The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (26 page)

That pretty much summed it up.

There was nothing to be done about Romeo.

They were just fucked. Romeo was going to find out they’d been playing in Neverland instead of staying on the straight and narrow like they had led him to believe.

“Can I ask you something?” Nova asked in Italian, which meant it was private.

“Sure.”

“Are you gay?”

Tino frowned and turned to his brother. “What?”

“I don’t care.” Nova sat up straight again and looked at Tino earnestly. “I just need to know. I need to plan. Gay doesn’t fly in Cosa Nostra. They will fucking kill your ass. Badly. Then I’ll have to eat a fucking bullet, so can you just tell me and help me avoid a disaster?”

“You’ve been thinking about this,” Tino whispered in awe. “You’ve put actual thought into it.”

“It’s the dance-team thing,” Nova said in exasperation. “Why are you so obsessed with it?”

’Cause it made him feel normal.

’Cause it made Brianna happy.

’Cause he liked the way her ass looked in spandex.

“And it’s more than that,” Nova said before Tino could answer. “There’s something weird about you. I don’t know what it is, but you got that club-band thing going, and you never take it off.”

“You’re giving me shit about club culture?” Tino laughed in his face, even though the band had nothing to do with clubbing. Nova just assumed it did because so many Lost Girls and Boys wore them. “You are the rave-boy poster child. And you do poppers now. You have no room to be giving me shit about dance team.”

“Poppers make the roll more intense,” Nova said defensively. “There’s a specific reason I use them.”

“Poppers are gay.” Tino held up his hands. “Everyone knows they’re gay. They relax your muscles. There’s only one reason a guy would want that, especially since they can make your dick soft.”

“How do you know that? Where do you learn all this shit?” Nova pressed suspiciously. “They don’t make my dick soft, by the way. I have the exact opposite problem, if you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t wondering,” Tino assured him.

“Are you gay?” Nova asked him again. “Please just tell me.”

“I’m not answering that,” Tino said in response. “If you’ve used your big brain to figure out the reason I’m fucked-up is because I’m gay, then whatever.”

“Last week Sara said she tried with you, and you weren’t interested.”

“So because I won’t let one of your party girls suck my dick on the D train, I’m gay?” Tino barked at him, and since they were speaking Italian, he didn’t bother to keep his voice down. “You’re an idiot, Casanova.”

“I have never seen more girls come on to a guy in my life, Valentino,” Nova said slowly. “And you don’t fuck them. Why?”

Because Tino was scared to death of compromising himself.

He didn’t want to know what would happen if Mary found out he was fucking off the clock. She went to great lengths to make sure he didn’t catch something. To make sure her product wasn’t compromised. Everyone in the high-class sex-trade rings was tested. Even still, Tino could write a book on safe sex because those mob wives were terrified of giving their husbands something and exposing themselves, but it still wasn’t worth it.

So Tino didn’t say anything.

“Are you nervous?” Nova asked, as if that was another possibility he considered, one he was extremely hopeful for. “I could give you tips. You can talk to me about stuff like that.”

“If I need a tip, I’ll let you know.” Tino was seriously going to give himself eyestrain from all the eye rolling. He reached over and got his iPod out of the backpack on Nova’s lap. Then he put in his earphones and announced, “I’m out.”

Tino slept on the subway a lot, because he didn’t get much sleep on the weekends. He had dance-team stuff during the day, and he dealt at night, technically under the umbrella of Nova’s crew, but it was his father making him do it.

To be useful.

To earn his keep.

He didn’t have a five-hundred-pound brain that could make millions and launder money, so he fucked for Mary and dealt for Frankie all to earn the special privilege of sleeping in the apartment over the garage.

Lost Boys had to be useful. They had to earn money, not cost money like other mafiosi kids. They were an investment, not an obligation.

He dozed with the chilled-out throb of low-key techno pulsing in his ears loud enough to block out the train and his brother’s bullshit. He took the opportunity and let Nova watch his back, because they were going to switch jobs soon.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for the Nova-babysitting gig, Tino would’ve probably started eating pills on the weekends too.

Or at least smoking a little.

Sorta like the sex, Tino didn’t mind dealing so much now, but at first he fucking hated it and wanted a way to hide from being forced into it. Except shortly after his father threw the backpack at him and told him to be useful, Nova discovered he liked the shit Tino was selling.

