Page 191 of The Enforcer

“That’s not the point. The don offered to pay too, but I worked for that money, Tino. It was my thing that I did all by myself. Now they’re spitting on all my hard work. Where are you? Can we go back to your walk-up?”

“Shit, baby, I’m working. I’m sorry.” Tino seemed genuinely torn up about it. “I’m gonna be home tomorrow. Carina’s got her gig. I’ll stay the night. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll make it better.”

She sighed, trying not to sound too disappointed. “Are you gonna be safe?”

“Yeah, I’m always safe. Carlo’s here. He’s got my back,” Tino promised her. “We’re good.”

She took another deep breath, because she didn’t want to distract him while he was working. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called with my dumb school stuff.”

“Hey, it’s not dumb. That’s fucking bullshit,” Tino said quickly. “They just spit on your hard work. I don’t like hearing that. They oughta be very happy I’m not in Manhattan right now.”

Brianna knew he couldn’t say where he was.

“Go,” she whispered. “Go work.”

“I love you,” he surprised her by saying, even though Carlo was obviously in the car with him. “Okay?”

“Okay.” She nodded. “I love you too. Miss you.”

“Don’t worry about school,” he said softly. “I’ll be home tomorrow. I’ll spend all night making it better.”

She smiled in spite of everything. “Be safe.”

“I promise,” he said before he hung up.

* * * *

“Those cunts took Brianna into their office.” Tino put his phone back in his pocket. “They’re threatening to kick her outta school, and they gave her shit for being associated with the Borgata. They said that merda out loud.”

“No shit.” Carlo sounded as shocked as Tino. “They said our name when they were talking to her.”

“Yeah, like it was fucking dirty. They took my girl into their office and reprimanded her for being associated with us,” Tino growled. “They made her feel like a criminal. Who the fuck do they think they are? We’ve been here longer than New York’s Premiere Center for the Arts. So they’re the oldest performance college in the country. We’vestillbeen here longer.”

“Well, that doesn’t fucking work,” Carlo agreed. “We should do something about that.”

“Right?” Tino nodded, glad Carlo wasn’t trying to talk him out of it, because the truth was they were in Manhattan. “We won’t clip ’em. Just scare ’em a little. I told her I was working till tomorrow.”

Carlo was silent for a moment and then looked to Tino hesitantly, because the two of them had never decided who they were going after before. Someone else did it and handed them the names.

Being judge and jury was way outside their job description.

“This is a Nova problem,” Carlo whispered. “We should talk to Nova.”

Tino groaned, because he hadn’t even told Nova he was seeing Brianna again. “That’ll just cause a big fucking issue.”

“We got to tell him,” Carlo pressed. “You can’t send two enforcers to deal with school officials. We can’t just beat them up. These are, like, real guys, Tino. If they’re saying the old man’s name with disrespect, then they’re just fucking clueless about how things work. You gotta send Nova in for something like that. He’ll show up in his suit and explain things. He’ll just iron it out like he always does. You send us in, and there will be blood and cops, and the old man will freak, and Nova will need quaaludes. There’s levels.”

Carlo took one hand off the steering wheel and held it up. “Like, here’s the real world and the school officials who’d call the heat in a fucking heartbeat if we showed up.” He lowered his hand a little. “Here’s associates and all those motherfuckers who benefit off Cosa Nostra. The cops on the pad. The dirty government. The other half of New York who’s not clueless.” He lowered it a little more. “Here’s Nova. He can still speak their language. He’s like a Cosa Nostra translator. Then here’s us.” He dropped his hand way down near his thigh. “In the lowest dredges of the underworld. You can’t just throw us at officials. They keep us separate for a reason. It’ll mess up the entire symbiotic ecosystem of society.” He looked back to Tino. “You could single-handedly destroy civilization, or at least a small section of Midtown.”

Tino stared back at him and did a very good job of not cracking up. “That was deep, Zio.”

Carlo shrugged. “I’m a deep guy.”

“I could be Nova,” Tino assured him. “I could be an awesome Nova.”

Carlo was quiet again, before he turned back to Tino. “I believe you could.”

“Let’s go back to Harlem,” Tino said with a wide smile. “Romeo’s training. It’ll give me time to grab one of my suits. You could borrow one of Nova’s.”