The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (21 page)

Tino opened his eyes to stare at her. “I have to wear a fucking uniform?”

“You do.” She giggled. “I’m sorry.”

Tino kept looking at her, studying Brianna long enough that her cheeks heated again when he asked, “Do you wear a uniform?”

“We all wear a uniform.” Carina hopped to her feet and started jumping, making Brianna and Tino bounce with her. “So stop looking at her like that.”

“What? I can’t like a cute girl in a Catholic school uniform?”

“No, you can’t.” Carina jumped by Tino’s head, nearly landing on him, which was probably really dangerous when he was recovering like he was. “Morettis make babies. They leave them everywhere.”

“You’re a Moretti too,” Tino reminded her.

“Boys are disgusting. I will never, ever, ever!” Carina jumped higher and higher. “Ever!” she screamed it like she wanted her father to hear it. “Get married! NEVER!”

Brianna’s cheeks were on fire again, but she still admitted, “I don’t think boys are disgusting.”

Tino arched an eyebrow at her. “Even boys with scars?”

“Especially boys with scars.” She smiled so wide her cheeks hurt. “Scars make them interesting.”

“Then I’ll probably be interesting as hell.” Tino laughed. “At least one girl won’t mind them.”

She laughed with him. “I won’t be the only girl.”

Chapter Seventeen

Reasons Neverland Sucks!

Romeo in jail

The basement

Nova barking and fetching for the don and Frankie

Catholic school

Blond Italiani

Being storage over the garage

Uniforms

Nova’s cooking

“You better fucking eat it,” Nova snapped, making it obvious he was reading over Tino’s shoulder. “And burn that list before someone sees it.”

Tino eyed the pasta Nova put in front of him. It looked fine, but it smelled funny. Rather than eat it, Tino underlined
Nova’s cooking
three times on his list, because the asshole could not cook.

At all.

It would stand to reason that Nova would be able to. There were directions on the boxes. There were books full of detailed explanations about how to make food edible, but Tino was quickly on his way to starving to death.

He knew better than to try it, but he was hungry. He should probably smoke first, but he was starting to feel a little worthless being stoned all the time.

So fuck it. He ate it.

Tino actually spit the macaroni out on the plate, gagging as the metallic taste stung the back of his mouth. “Casanova.” He groaned. “How did you ruin pasta and sauce outta a friggin’ jar?”

“Stop being a pussy.” Nova took a bite of his pasta. Then he went back to flipping through the law book resting on the arm of the couch. He turned ten pages in rapid succession before he said, “It tastes fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Tino assured him. “There’s nothing fine about it. What did you do to it?”

“Eat the fucking pasta.” Nova pointed at Tino’s plate with his fork. “I made it. You eat it.”

“I’m not eating it.” Tino shook his head. “You shouldn’t either. You’ll get sick if you eat this merda.”

Nova turned and looked at him and took a bite pointedly.

Tino gaped at his brother, unable to believe he could eat that shit. Basic survival instinct kicked in with a vengeance. He got up and half hopped, half ran to the stove without his crutches. He grabbed the pot, noticing there was still water in it, as if Nova hadn’t bothered to drain it. He dumped the whole thing into the sink, knowing there was something
not right
.

The entire bottom was black.

Most of the pasta was still stuck to it.

Tino brought the pot to his face and winced at the horrible smell of burned pasta. “Look at this!”

Nova stared at it when he got up, looking genuinely confused. “It tasted fine to me.”

“It doesn’t taste fine. It tastes like merda,” Tino said with a whine. “Why can’t you cook? What’s wrong with you?”

Nova grabbed the pot and smelled it curiously. “I did it as long as it said.”

Tino yanked the pot out of his hand and threw it in the sink, realizing right then that Nova had never cooked. Not from scratch. Romeo did the cooking and stored it in Tupperware containers for them. Microwave meals were about as far as Nova’s domestic kitchen skills went. “You’re not allowed to cook anymore.”

“I don’t wanna order pizza. I’m trying not to draw any attention to us,” Nova said anxiously. “The cunt will start bitching if we have delivery. Just eat a cereal bar.”