In the beginning Nova really had come with Tino to watch his back.

Nova was the one packing.

Nova was the one on guard, but it took a single asshole questioning Tino’s shit to change everything. The prick expected one of them to take the hit to prove it was good, so Nova took the ecstasy even though his brain reacted funny to a lot of things.

Nova did okay with pot, but he’d snorted coke one time when he was working overtime for the old man while juggling crew work and school and didn’t blink for three days. He was wired like a motherfucker. Tino could not wait for him to come down. It made Nova paranoid as hell. Tino wanted to kill Carlo for giving it to him in the first place.

Nova’s brain on cocaine was a fucking nightmare.

It would’ve been a better plan for Tino to take the ecstasy. They didn’t need to go through another blow disaster, but Nova was still in that self-sacrificing, superguilty mode. So he took it and discovered that cocaine might not agree with his brain chemistry, but ecstasy sure did.

Now the only help Nova offered on the weekends was as certified ecstasy tester, which probably
was
something. Tino sold a lot of shit. It kept Frankie off his back, literally, and there it was.

What the hell did Tino have to complain about?

At least Nova let him sleep on the train.

Chapter Twenty-One

He jerked when Nova touched his arm, because something about his life made him a light sleeper. He blinked awake just as they came to a halt at their stop, and then jumped up to follow after Nova.

The two of them stood on the platform, looking like a pair of raver-boy pinups. A dying breed. The last few of their kind. Tino didn’t spend quite as much time on his hair as Nova, because he wasn’t on the prowl, but the two of them still matched. In their tight black shirts, loose-fitting jeans, and highline sneakers.

Sometimes Tino mourned the death of the rave that seemed to be going deeper and deeper underground as the city cracked down. He got the impression they were in the final days, and sometime in the near future, it was going to be nothing but clubs.

The underground would be gone forever.

And the Borgata would find a different way to make money off the nightlife.

But not tonight.

Tino usually got the first text on the location, seeing how he was the one bringing the treats. He was a promoter-approved supplier of ecstasy, funneled in by the Moretti Borgata for a not-so-small fee paid to the Borgata for the privilege of letting Tino sell it. In exchange, the promoters not only got clean ecstasy, they got the bonus protection of the Borgata, who kept the heat off the hidden venue.

Thus far.

Tino wore a jacket.

He had a gun to hide.

Nova couldn’t be fucked with a jacket.

Tino saw her on the platform before Nova did, maybe because Tino had a tendency to look for them. Long blonde hair hung down her back, and she had on one of those wispy dresses Tino knew all too well, ankle length and flowing, making her look like a runway model.

The leather bands on her wrists were clasped with gold, highly ornate, and seemed to match the rest of her. She looked like she was about to get on the train, and Tino wouldn’t have stopped her if she didn’t spot him too. He hadn’t even realized he’d pulled the sleeve to his jacket back instinctively and made his band visible to her.

She turned away from getting on and ran to him. She stopped a few feet in front of him, looking unsure, so Tino grabbed her arm and pulled her into the hug.

She was one of those Lost Girls who just curled into him, arms tucked close to her chest, which always gutted him. It was like she needed more than a hug. She wanted to be protected. To others she might look eighteen, but Tino guessed she was closer to his age, and no one seemed to question why a girl dressed like her was on the subway alone at night.

He held her tight and leaned down to whisper in her ear, “You matter.”

“Thank you.” She nodded, her light eyes glassy as she looked up at him. Then she reached down and grabbed his left wrist, staring at the platinum clasp on his leather band. “You’re my favorite kind. I wish there were more of you.”

He winced at that. “Yeah, we’re rare.”

She looked at him with those crystal-blue eyes and said, “You matter,” so earnestly he believed her.

Then she pulled away and jumped onto the subway car, leaving the scent of flowery perfume in her wake.

“Weird,” Nova said over the click of him lighting a cigarette and the rattle of the train leaving. “It’s so weird. Why do you wear that thing?”

“I like giving out hugs to beautiful girls,” Tino said with a smile.

“It’s not just girls, though,” Nova pointed out. “There are plenty of beautiful boys too.”

“Well.” Tino held up his hands and left it at that.

