Page 193 of The Enforcer

It wasn’t easy to find a suit a little less formal then the three pieces Nova had been favoring for a while now, but in the back corner Carlo found a simple, black, double-breasted suit that hadn’t been donated yet.

After he changed clothes and slipped the jacket on, Carlo stretched his arms. He gave Tino a look of annoyance as he ran a hand under his arm. “I think his lats are bigger than mine.”

Tino snorted, because it was obvious Nova’s lats were bigger than Carlo’s, but Nova did all his working out at the dojo and that was a muscle group largely ignored with free weights.

Even by a personal trainer like Carlo.

“Do more martial arts. It’s a better total-body workout. If you don’t like karate or judo, try something else. You quit every single time.” Tino lifted his arms and said, “I got awesome lats.”

“I don’t like people telling me what to do,” Carlo said by way of explanation and obviously gave up on his lats.

Carlo was trying on watches, and Tino was looking through Nova’s money clips when they heard Nova get home, but they weren’t too concerned about it.

When Nova pulled back from walking into his bedroom and stood at the entrance to his closet, Tino turned to him wearing his three-piece pinstripe, the gold tie, and an unapologetic smile.

Nova arched an eyebrow at him and said, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Nothing.” Tino shrugged. “Just looking at your shit.”

“Bullshit,” Nova growled as Tino picked up one of the gold money clips. “Are you trying to be me? Is that supposed to be me?”

“I told you,” Carlo said with a smile at Tino. “It’s the tie.”

“Hey, lemme see the money clip in your pocket,” Tino asked, but knowing Nova, he went ahead and jumped at him. Tino reached into his pocket despite Nova smacking his head. “Stop it, stronzo! You’ll mess up my hair.” Tino leaped back, money clip in hand, now much more realistic with all those hundreds shoved in it. “I need this.”

“I wanna know what the hell is going on,” Nova barked at him and then yanked his money clip back. “I like this one. No.” He reached over and picked up one of the silver money clips he used to take with him when he did crew work a million years ago. “You can have that one.”

“I have a gold tie on.” Tino gestured to the tie pointedly. “I need one of the gold ones to match.”

“You can’t have one of my gold money clips. Get the fuck outta my closet!”

Carlo caught Nova’s hand when Nova tried to yank a Rolex away from him. He looked at Nova’s sleeve and told Tino, “You need to get some of his cuff links too. Oh, you should get those dollar-sign ones. Those are so fucking ghetto. They’re perfect.”

“Holy shit, yes.” Tino laughed with him. “The ones with the little diamonds in them.”

Carlo cracked up. “It doesn’t get more Siciliano than that.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Nova shouted at the two of them. “Whatever the hell you two are doing, I promise it’s a bad idea. If you have to dress up like me, that means it’s something you can’t tell me about, and it’s a mistake.”

Since Tino was sort of working on this truth thing, and he figured Nova would find out eventually, he went ahead and admitted, “The school officials are trying to push Brianna outta school for being associated with us.”

“Madonn’.” Nova groaned. “So what, you’re gonna go to the school and do what?”

“Well, I wanted to go in and dent them a little.” Tino gestured to Carlo as he fished in another drawer through all the neatly displayed cuff links. “But he said I’d ruin the symbiotic levels of society if I did that and destroy the ecosystem of Midtown. So I thought I’d do it like you do it.”

“What?” Nova scowled at them like they were speaking another language. He yanked the dollar-sign cuff links out of Tino’s hand. Then he paused and stared at the cuff links. “Do you really think they’re ghetto?”

“Oh my God, Casanova,” Tino said with an incredulous look.

“I love these ones. The don bought them for me,” Nova mumbled as he stared at them in his open palm.

Tino rolled his eyes.

“He bought you the playing cards too,” Carlo reminded Nova. “With the rubies for the ace of hearts.”

Tino laughed but didn’t say anything.

“I love those ones too.” Nova looked like his world was ending. “Am I one of them? Have I turned into one of them? Am I a fucking pirate now?”