Page 177 of The Enforcer

“What the fuck was that for?” Miranda shouted as she cupped her cheek, and everyone in the cafeteria turned their way.

“I don’t know what things are like where you came from.” Brianna leaned in, keeping her voice low and narrowing her gaze at Miranda as she went ahead and handled it the only way she knew how. “But he came here to see me. That means he’s mine. Private property. You look at him. You speak to him. You even think about him, and you’re disrespecting me. I don’t like being disrespected.” She shouldered her bag and then turned back to Tino with a look of disbelief. “What is she? New?”

“I guess.” Tino put an arm over her shoulders. “Can you imagine what they’d do to her at St. Francis? The girls there get nasty about shit like that.”

“They’d bury her in two days.” Brianna leaned into him instinctively. “How was work?”

“Eh, it was all right.” He shrugged as they started walking away. “Hardly any blood.”

“I told you.” Aaron’s voice echoed from the table. “You better figure out a way to make it up to her, because I wasn’t exaggerating about what happened Saturday night. He made them disappear like a fucking phantom. You do not want to be on her bad side.”

Tino and Brianna nearly hurt themselves trying to stay cool and not start laughing. It wasn’t until they were outside that Tino looked at her with a wide, amused smile that reached his eyes and said, “That was very hot.”

“Thank you.” Brianna couldn’t hide her blush as she buttoned her jacket to cover up her tank top. She was wearing sneakers and hip-hugging dancer sweatpants with it, because she had just gotten out of dance class and hadn’t planned on a bike ride. She draped her bag over her front, with the strap stretching from her shoulder, down between her breasts, and across her other hip. She took the helmet when he handed it to her, and started working on the bobby pins in her dancer bun until her hair fell down into a messy ponytail. “What are you gonna use? I hate when you ride without a helmet.”

“We aren’t going that far.”

“Home?”

“No, somewhere else, actually. No one knows I’m back yet. I thought we could hide out until tomorrow. Carlo’s laying low too.”

Brianna stopped her work of pulling the band on her ponytail down to make room for the helmet and just looked at him in concern. “You said everything was okay.”

“It is. I just…” Tino shrugged and looked away from her. “I thought maybe we could talk about things.”

Her stomach lurched when she realized this could be some sort of breakup visit. “Things about us?”

He shook his head and met her gaze, his dark eyes reflecting so much pain. “Actually I wanted to talk to you about thingsbeforeus.”

She frowned in confusion. “Oh.”

“Nova has this stupid idea about me talking about shit. Like it’ll help. It’s driving him crazy, and he has enough shit to worry about, so I just thought—” He shrugged again, looking very vulnerable all of a sudden, even with the way his leather jacket bulged at the sides with his guns. “I can’t talk to Nova. I definitely can’t talk to Carina. Romeo doesn’t even know, and Carlo goes sorta psycho whenever it comes up ’cause of Lola and—”

“Let’s go,” Brianna said before he could finish, even if a part of her was terrified to hear what he had to say. “Let’s go talk.”

“Maybe you’ll hate me.” Tino said it sort of hopefully, like telling her was a win-win situation for him. “Maybe it’ll turn you off. Disgust you so bad and—”

Brianna threaded her fingers into the hair at his nape and tugged his head down before he could finish. Then she kissed him outside in front of everyone. For one long moment, Tino moaned against her lips, taking over the kiss by cupping her face and thrusting his tongue into her mouth like he couldn’t help it. As if he’d been wound tight since last night like she’d been.

Then just as quickly, he jerked back. “There’s feds watching. You want pictures of you kissing me on the walls of the FBI?”

“I don’t care,” she told him honestly. “There’s probably pictures of me doing everything else. Not like they don’t know I’m affiliated.”

Tino looked away at that, because it wasn’t like he could argue it.

She’d basically announced it to the entire school too.

Welcome to New York, first years. Cosa Nostra is everywhere you least expect it.

Tino huffed in defeat and put his arm around her shoulders again. “Come on.”

When they got to his bike, she fought with the helmet that was still adjusted to fit him. He pulled out his keys and put his sunglasses back on. When he got on the Ducati and she crawled behind him, Tino looked over his shoulder and flicked his hand under his chin before he flipped off the other building with extra flair like he wanted to make sure someone saw it.

She craned her head and looked in the same direction, seeing the flicker of two men disappearing behind the parking wall.

“Fucking government,” Tino mumbled under his breath as he kicked his Ducati to life with a loud roar. “Hold on, baby.”

So she did, just held on and left the gossipy school and the nosy FBI in the dust, not caring at all what anyone thought about it.