Page 111 of The Enforcer

She grabbed her jacket off the chair at the table, and at the same time Carina put out a cigarette in the ashtray next to Nova and then glared at Tino with dark, disappointed eyes. “Testa di cazzo.”

“I guess.” Tino held up his hands. “Go side with her. That’s fair.”

“Vai a fanculo.” Carina flipped him off and then followed Brianna outside.

They left the door open, and the breeze was colder than normal for April, wiping out any warmth from the space heaters Nova had turned on in the living room.

Tino stood there, feeling like the last bit of warmth had been sucked out of his life too. Then he glanced to Nova and Carlo, who were sitting on mattresses in the middle of the living room, looking at Tino like he had just stepped off a spaceship from another planet.

Nova took a long drag off his cigarette and blew out the smoke slowly before he started, “Valentino—”

“Are you gay?” Carlo asked before Nova could finish. “No judgment, but you should probably tell us. That’ll take some serious damage control, and we could definitely find someone better than a pissed-off Dyker Heights teenager to be your cover.”

Tino glared at the two of them, but then he decided he couldn’t be bothered. He turned around, slammed the door, and went back to bed.

Alone.

Except he couldn’t sleep.

So he took another shower.

That didn’t work either.

When he got out, the scent of weed drifted in under the bathroom door. So he took an oxy, brushed his teeth, and followed the trail of pain management. He spent the rest of the night sitting on a mattress, telling the two guys who understood less than anyone in the world that his goddess had walked out the door because he wouldn’t fuck her.

* * * *

Nothing could make a girl ugly cry like a Moretti man.

Brianna wasn’t the first one to sob over one, and she surely wouldn’t be the last, but knowing it didn’t make her feel better.

At all.

“He can’t help it.” Carina rubbed her back as Brianna sobbed into Carina’s pillow. “This is what they do.”

Brianna lifted her head to glare at her friend. “Are you defending him?”

“No.” Carina took a puff off her cigarette and blew it toward the open window in her bedroom. Then she went back to rubbing Brianna’s back. “I’m just pointing it out. It’s ingrained. It’s expected, even. Why do you think I don’t wanna get married? Maybe you should find an Irish boy to fall for.”

“Tino was different. He was my friend—”

“Okay,” Carina said with dry cynicism before Brianna could finish. “It doesn’t change who he is. I’ve been telling you this. Italian men, they’ll crush you, sweetheart. Look at my mother. She’s fucking crazy. She’sbeencrazy.”

Brianna started really sobbing, to the point that her face hurt, and her heart felt cracked in two. Yet even as she cried, she couldn’t find a way to accept that she was somehow expendable to Tino when they’d been so close for so long. It was like her heart and mind were waging this war against each other, what she heard with her ears and what she intuitively knew to be true.

Or maybe she was just a stupid girl who couldn’t believe the boy she adored was able to hurt her this intensely.

Brianna couldn’t do this.

Everyone liked him, and everything he did always seemed so easy for him.

It only took him one night to ruin her forever. She’d practically thrown herself at him because she hadn’t been able to think about anything but what he made her feel in that bunk bed. Even as incredible as it was, this wasn’t worth it. The fall was too spectacular, too crushing when she realized he probably had a whole collection of girls he made feel like that.

But still, it didn’t make total sense to her.

“He’s not after sex, though,” she finally whispered into the darkness. “That’s not—”

“All boys are after sex.”