The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (47 page)

“Hard not to.” Brianna gestured to his ass with the jacket still in her hand. “It’s out there for everyone to see.”

Tino waggled his eyebrows. “Looks good, right?”

“Stop.” Carina made a gagging sound.

“Especially since you don’t back up your teasing,” Brianna added with an arch of her eyebrow, deciding that if he could dish it, he could take it.

“I’ll back it up,” Tino said with a wide smile that made him look too handsome and was all the more dangerous because he knew it. “You want me to dance for you, baby.”

“Yeah.” Brianna’s cheeks were still hot, but she looked at him anyway and refused to back down. “Dance for me.”

Tino was silent for a long seconds, his dark gaze hot and needy as it ran over her, making her think his teasing might not just be teasing. They shared a private moment in front of two burly tattoo artists and his sister, but in the end Tino said, “Nah, good girls don’t want dirty boys to dance for them.”

“Bullshit.” Brianna looked away, but she made sure he heard it. Then she shrugged and said, “But whatever.”

“Bri—” Tino started.

“I get it,” she said before he could give her an explanation.

They were all silent then, caught in a sea of secrets and lies. Brianna stared at Tino again, his broad, cut back with the straps of his shoulder holster stretched across it above his shirt. Sometimes he wore a holster that held two guns, one on each side for times when life got more complicated. When he disappeared for a few days with his uncle and came back tired and world-weary.

But most of the time, Tino’s job as an enforcer wasn’t so bad.

Especially since he took over as one of Carina’s bodyguards.

That was what enforcers did on their downtime.

They protected the administration and their families, because being at the top of the totem pole meant the family got the best bodyguards.

It didn’t happen overnight; for a long time Tino shadowed his uncle everywhere. He never came back to school or dance crew, and even with Mary’s bullshit done and no more dealing, Tino was always busy.

Always gone.

Dropped out of school and just kind of disappeared.

He was at his brother Romeo’s apartment more than anything. Back to being Harlem Tino on the outside, and something none of them were allowed to know about when he went off with Carlo. She tried not to complain because she knew what his brothers meant to him, and being back in Harlem was important to all of them.

Brianna remembered the first night they’d pulled Tino out of the Savios’ basement. It also happened to be the first night Romeo was out of prison.

She and Carina sat on the top steps to the don’s basement, listening to Nova throwing up in the bathroom downstairs like all the fear and horror waited until right then to show up while Romeo cried over Tino. Even if their older brother didn’t know the whole truth, there was no way to hide that Tino had been shot and beaten by an opposing family. Romeo knew his prison stay had left his younger brothers in Cosa Nostra for the rest of their lives, and he sounded really broken over it. So Brianna and Carina sat there listening rather than intrude on the breakdown of not one, but two imposing and intimidating men.

She and Carina wanted to be close to Tino, but eventually Carlo just said, “Come on,” and forced them back upstairs.

And that was sort of how it all felt.

Like Brianna and Carina had taken a backseat in Tino’s life for over two years.

Until graduation, when Carina finally got to move out of her parents’ house, because, yes, Mary was still around, scarred, but not nearly as subdued as she should be, and Carina’s father was still an asshole too.

Now Carina needed full-time security, and since Tino preferred Manhattan and Carina got the Midtown apartment as a graduation gift from her nonno, it all fit into place.

The family didn’t like to be too obvious with their security, so Tino looked much more natural shadowing his sister everywhere, getting tattoos with her, hanging out at the same parties, rather than a collection of suited, middle-aged men following her.

If the feds were taking pictures, which surely they were, it was a great cover for both of them, because it made Tino look like a party boy too. Both of them with too-large bank accounts and the entire city as their playground. The next generation of useless mafiosi brats who would undoubtedly be the demise of their crime kingdom.

The Cosa Nostra was nothing if not efficient at letting the government see what they wanted them to see.

So everyone was happy, and it was all perfect.

