is that something you could do to him?”

“Never,” she said as she gave him a look of horror. “I could never. I love him. I’m here. I told Jules,
my boss
, that I had a threesome. I’m a liar, and I’m riding in a stolen Ferrari that has a million dollars in the trunk. Obviously, I’m not going to sell him out.”

Tino tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, seeming deep in thought. “Then I guess we’ll never have to find out what I’d do if you sold him out.”

“I would still like to know,” Alaine pressed as she looked to him again. “Considering I’m trapped in the car with you for the foreseeable future.”

“No.” He shook his head at that. “You wouldn’t. I wouldn’t either. I don’t even want to think about it. I’m just gonna trust that life is not that fucking mean to put us in a situation like that.”

“I don’t know who you are at all, do I?” Alaine whispered as she studied Tino again. “Everything you’ve been in Garnet is a lie.”

“Yeah.” He gave her another hard look. “A huge fucking lie.”

“You’re saying you’d kill to protect Chuito,” she whispered, looking at her lap again. “You’d kill me to protect him.”

“Yeah, I probably would.” He choked even as he said it. “But I wouldn’t want to, if that makes you feel better.”

“So much better.” She closed her eyes and fell back against the seat. “What did you do in the mafia when you lived in New York?”

“Do you really need more secrets?” Tino asked her with a look of disbelief. “Don’t you think Chu’s secrets have gotten you in enough trouble?”

“Does it make a difference?” She laughed manically. “You already said you’d have to kill me if I said anything. Is there anything worse than that?”

Tino was quiet for a moment before he admitted, “I was an enforcer.”

“What does an enforcer do?”

“Enforces things,” he said softly, his eyes still on the road, though his handsome face looked haunted. “Justice. Mafia justice.”

“Was it fair? Justified?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t the fucking judge. I just carried out the sentence.”

“Why?”

“To protect the Borgata. The family,” he said as if it was obvious. “To protect the administration. To protect my brother, because if the Borgata goes down, my brother goes down, and I was not going to let that happen. I’d fucking lose my soul before I’d let that happen.”

“And now you’re Chuito’s enforcer,” she said in understanding. “You’re protecting him.”

“That’s right.” Tino nodded as if it made perfect sense to him. “These motherfuckers in Miami should be really fucking scared, because I have stolen one brother’s car, kidnapped a woman, and now I’m trying to figure out how to lie to the other brother who knows me better than anyone in this world. I have no idea how I’m going to pull that off. I am pissed off right now.”

“Well,” she started as she considered that. “Maybe you should tell me what you know, and we can formulate an alibi together.”

“You think I’m going to tell you what I know?” He laughed in disbelief. “I already told you too much.”

“I’m a lawyer. I’ve passed the bar,” she reminded him. “Attorney-client privilege.”

“You’re not
my
lawyer.”

She shrugged. “But I could be. I could bill you.”

“You’re gonna fucking bill me?”

“Sure.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “How much?”

“Well.” She looked ahead to the road and thought about it. “Two hundred dollars an hour. Fourteen-hour drive. Twenty-five hundred. Family discount.”

“Are you shitting me right now?” He laughed. “You’re fresh outta law school. You think you’re worth twenty-five hundred?”

“Yes, I am.” She grinned at him. “I’m actually really smart, Tino. I specialized in criminal law because Jules couldn’t practice it.”

“You specialized in criminal law?” He sounded shocked now. “Are you a criminal defense attorney? Is that what you want to be now that you’re out of school?”

She nodded. “Yup. I can do just about anything, but I focused on criminal law because it was the one thing Jules can’t do.”

“Holy shit.” He sounded stunned as he considered that for a moment and then turned to her, giving her a wide, dazzling smile. “Do you take cash?”

“I love cash.”

“You better,” he said with a laugh. “’Cause criminals pay with cash.”

“I’ll e-mail you a bill,” she said as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. “So it’ll be on record.”

She e-mailed Tino a bill as he drove; then she set down her phone and said, “Tell me everything.”

“I can trust you,” he asked her uncertainly. “You’re not going to sell me out? You’re my lawyer now. You
can’t
sell me out.”

She nodded, though it wasn’t wholly true. Legally, she could sell him out, but she wouldn’t, not if it hurt Chuito. “I won’t sell you out. If you’re Chuito’s enforcer, I want to help you. He’s my love story, Tino.”

“How’s that working out for you?” he asked curiously.

“I don’t know.” She sighed as she looked at the road. “But I guess I’m gonna find out, because there’s no turning back now.”

