Page 22 of The Enforcer

“I didn’t fuck Alaine. She’s married to Chuito Garcia, who, aside from being the reigning heavyweight UFC world champion, is also my best friend,” Tino said as if he didn’t hear the rest. “I haven’t touched her.”

She let out a bitter, mirthless laugh. “Oh yes, I’m sure you’ve been a pillar of chastity while we’ve been apart.”

“No.” He shook his head in denial. “I fucked my brains out since we broke up. I snorted enough blow to kill an elephant, and I drank so much Nova’s convinced I’m one more drink away from liver failure.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Tino—” Brianna started, feeling her blood pressure spike.

“I have been dying without you,” Tino said before she could finish. “I’ve been slowly dying, and no one knew it. I couldn’t tell anyone. Then I had to give up the fucking coke ’cause I thought Nova was gonna off himself over the guilt. I’ve just had to sit in Kentucky and die.Sober.” He pulled off his shirt and tossed it over his jacket. “So don’t worry, baby. I’ve suffered for your security too, but if it makes you feel better, I’m gonna make sure they pay for fucking it up.” He walked past her to the bathroom, pulling at the button to his jeans as he did. “I’m gonna make them all pay. I’m done being Cosa Nostra’s whore.”

She flinched when he said it, because that word had so many terrible implications for Tino, but he just gave her a look that dared her to deny it as he went on, “They broke me a long time ago; now they’ve broken you too. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I’ve been screwed for the last time, and you can put it on my fucking tombstone. I’m done!”

Brianna jumped when Tino slammed the bathroom door, and then she sat there staring at it as the shower started running. It wasn’t until she saw the steam slip out from under the door that she realized he hadn’t locked her out.

Had it been anyone else, she might have disregarded the act as careless.

But Tino had been the Moretti Borgata’s lead enforcer before he’d left.

He wasn’t careless about anything.

He was quite possibly the most diligent person she’d ever known, all the more so for doing it without anyone noticing.

The invitation was obvious.

Brianna stripped down quickly, staring at the unlocked door the entire time. She opened it before she lost her nerve, because she needed to be the one to claim it. To have control with this one thing when the rest of her world had shattered around her.

Tino was nothing but a tanned form behind frosted glass. He remained still for a long moment before reaching out and pushing the shower door open.

Maybe he needed the control too.

He stood there, the small hotel soap bar clasped in his hand as the suds slid down his cut, muscular body. His dark gaze was hooded as he stared at her, naked and exposed.

The water splashed out on the floor between them. The hum of it faded to the background behind the heartbeat throbbing in her ears. She hadn’t been wrong earlier. Tino was more thickly muscular than he’d been before he left, more cut and deadly.

He’d always been beautiful, but now there was a raw strength that radiated off him, and for the first time, Brianna thought the Borgata was in real trouble. They likely remembered him the same way Brianna did, damaged by life, a slave to drugs because it was the only way he could endure the agony of his job.

They didn’t understand what it meant for Tino to overcome his demons and try for a life outside the mafia.

Even if it hadn’t worked, the fact that Tino was strong enough to try when the ability should’ve been beaten out of him long ago made Brianna realize the Borgata might have created their own demise in him.

She could feel his hot gaze sweep over her like a caress, even as she stood before him battered and bruised. If there was anyone she could be bare and damaged in front of, it was Tino. She had a lot of things to be ashamed about, but she wasn’t going to hide someone else’s sins. She had enough of her own to deal with.

“Can I join you?” she asked as she looked pointedly at the soap in his hand. “I’m dirty too.”

“Don’t say that.” Tino shook his head. “You’re beautiful. You’ve always been so beautiful.”

Brianna smiled at that, even as fresh tears were stinging her eyes. “So are you.”

She stepped into the shower and pulled the door closed. The water was a little too hot, but she turned toward it rather than back away. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the sting of hot water washing away the pain.

When she was younger, Brianna never thought she’d understand Tino’s need to wash away the sins that left him scrubbing his skin until it was nearly raw, but she did now. She understood it completely.

“They made whores out of both of us,” she finally whispered with her back still to him. “I don’t think there’s enough hot water.”

She waited for him to deny it like she used to do with him, to somehow attempt to erase it with feigned innocence, to lie to her. Instead he stepped up to her and wrapped an arm around her waist. Brianna took a long, shuddering breath when he pressed a kiss against the base of her neck.

He ran the soap over her stomach, and she looked down to watch him do it. To see his tanned fingers against her skin, knowing it was Tino touching her. It was his hard cock pressing against the small of her back, and for the first time in so many years, being touched didn’t make her skin crawl.

She let out a sob she couldn’t hide, because the collision was crippling. Lust and despair. She might have fallen in the face of it, but Tino was there, holding her closer as he buried his face against her neck.