Page 62 of The Enforcer

“No.” Nova shook his head. “I should’ve made sure we dressed nice when we registered. I fucked up. It won’t happen again.”

“You’re supposed to say,Hey, Don, gimme some friggin’ money if you want me to dress nice.” The don smiled at Nova, looking amazed, as if he wasn’t sure what to do with him. “You’re fourteen years old. If you register for school looking like a bum, whose fault is that? It’s your father’s fault. That makes it my fucking fault.” He reached out and rubbed Nova’s hair affectionately. “This kid. Weight of the fucking world on his shoulders.”

“I have money,” Nova argued. “And I can make more. I just haven’t had time to work on it. I can buy the clothes.”

“I know you can. I know you would.” The don sighed. “But you don’t have to. In this family we protect each other. We take care of each other. You don’t believe it right now, and I don’t fucking blame you, but you will. I’m gonna make sure you believe it, okay?”

Nova nodded, looking like he wanted to believe it desperately. “Okay.”

“I’ll give you all the money you need. Just help your father.” The don wrapped an arm around Nova’s neck and pulled him close like he was an unexpected lifeline. “Help your fucking father. We need hard blood to stay strong. He and Carlo never got along, but you could help him. I feel it in my bones. God sent you to us for a reason. You know, the Brambinos were strong. Then the old man died and that spoiled prick took over. Now they’ve gone to shit. If your father hadn’t married Mary, they’d be done. People respect them because of us, and they don’t even fucking appreciate it.”

“Sick bastard. Can you imagine being one of those Brambino fuckers walking up to the pearly gates?” one of the soldiers behind them asked. “If I had their shit on my conscience, I’d live in a lead room.”

“What’d they do?” Tino asked, remembering something vaguely from the basement about the Brambinos. “What makes them so sick?”

“We’re not gonna talk about that.” The don turned around and glared at the soldier. “The only thing we’re gonna worry about is buying these kids some decent clothes.”

Chapter Sixteen

The don wasn’t fucking kidding about the shopping.

They had boxes and boxes of clothes. More clothes than Tino ever imagined owning in his entire life. Nova had twice as many as him, mainly because Tino was still fucked with his cast.

The don promised to take Tino shopping again when he got it off.

So in the room with a million boxes, they tossed more boxes and bags.

“We’ve been back ten minutes, and I’m already claustrophobic,” Nova said as he looked around. “This place makes me feel like we’re part of the shit they’re storing away. Too valuable to get rid of, but not worth keeping in the main house.”

“Well.” Tino tilted his head at that, because Nova was pretty dead-on with that assessment.

He might have said more, but some high-pitched squealing distracted him, and he went over to the window. In a small nook of the property, between the garage and the trees, was a trampoline. Not a small one either, but one of those huge professional ones. Which had been a terrible tease, because Tino fucking loved trampolines and his foot was broken. His ma used to send him to the kids’ gym on free days. There was nothing Tino enjoyed quite as much as free days at the kids’ gym. Even though he was twelve, he would still go sometimes when he felt like he had a little too much energy. They let him in on nonfree days, because they’d been trying to recruit him for their team. Romeo was always all for it, but Nova ragged on him about it. Tino never cared. They had a fucking trampoline there. Nova could rag on him all he wanted.

Now he stared down at Carina, who was jumping in the center, going higher and higher, shouting, “Go, go, go!”

“Okay, okay, okay!” a redhead called back as she stood on the far end of the trampoline by the gate. “Ready?”

“Ready!”

Tino’s breath caught when he watched the redhead spring forward and then flip-flop her way across the length of the trampoline. Carina leaped out of the way at the last minute, landing on the side even though it looked like she should’ve crashed to the ground.

Same with the redhead; she barely missed tumbling off with her last back handspring, but she landed on the edge instead, as if both of them were very familiar with this trampoline.

“I guess this is the BFF forever,” Nova mused next to him. “She must be a gymnast.”

“Must be,” Tino agreed distantly as he watched her flip her way back to the other side of the trampoline like she had waited all summer to do it. Both girls were wearing swimsuits, as if they had planned on swimming and gotten distracted. Tino would have to be blind not to notice those legs, miles of them, and surprisingly tan for a redhead. “I sorta wanna be her BFF forever.”

Nova laughed at him. “What about your boyfriend Dominic Brambino?”

“Yeah.” Tino laughed with him. “But she’s cute, right?”

“She’s too WASP-y looking,” Nova said dismissively and turned away. “You know, it’s funny. I thought she’d be anItaliana. Some button man’s daughter that was thrown at Carina to keep her happy.”

“Yeah, me too,” Tino mumbled as he watched them jump and remembered having fun like that. Why did it seem like such a long time ago? The girls’ innocence, if that was the right word for it, felt sort of contagious. Like he could catch it again if he got close enough. “I wish my foot wasn’t broken.”

He left out his back that was still healing, because that was a sure way to send Nova into a downward spiral.

“You wanna smoke?”