Page 178 of The Enforcer

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Brianna wouldn’t consider an old brownstone walk-up in the meatpacking district close, but she supposed in Tino’s world it was close enough. He took the Ducati to Brooklyn all the time like it was nothing.

The Ducati they’d abandoned four parking garages ago.

Now they were in an old black Mustang with white racing stripes and spinning rims, which Brianna thought was funny. Even when they were undercover and trying to blend in, Tino picked the most guido car ever.

Old-school guido, but still…

When she pointed it out, giggling as they parked, Tino laughed with her and admitted, “It’s one of Carlo’s ditch cars. He loves old Mustangs. He loves Camaros too. He bought Romeo’s old one off Nova. He still has it. Romeo would fucking freak if he knew that.”

“Oh my God.” Brianna laughed harder as she fought with the door, which was sticking. “He’s the worst enforcer ever.”

“Really?” Tino leaned over her and did something to the handle, and then he cracked the door open. “You don’t think he blends in an ’81 Mustang? You don’t think he looks like every other guido going to the gym after getting off the construction site? You don’t think that’d make it hard to pick him outta a crowd?”

Brianna turned to look at Tino with her eyebrows raised in shock as she said, “Oh my God,” for a completely different reason.

“Right?” Tino laughed. “Yay for stereotypes.”

“That freaks me out,” she whispered when she realized not only how good Carlo was at what he did, but how much he had taught Tino in the past two years.

“Yeah, well, the best lies are the ones closest to the truth.” Tino shrugged. “Like Nova says, you gotta play the hand you’re dealt, but I told Carlo if he gets his ears pierced and starts wearing wifebeaters three sizes too small, we’re not related anymore. I’d rather bail him out.”

Brianna laughed at the joke but couldn’t help but notice the way his voice hitched over the wordlies. She reached out and grabbed his hand like she had that first time on the train when they were twelve. She pulled it into her lap, keeping it there in a protective gesture that was mostly unconscious.

Tino let her, which seemed important, because she noticed that sometimes he flinched away from affections like that.

“Why did we change cars so many times?” she asked. “Is it the feds or—”

“It’s everyone. The feds. The Borgata. I just don’t wanna be found for a little while.” Tino let his head fall back against the headrest and looked to the roof of the car with his sunglasses still on. “That first time with you in my old bunk bed. Cazzo, Bri, I just wanted to hide with you forever. I still want that. I never stopped wanting it. I need you to know how much it meant to me to have that before I tell you this other shit. I’ve been living off it for two years. I didn’t think it could get any better until what you gave me last night. Now it’s taking everything I have not to grab you and run away so fucking far that they’ll never find us. Any of them.”

“I would run away with you,” Brianna confessed. “Forget school.”

“That means you’re almost as fucked up as I am,” he said with a shake of his head. “You shouldn’t just agree to something like that. I’m not worth throwing your life away for.”

Brianna squeezed his hand tighter. “To me you are.”

Tino was quiet for a long time rather than return the affection, but it didn’t bother her. With Tino, it felt like it was a step in the right direction that he didn’t argue.

“When we first got to Dyker Heights, we didn’t have cable for months,” Tino started cryptically and then pulled off his sunglasses to toss them on the dash. “We were always looking for something to keep our attention. Or maybe Nova was just looking for something to keepmyattention so I wasn’t bouncing off the fucking walls from the nerves.”

Brianna smiled. “I remember.”

“So me and Nova used to play chess when he wasn’t working for the don. Nova didn’t know Mary had already started showing up.” Tino closed his eyes as he said it. “He didn’t know why I suddenly gave a shit about his geek game.”

Brianna forced herself not to flinch, even if everything in her lurched at the mention of Mary.

“I lost every time, because Nova doesn’t know how to throw a game. At least he didn’t back then. Now he could, but it doesn’t come easily to him. Which makes playing against him so much fun”—Tino’s voice was heavy with sarcasm—“but I was looking for something to do with my mind. I’d rather lose to Nova playing stupid chess than think about Mary coming back that night, even though she did every time, because Nova was always out late with the don.” Tino swallowed hard and kept staring at the roof of the Mustang. “There’s this rule in chess. If a pawn gets to the other side of the board, he can be anything he wants.” He turned to look at Brianna. “Did you know that?”

She shook her head. “I know nothing about chess.”

“Once it hits the other side, it can be any piece. A knight. A rook. A bishop. Anything.” Tino sounded awed by it, like they were talking about something other than chess. “I couldn’t win against him, so I started changing my strategy. All I wanted was to save one pawn. To get him to the other side so he could be something different. It started fucking with Nova’s mind. He couldn’t figure out what I was trying to do because I wasn’t playing to win, and that’s all he knows how to do. Play to win.” Tino closed his eyes. “I wanna get to the other side, Bri. That’s all I want.” He confessed it like a dark secret. “I don’t wanna win like Nova does. I don’t wanna save the world. All I want is a chance to be something else.Anything else.”

“What would you be?” she asked curiously. “If you could be anything?”

Tino turned to her, like he hadn’t expected the question. He gave her a sad smile and said, “I have no idea.”

“You never once considered what you’d be if you could be anything?” Brianna couldn’t understand that. She spent more and more of her spare time fantasizing about the future, about all the possibilities. “You don’t have any ideas?”