She had dreamed last night of asking the devil how exactly to get a ticket to hell to be with Chuito.

It showed up faster than she’d expected.

One-way.

Piloted by an Italian enforcer in a black Ferrari.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Miami

There was something oddly freeing about driving all day and into the night with his phone off. It gave Chuito time to think. To make a plan, because stealing Tino’s car had been a rash decision.

But as he lay awake staring at the ceiling in Tino’s place, he had decided he couldn’t let Tino come with him. He didn’t want to risk that. Not after Nova suffered through what he did to get Tino out. It couldn’t be easy to be a mafia boss after losing the one guy he truly trusted as backup.

Chuito didn’t like to waste things.

And that would be a big fucking waste of an enormous sacrifice on Nova’s part.

Plus, like Nova, Chuito didn’t want to see Tino sink in deep again. He didn’t want to find out what Tino had been snorting blow to hide from.

It scared him.

For a lot of reasons.

He searched the car when he stopped for gas and found that Tino prepared for the worst. There was a .38 Beretta in the glove compartment, and that was a bonus, because the only thing Chuito had on him was a shirt he had stolen from Tino, his wallet, and his phone.

Then he searched the back of the SUV and found something more interesting.

A suitcase full of cash in a hidden compartment where most people kept a spare tire. He also found three more guns, ammunition, a holster, a smartphone, and the car charger that went with it.

It was like a hit man’s emergency kit.

The only thing missing was the blow.

And Chuito looked for it.

He didn’t like that he looked for it, but he did.

His fighting career seemed so far away, the least of his worries, and he was starting to realize this was a one-way trip. He had lived longer than he was supposed to. He had accomplished more than he was supposed to too.

He was much more valuable dead than alive.

His mother and Marcos would get his money, and it wasn’t like Marcos could bitch about not taking it when he inherited the shit.

Alaine could get the life-insurance policy he had listed her as the beneficiary on.

He had even bought a burial plot right next to Juan.

A part of him had been planning for this all along. He had Jules put it together for him years ago. The only part she didn’t know about was the life insurance for Alaine. He hadn’t felt like hearing it, but Jules was listed on his safe-deposit box in the bank.

She’d find it and take care of it, because that was what Jules did.

Then Alaine could move on and find her happy ending.

Marcos could save the rest of Miami.

And Angel would be dead, because if Chuito was going down, he was taking that motherfucker with him.

He bought a Miami Heat hat once he got into Florida, like the one Marcos always wore. He got sunglasses at one of the tourist stations on the turnpike, because people were looking at him like they recognized him.

Or they could be staring at the big fucking bruise Tino had left him with from their fight outside the Cellar, which seemed like a lifetime ago. Strange that it had only been a little over twenty-four hours since he had been sitting in jail next to his best friend.

Now he was in Miami, solving a problem, just like he’d promised Marcos.

Chuito asked his cousin for a day to figure it out.

It turned out Chuito did get shit done like Marcos always claimed.

He sat at a cigar bar one door down from a club Angel used to hang at five years ago, and still probably hung out at, because he wasn’t one to change his spots.

Chuito drank three Cuban coffees—the next best thing to cocaine.

He had the suitcase from Tino’s SUV between his feet, because not only did it have a crazy amount of cash, he’d also put the rest of the guns in it. Chuito sure wasn’t going to leave that shit in the Benz, especially not here. He didn’t know if the guns were registered to Tino or not.

He highly doubted it, but he wasn’t going to risk it.

It was warm in Miami, humid, making the hoodie he was wearing annoying, but he didn’t want his ink showing, not here, because someone would recognize it.

As it was, he just sat in the corner, his head low, looking at the smartphone he had found in Tino’s Benz. There wasn’t any information on it, no contacts; it was completely empty, likely a throwaway phone Tino had for an emergency, but it was activated. So he browsed the Internet while he kept his eye on the front doors of the club.

A few people slowed, looking at him curiously, because since he had won a Heavyweight title last month, he was more recognizable than ever, but he also blended in Miami in a way he didn’t in Garnet.

They must have thought it was just a striking resemblance.

His ink was covered.

They didn’t approach him, if for no other reason than he probably throbbed with danger. People in this part of Miami knew how to feel out for a threat, and he was certainly a threat, riding off too much caffeine, pissed off at Angel because during the trek here, Chuito had managed to link all his problems back to him.

If Angel hadn’t been on such a fucking ego trip, if he would’ve just let Marcos go rather than use him as a bargaining chip to get back at Chuito for being more successful than him, he wouldn’t be here.

Chuito could have even tried to live the lie for Alaine.