Except Brianna was sharing the apartment with Carina, since her mother wasn’t keen on investing in Brianna’s future and a free place to stay in Midtown was a godsend for a girl on scholarship. Brianna cooked and cleaned to earn her keep, and Tino helped because since they’d moved in three months ago, he had been underfoot constantly. Passing out on the couch all the time rather than heading back to Romeo’s place.

Tino’s brothers still lived in East Harlem because they loved it there. Only in one of the new buildings that was the result of urban revitalization of El Barrio, as most New Yorkers called East Harlem. The last few traces of Italian Harlem were almost completely gone, and maybe that was why the brothers refused to leave. Even if Romeo was doing amazing in the MMA circuit and Nova wasn’t hurting for cash either. They stayed, and not on Pleasant Avenue, where the last Italian holdouts were making their final stand.

The three brothers claimed all of El Barrio as theirs, and Brianna couldn’t help but agree.

She loved El Barrio.

And not only because of one wild night on ecstasy that ruined her for all other men, probably forever. Sure, there was a life and vitality to East Harlem Brianna associated with Tino, but the nightlife was fantastic too.

She wasn’t the only dancer who loved it.

There were dangerous sections, like anywhere in New York, but with Tino around, it didn’t feel like something she had to worry about.

It was one of her favorite places in Manhattan, and the reason they were getting tattoos in the back room of a dodgy El Barrio parlor instead of somewhere more upscale in Midtown.

Plus, they were in the network.

The holster and gun.

The Omertà tattoo on Tino’s stomach.

None of it mattered here.

That was the first thing Brianna learned when they’d moved out of Brooklyn.

It was all about the network, and the two years Tino spent in Carlo’s shadow made him an expert on the network. He knew every safe place in every borough of New York. It never ceased to amaze her that a guy who’d struggled to pass geometry could navigate the city like the map was tattooed in his brain.

Carina twisted her hair up and held it on top of her head, showing off the small, cursive Omertà tattoo at the base of her hairline that she’d gotten not too long after Tino got his. It wasn’t a fuck-you to the other families; it was a fuck-you to their own family. They were a new generation, a tougher generation, one that was a little more streetwise, and a lot more connected to the element the Morettis profited from.

Carina’s father lost his shit when he saw her tattoo, since Italians didn’t mark themselves like the other crime organizations did. He thought it was dirty and ghetto, something only a slut would do. Brianna wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t heard him use those exact words. He thought the tattoos were a power play by Nova after the whole Mary fiasco.

Maybe they were.

Especially since Brianna had started seeing that tattoo everywhere in the network, an alliance to the bastardi of the Borgata. More specifically it was an alliance to Nova, showing up across the city, etched into the skin of people who believed in the underdogs.

“I’ll get something,” Brianna said as she broke the awkward silence that had descended on them. “I don’t want you to watch me get it, though.”

Tino arched an eyebrow, staring at Brianna’s short dress. “Don’t wanna show me your ass.”

Brianna shrugged. “Something like that.”

* * * *

Tino didn’t dance anymore.

That dream died in a basement two years ago.

Now he only watched while guarding her jacket, and he was largely okay with it. He’d always been Brianna’s biggest fan, so watching her dance wasn’t a hardship. Plus, he’d taken the obligatory shot with the girls when they got to the club to chill himself out.

Fireball.

Nasty.

But not surprisingly, it was Carina’s favorite for the moment. She took three shots to Tino’s and Brianna’s one and was currently enjoying the dance floor with Paco, who just happened to show up.

Tino might have thought it was a coincidence since they were in East Harlem, but Paco just happened to show up the last four times they went out. Tino wasn’t real sure what Carina and Paco had in common besides the obvious, and that was probably it.

In a bizarre twist of fate, Paco had become Carina’s current fuck buddy.

Hence the current obsession with El Barrio, which worked for Tino since it was his home turf, but still…

Very nasty.

Tino ordered a Red Bull and vodka to wash the taste of Fireball off his tongue and sat back to watch Brianna dance with one of her friends. Aaron, a guy she’d met during summer dance workshops since she decided to jump in early instead of waiting until fall semester classes started at New York’s Premiere Center for the Arts.