* * * *

This week the venue was in a particularly shit-tastic section of Harlem. Last week it had been in a shit-tastic section of Queens. Next week, they’d pick a new borough, but Tino and Nova usually liked when they landed in Manhattan.

They could crash at their old apartment, which was still paid for by Nova. Up until a few weeks ago, it’d been mostly empty. They had slowly moved most of their stuff over to Dyker Heights over several years, but they’d started furnishing it again.

Spending Cosa Nostra money.

And drug money.

Making it too nice, and Romeo was just going to know, but the don’s attitude about acting like you were part of the family had sorta rubbed off. They couldn’t let Romeo come home to a half-empty shithole.

They stopped at a bodega. Nova bought cigarettes, and they both took a leak. Most raves didn’t have bathrooms, and if this venue did happen to have one, a bodega in the shit-tastic part of Harlem would still be an improvement.

Tino bought a few candy bars and an energy shot, because he was fucking tired and the night was young.

Nova usually didn’t eat on Saturday.

’Cause the roll…

Tino got a few bottles of water and shoved them into the backpack—one, because he didn’t want to drop dead from heat exhaustion. Raves didn’t have air-conditioning, and even on cool nights it could get warm real fast. Two, he didn’t want Nova to drop dead either.

Ecstasy was one of those drugs that made someone sweat. Hard. What Tino sold was genuine MDMA, which wasn’t easy to find in New York City anymore. Most ecstasy out there now was synthetic, dangerous shit that killed clubbers like crazy.

Moretti ecstasy was magical. It was mostly safe…for an illegal, mind-altering drug that upped your body temperature in a room packed with hundreds of people and no air-conditioning. Tino bought a few extra bottles of water, which made Nova bitch when he was still carrying the backpack.

But chances were someone was going to need it.

When he was the one with the candy, trick-or-treaters usually found him before he got to the party. They were still a block away, and someone shouted, “Tino! You matter!”

Only an idiot would tackle Tino in the shit-tastic side of Harlem when he was dealing, but fortunately, he recognized the voice before a hundred and ten pounds of fun jumped on his back and held on for dear life.

“Is that a gun?” The voice was breathy. “Or are you just excited to see me?”

“Bobby, you’ve been drinking.” Tino kept walking with Bobby on his back because Nova didn’t stop. “I’m not selling to you.”

“Oh, bossy.” Bobby was still on him like glue, grabbing a piggyback ride to the venue as he leaned down and whispered in his ear, “Are you toppy with all those housewives?”

“I’m not playing.” Tino shook his head, and since Nova was far enough ahead to be out of earshot, he said, “My brother thinks I’m gay now. I’m pretty sure it’s your fault.”

“I wish.” Bobby laughed. “I’d be the first one to buy you off the back pages. I’d save my money.”

“Bullshit, you’d save your money.” Tino snorted. “How was your week?”

“Mostly crappy. How was yours?”

“It was okay,” Tino said, though he had Mary bug him twice, so maybe not. “On the shit end of okay.”

“Do you fuck those housewives in the ass?”

“I’m not playing. I already said I’m not playing,” Tino told him with a laugh.

“’Cause, you know—”

“No.” Tino laughed harder. “I don’t fuck recreationally.”

“That makes party boys and girls everywhere very sad,” Bobby said sullenly. “I would do so many nice things for you.”

“I’m sure you would.” Tino was still laughing, because Bobby was hard not to like. “You matter, Bobby, but no.”

“I matter,” Bobby agreed, though his voice became a little lost, a little mournful, as if he didn’t believe it. “I matter to you, right?”

“Yup.” Tino pulled him off his back. Bobby’s wheat-blond hair was styled and spiked with gel. He wore a tight blue shirt and tighter jeans to show off his thin, twinky body that made the Brambinos so much money. Since they were indebted to the same family, Tino knew Bobby’s mother had sold him to Carmine when he was ten. He’d been working for them for six years, and it was starting to show, which scared the shit out of Tino. Bad things happened in the underground sex market to slaves who didn’t keep themselves up. Their gig wasn’t great, but it could get so much worse. There were so many others without bands, ones who were just used day and night, and there were plenty of dealers willing to take damaged goods off the Brambinos’ hands. “You need to take care of yourself, Bobby. You need to work out a little.”