Page 133 of The Enforcer

“Wives,” Nova whispered. “Cosa Nostra wives.”

“I already said more than I should,” Lola said fearfully. “Please tell me if you find him, and I promise if I hear anything—”

“Wait, you said you knew his clients.” Nova stopped her when she went to slide out of the booth. “Can you—”

“I can’t.” Lola looked miserable to say it. “I’m sorry. It’s common knowledge that he’s my partner for the exhibitions. I’m the only other one who knows some of the names. If I tell you—”

“They’ll know it was you. I understand, but we could help you.” Nova sounded frantic. “You could come over to our Borgata. We could protect you. We don’t deal in flesh.”

“I can’t come over to your Borgata. I appreciate that, but I can’t.” Lola sighed. “It would start a war.”

“They already started a war,” Carlo assured her. “They took a kid and sold him for the don’s last name. That’s a fucking war, Lola. Come to our Borgata. Let us protect you.”

Lola smiled at Carlo, her eyes swimming pools of light blue before the tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks. “I can’t.”

“Let me protect you.” Carlo gestured to himself wildly. “I don’t care, baby. I don’t. I swear. You don’t have to do this anymore. I can make it better.”

“I have strangers tell me I matter all the time,” she told him with another sad smile. “I have men tell me I’m beautiful, that they’ll do anything for me if only I’d let them take care of me, but you’re the only one who ever made me believe it. I know you don’t understand how much that means to someone like me, but you already saved me.”

“Then come with me.” Carlo jumped out of the booth when she went to leave. “I’ll marry you. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“I can’t,” Lola said as she looked up at him with tears running down her beautiful face. “Tino was protecting his brother in prison from being sold. He was protecting pretty Carina from knowing what it’s like to have a parent who made her to hurt her. I’m protecting people too, Carlo. I can’t come to your Borgata. I’m risking them just by being here, but I love you. I want you to know that, and I want you to find Tino. Maybe—” She shrugged and looked to Brianna. “Maybe it’ll work out for him. I hope it does.” More tears rolled down her cheeks. “He talked about you all the time, Brianna. You think he betrayed you for touching other women, but you were with him. I know it’s so hard for someone on the outside to understand, but he never saw me. He never saw any of them. I know he didn’t. He only sees you.”

Brianna let out a sob and covered her eyes.

Brianna heard Carlo call after Lola, and Nova tell him, “You’re gonna put her in danger. Let her go. Let’s find Tino, and we’ll get her later.”

“I don’t want them to touch her,” Carlo growled at him. “You’re asking me to let those sick fuckers have her.”

“She’s gonna be fucking dead if you keep making a scene. No one’s gonna touch her again,” Nova whispered back at him. “I will help you get her out later. We’ll buy her out if we have to. I promise.”

“I’ll get her out, and I’m not paying him to do it,” Carlo assured all of them. “My hand to God, Carmine Brambino’s already dead.”

“Carlo!” Nova snapped and threw up his hands. “Sei pazzo?”

“Fine.” Carlo took a long, hard breath and then said, “But we let her go, and we still don’t know where the hell Tino is. Think about that one, genius?”

“I can think of someone who knows where he is,” Carina said darkly, reminding them all that she was still there, because she had fallen strangely silent. “We’re going back to Brooklyn.Right now.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

What Carina remembered, and Brianna hadn’t, was her mother’s threat the night of Tino and Brianna’s fight.

“She got weird when I told her Brianna and Tino were fucking.”

“Which was a lie,” Brianna reminded her.

“She was jealous! Do you understand how fucking sick that is? Now she’s done something to him,” Carina went on as Nova drove thirty miles over the speed limit. Her voice was shaking, but she wasn’t crying. It was like she was past tears and into something much more dangerous. “I know that’s what it is! She told me she was going to! And she made thismy fault! She’s hurting him to get back at me! She’s turned her fucked-up, twisted Brambino shit into something I gotta slit my wrists over. If I hadn’t told her about Brianna, he’d still be here!”

No one could say anything to that.

Only Carina could admit something so horrendous. That it was her words that pushed her mother over the edge. Others would hide it. Even Nova seemed to be hiding his guilt, with cracks of it showing when they least expected it. Carlo was silent and tormented in the front seat. Brianna was definitely hiding it as she sat there next to a raging Carina, remembering the night she and Tino got into that fight.

Remembering that she’d called him a whore, not knowing how true it was.

It was her tears that drove Carina to say what she did to her mother, and it was very hard for Brianna to do anything but replay that night over and over again in her mind.

But Carina was the only one owning her guilt completely, admitting that one stupid fight with her mother might have been the catalyst that led to Tino disappearing. It was like watching Carina’s world shatter in the background while everyone was too caught up to notice.