Aaron reminded Tino of a taller, more fit and agile Bobby. A healthy Bobby who hadn’t turned to smack after Cosa Nostra politics forced him out of the only life he’d ever known. Everyone tried to help him. They used money and patience, and Bobby was still doing porn and lost to them all. He didn’t want one of the apartments Tino bought as an investment and offered to him for free. He didn’t want Nova’s help with getting a diploma.

Bobby wanted drugs, and the cash that came from fucking for a living.

A Lost Boy who was forever lost.

Aaron had the same wheat-blond hair, the same innocent face and deep dimples. He also had the same cockiness of a man who knew how to move his body to get attention, though maybe not for the same reasons.

So Tino watched this fresh-faced Bobby impostor dance with Brianna, kept an eye on Carina plastered against Paco even if he didn’t want to, and downed his drink faster than he should when he was working.

“You okay, bro?” The bartender pointed to Tino’s glass.

The club was packed, but since they were in the network, the staff usually paid attention to Tino. Made sure he was happy, didn’t card him even if he had a fake ID in his wallet. Carina never bothered carrying a fake ID, and Brianna was okay to pass on drinking but somehow got sucked into a few because of Carina.

“Sí, grazie,” Tino answered in Italian, playing the role as he turned his attention on the dance floor once more.

Back to watching as Aaron tried to make himself look good rather than get the job done like a dance partner was supposed to when he was with someone as fucking gorgeous and talented as Brianna. Was Aaron wearing high heels and a black minidress that showed off mile-long legs and clung to an ass designed to be worshipped?

No, he wasn’t.

Brianna’s dress dipped low in the back, exposing the curve of her spine. That little black dress bled sex. It was particularly daring tonight, even for her, and Aaron was currently ruining the effect. He was too impressed with himself. Too used to being the best on the stage like every other dancer she’d met in that summer program.

Brianna needed a partner who made her shine, not the other way around, especially in a fucking Latin club. If any style of dance was designed to make a woman look sexy, it was Latin dancing.

This Aaron needed to get off the dance floor with his Bobby charm and Iowa farm-boy enthusiasm. It was making Tino depressed as fuck, not just for the friend he’d lost, but also for Dyker Heights Tino who’d died in a basement just like East Harlem Tino had.

He wasn’t even sure what Tino was left anymore.

Maybe he should stop drinking for the night and start doing blow instead, but he didn’t like to do blow around the girls. He saved that for work.
Real work.
The dirty work the rest of the family didn’t like to talk about.

Six years later and he was still rationing drugs.

Playing the game every day, deciding what was worth blow, what was worth booze, and what was worth lying in bed jerking off to the memories of what Brianna felt like against him, sweaty from the heat, moving with him like they were back in that bunk bed.

Tino was going to have to figure something out really soon, or he was going to end up doing porn like Bobby. Sounded dramatic, but it wasn’t as if guys like them knew how to fucking date.

The thing was, after the fallout, and dealing with the unexpected surprise of his brother signing him up to be a hired killer, Tino gave up sex. He didn’t know how to operate in the world without someone telling him who to fuck and how.

Except Tino liked to fuck.

That was the first thing he’d discovered after giving it up. He missed it. Not all the bullshit, especially not Mary, but being with a woman—hell, yes, he missed it. His biceps were more ripped than ever, because he liked to switch hands jerking off and pretend it was someone else.

Who the fuck was he kidding?

He liked to pretend it was Brianna.

He was aching for the sex because it fueled his Brianna fantasies. That was how he’d learned to deal with the bullshit in the first place, and it’d obviously been a great coping mechanism because he was going fuck crazy without it.

He missed pretending it was Brianna’s hair he was pulling, her pussy he was licking, her body quivering, and her voice calling out his name.

This babysitting gig was a bad idea, even though the don hadn’t really given Tino a fucking choice in the matter. He didn’t have long enough to build up his defenses against her. Not even close. He found himself teasing Brianna just to see her blush. He pushed her just to see how far he could go. How bad he could be with her. All the while thinking of other ways he could get her cheeks pink. He was raw and on edge, and tonight especially his fingers were itching to touch her.