“I can’t eat any more cereal bars. Can’t we buy a friggin’ microwave? Can we go to the store and buy one?
Please.
”

“I don’t wanna spend any more than I have to. The lawyer’s eating up all the money Romeo saved and—”

Tino whined again. He was hungry and trapped in this shithole, and his back hurt. Now that he’d made the decision to stay away from drugs as much as possible, reality was starting to become more than a little difficult to deal with. So fuck it. He had a bratty-little-brother moment.

Tino sat down in the middle of the floor and sulked.

“I miss Romeo.”

He wanted his older brother.

He wanted someone to hug him and protect him and tell him it was going to be okay.

Romeo was six-six and built like a tree.

A really big, very muscular tree.

He was the reason Tino and Nova were so heavily involved in martial arts. Romeo had been competing nationally since he was in middle school.

It was easy to believe everything was going to be okay when Romeo promised it.

“I’m trying, Tino.” Nova’s voice cracked with misery. “I know I’m not Rome, but I’m trying.”

Tino knew he was trying, and he honestly didn’t want to make things worse on Nova. It was obvious something broke in him after the night in the shower, so Tino just took a long, steady breath and asked, “How long till he gets out? You never tell me how long.”

Nova was silent for a while before he whispered, “I don’t know.”

Tino didn’t believe it, because Nova knew
everything
.

He just fell onto his back, even though it hurt like a bitch, and looked at the ceiling, seeing a water stain. If there was a hole in the roof, that meant there were probably rats up there.

Of course there were rats.

Why wouldn’t there be?

“Do I have to live here until I’m eighteen?” Tino asked him, still staring at the water spot. “Is Rome gonna be gone that long?”

“Probably,” Nova whispered. “But maybe, if we get the right judge—”

Tino closed his eyes, but the tears ran down his cheeks anyway.

He didn’t think there was a person in existence who missed East Harlem as desperately as Tino did in that moment. Then Nova’s new cell phone rang, because it rang constantly since the don gave it to him.

“Pronto,” Nova answered in that tone he always used when he talked to the don, like everything was fucking great and nothing in the world existed but serving him. “Yeah, I can look at it. Are they there right now?” He met Tino’s gaze and mouthed,
Sorry
, right before he said, “No, I can come tonight.”

Tino turned on his side because his back was hurting him, and he really didn’t want his brother to see him break down and sob over burned pasta.

Though, honestly, someone should cry over that.

It was pretty fucking bad.

After he hung up, Nova put a box of cereal bars in front of Tino like a peace offering. Then he leaned down and kissed Tino’s temple. “
Ti voglio bene.
”

“Yeah,” Tino agreed and didn’t bother to wipe his tears. Carlo said Lost Boys were supposed to cry, so he gave up and cried, but still he said, “I love you too,” because he didn’t know where Nova was going and he didn’t trust life. Not anymore. “Come home.”

“Brush your teeth. Don’t forget.” Nova almost sounded like Romeo when he said it. “Get rid of the list.”

“There’s no cable,” Tino reminded him, because they had their television from East Harlem that was almost useless.

“Then make a different list. I’ll rent you some movies on my way home.” Nova kissed his temple one more time, and then he found his shoes in the bedroom and was gone.

Just like that.

’Cause the don told him to jump.

So Nova fucking jumped.

* * * *

Tino colored in the list rather than get rid of it. Just covered the whole paper with black ink, completely ragging out the ballpoint pen, but he knew what was hiding under all that ink.

He knew the words that were there.

Then he started working on a new list instead of eating another fucking cereal bar.

Tino officially hated cereal bars.

Upside of Neverland

Carina

Carlo

Brianna

Tino stared at it for a while, because that was about it for the good things. He drew a line under each of their names, and then paused on Brianna and decided to add
uniforms
to the list.

Even if they had been on the downside list, he couldn’t help but be a little excited about the first day of school if Carina’s best friend in a Catholic school uniform was the bonus.

They had her tryouts tomorrow in Bed-Stuy.

