Page 154 of The Enforcer

For being their father’s sons. For choosing this life instead of something different.

“I know you’re mad.” Nova caressed Tino’s hair, pushing it away from his forehead. “I’m gonna make it up to you—”

“Don’t,” Tino growled before he could finish.

“Yeah, don’t,” Carlo agreed.

“Now both of yous are pissed at me too?” Nova snapped. “You think I wanted this? You think this is my fucking fault? So you make me the fucking bad guy? Is that what you’re doing?”

“You could’ve thought of something else.” Carlo said it in a furious whisper, because this was the first time the three of them were truly alone without doctors or Romeo or the don lingering in the basement. “That was a charts-and-graphs accountant decision. That’s bottom-line shit. As long as he’s alive, that’s all that fucking matters to you. There’s worse things than dying, Nova, but you don’t know that. You’re not out there digging shallow graves. You want your brother to have to pull the trigger on you one day? ’Cause that’s what you signed him up for.”

“No one’s pulling the trigger on me. Not yet.” Nova leaned in and grabbed Tino’s face, but he looked at Carlo. “I want you two to listen to me, listen real close, ’cause I’m only saying this once.” His voice was barely a whisper, forcing Tino to listen. “The hand we were dealt was shit. It’s always been shit, and if they have it their way, it’ll be shit until the day they stick us in the fucking ground, but I’m tired of bleeding for them. I’m tired of hurting for them. I’m tired of puking my guts up ’cause they rape my fucking soul over and over again.”

“I’m sorry it’s so hard for you in the organization,Zu.” Tino glared at his brother as he said it. “Must be really difficult to deal with all the paper cuts the don dishes out.” Then, just because he needed to say it out loud, he pointed at his brother. “Don’t youevertalk about them raping your soul again. I don’t wanna hear it leave your mouth, ’cause you have no fucking idea.”

“You’re pissed at me, Valentino. Your brother. The guy who would cut off his own friggin’ arm for you. That’s what they want from you, and you’re handing it to them. Be pissed at them instead. You two are letting them divide us. They want you to blame me. To blame each other. To blame Romeo. It’s a control tactic, and it’s bullshit. It keeps us eating outta their hands instead of fighting against them.” Nova’s voice was shaking now. “They gave us shit hands, so we’ll bluff until we win, but wearegonna fucking win. Lost Boys stick together. We do not let those old-school motherfuckers divide us. They want us in. They want us in so they can use us and shit on us for being bastardi. Fine. We’re in. We’re in like a motherfucker, and we’re never getting out. This organization is our fucking life. This ship is our reason to live and breathe, ’cause it’s our fucking ship. I don’t want to just survive Cosa Nostra anymore. That’s not my motivation. Not after this shit. I want toownCosa Nostra, and I want you two to own it with me.”

“Nova.” Carlo stared at him with wide eyes and then looked to the stairs in paranoia. “You can’t saymeddalike that.”

“This is our ship,” Nova repeated rather than back down. “The northern motherfuckers and suburban zip gangsters upstairs who forgot what made them. They don’t know it yet, but Cosa Nostra is ours. We’re doing it for every Lost Boy they shit on and every Lost Girl they hurt because no one stood up and fought for them. We’re taking it back, or we’re gonna die trying.”

Tino and Carlo were stunned silent. Both of them looked to the stairs again, because that was a speech worthy not just of a mafia bullet, but a shallow grave to go with it. No priest, no casket, just a hole in the ground and a family who would never know what happened.

“I’d take a bullet for both of yous. You know that,” Nova said solemnly, his voice still hushed as he confessed the greatest of sins in the don’s basement. “But this isn’t about that. It’s about all the others out there. It’s about Mei. It’s about Bobby.” Nova turned and looked at Carlo. “It’s about Lola. We’re taking it because we’re the ones who can, and we’re not gonna let them be fucking stepping stools anymore.”

So, there it was.

Mutiny to the highest degree, because they’d pushed Nova too far and reduced him to puking his guts up one too many times.

But Nova knew how to sell it.

All the anger Tino carried around for years evaporated and was replaced with something much easier to swallow. A revolution. An underground battle for all the Lost Kids who put the suburban gangsters in these mansions and paid for the country-club memberships with their blood, sweat, and tears.

The suits thought the war was over, but it was only starting.

They just didn’t know it.

Carlo glanced back to the stairs before he said, “Fine. You be the brains, and we’ll dig the graves. For Lola. Sounds great, but how the fuck do you know the power won’t get you too? You’re not special. You’re not different from the old man. He had good intentions too.”

“Idon’tknow.” Nova shrugged. “It’s gotten to me before. The drugs. The women. I ignored a lotta shit for the high.” He reached over and grabbed Tino’s good shoulder, squeezing tightly. “You can’t lie to me again, Valentino. I’m not blaming you, but you have to promise me the next time shit gets deep, you’ll tell me. If not for me, for the greater good. We can’t let them come between us. We can’t let them tear us away from Romeo either. They don’t fucking get that from us. They’ve taken enough.”

Tino was silent rather than answer, not knowing why he felt as guilty as he did. He had good reasons not to tell Nova, but it all felt sort of cracked in the aftermath.

Finally he sighed and said, “Okay,” because how could he not?

“Like the fucking pope.” Carlo shook his head, and oddly enough Tino remembered what he was talking about. Only this time the dark pope was sitting right there, and he wasn’t born to rule the underworld like the don was. He was taking it by force instead. “You’re gonna get yourself killed, Nova, and for all you know, Tino or me is gonna have to pull the fucking trigger to save your goddamn ship.”

“At least it’s something worth going down for. At least my ma doesn’t have to roll over in her grave and be ashamed she gave birth to me.” Nova ran his hand over the sheet of Tino’s bed and whispered, “At least I won’t be Frankie. You gotta kill me, do it, but don’t stop fighting to take our ship back.”

Carlo didn’t respond for a long time. Then he nodded and said, “Lost Boys gotta fly.”

“We gotta be stronger than them,” Tino agreed.

“We protect the ship,” Nova reminded them. “It’s ours. We don’t flip. We don’t run to the fucking government. We play their game, and we make them think we love it. We don’t do anything to jeopardize the organization. Someone tries to hurt it, we put them down ’cause it’s a fucking war, and if you need help digging graves, I’ll help you dig ’em. I’m all in. I’m taking Cosa Nostra, even if it takes me fifty fucking years to do it.”

Tino got his first ink a week later.

Omertàbranded into the muscles on his stomach.