He’d been counting down the days. Not like he had much else to look forward to, and he was dying to see what sort of routine she was doing. He wanted to ask Carina what song Brianna was dancing to, but it felt like a spoiler for the one thing he had to look forward to.

So he wrote
Bed-Stuy
under
uniforms
on the list.

He heard someone on the stairs, which surprised him because Nova hadn’t been gone long. Maybe his brother felt guilty and got Tino fast food and a movie rental before he went running to the don.

Tino was about to add
Big Mac
to the list and turned around, expecting fries. Instead his stomach knotted when he saw Carina’s mother open the door.

This was the first time he’d been in the same room with her. He’d only ever seen her from a distance, spying that shiny blonde hair in the house across the pool, but up close Tino could see Carina in her.

His sister’s features were Frankie’s.

Her coloring was definitely Frankie’s.

But the rest was from the woman standing in front of him. She couldn’t be more than five feet. Everything about her was tiny, but she was curvy too. Her hair was wavy, shoulder-length, very styled like even the strands were afraid to fall out of place. Her makeup made her look too perfect.

Actually, she was a beautiful woman.

Exceptionally beautiful.

Like Tino’s ma had been exceptionally beautiful.

Frankie didn’t half-ass his women.

“Valentino,” she said in a crisp way that reminded him of the blond asshole back at the school.

Which made sense, considering she was Dominic Brambino’s aunt.

Thank God Tino colored in the fucking list.

“Yeah,” he answered when she arched an eyebrow at him like she expected an answer.

He wasn’t real sure what he was supposed to do, but all the fine hairs on his arms stood on end in fear the same way they did when he got near his father, so he just sat there looking at her.

“It’s a stupid name,” she said in annoyance, as if he was insulting her by making her say it. “Almost as bad as Casanova.”

“Lucky I’m not Casanova, then, huh?”

He wanted to bite off his tongue after he said it, especially when she stiffened and narrowed light eyes at him. He definitely needed to shut up, because he was inclined to say a lot of dumb shit, and Nova told him a thousand times if he got in trouble, not to say anything.

To just keep his mouth shut and wait for him to get there.

Nova had been talking about school, social workers, cops, things like that, but Tino assumed Mary Moretti fell into the same category.

“Thank God you don’t look like them. I don’t think I could stomach that. Looking at Frankie is bad enough.” She spit out the word
them
like it was the most repulsive thing she could think of as she walked into the apartment and glanced around in disgust. “You haven’t cleaned this place up yet?”

Tino just stared at her, because he’d been sort of busy almost dying.

“No,” he finally said, hoping to God the sarcasm didn’t sound in his voice. “Not yet.”

“If we’re letting you stay here, the least you could do is clean it.” She sat down on the couch next to him and looked down to Tino’s place on the floor where he was working on his list in front of the coffee table. “Your mother probably didn’t teach you how to clean.”

Tino turned around and looked at his paper with sightless eyes, because he didn’t need Nova’s brain to figure out they had just stepped into very dangerous territory.

“Was your mother filthy?” she pressed when he didn’t respond.

“My mother was sick,” Tino whispered, because he got the impression she was going to get meaner if he didn’t answer. “She was sick for a long time.”

“I should feel better that God punished her.” She said it like this was something she thought about a lot. “But I don’t feel better. I don’t feel better at all. Now I’m stuck looking at your brother every time he walks into my house. It’s insulting.”

Nova really needed to stop walking into this bitch’s house to help their father with all his financial shit. Why couldn’t they meet at strip clubs or restaurants like the mafia guys in the movies?

She leaned forward and grabbed Tino’s face, sharp nails digging into his cheek, and he jerked away on instinct. He could smell the wine on her, and he didn’t want to piss her off, but he couldn’t help it.

He was in full-on silent, wait-for-Nova mode, but something about the way she grabbed him made every self-defense mechanism he had fire off at once, and he was at a loss as to what to do about it.

This woman was tiny.

It was screwing up all the wires in his brain, because getting away from her was easy, but his father had fucked him up. It made Tino feel like trying to run ended with him in a basement.

She leaned forward again and this time touched him softer, forcing his face to her. “I just want to look at you.”