Page 79 of The Enforcer

“I hate this shit.” Tino groaned after a half an hour. “Can I listen to something else?”

Nova gave him a look, as if the dance-team conversation made him question if Tino deserved control of the radio. “If you’d listen to the lyrics.”

“I don’t wanna listen to the lyrics.”

“Some of it is really poetic. Their statement is powerful.”

“I don’t care.” Tino raised his eyebrows at his brother. “I get it. Fuck the police. Fuck everyone. Can I listen to something else?”

“Fine, whatever,” Nova said dismissively. “We’re almost there anyway.”

So Tino got to mess with the radio. He stopped on a Mary J. Blige song, because he knew Nova liked her and they probably needed to find a middle ground.

Then, just as they were pulling into the gas station to meet the lawyer, “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” came on, and Tino sat up and looked at the radio. “I like this song. A lot. You like it?”

“Yeah, it’s all right,” Nova agreed.

Nova sat there next to him after they parked, letting him listen to the song. Tino rested his head back against the seat, closed his eyes, and remembered Brianna so he could forget Mary.

“Are you gonna tell Romeo about the basement?” Nova asked again.

Tino kept his eyes closed, still imagining Brianna’s dance as he sighed. “I don’t know.”

“You can if you want.” Nova choked on the words, but he said them. “I’m not gonna tell you not to.”

Tino nodded, knowing how hard it was for Nova to give him that. He wasn’t sure which of them had it worse, Nova who carried so much guilt, or Tino who was fighting down so much anger.

“Ti voglio bene,” he whispered, more to remind himself than Nova.

Nova reached over and squeezed his shoulder, like he wanted to make sure Tino was still there. “I love you too.”

Then the song was over, and the lawyer showed up. So they got in his Mercedes and drove to the jail.

“Leave your hat,” Nova said from the front seat where he sat discussing things with the guy in the suit who obviously worked for the don and was part of the bonus Nova got for being a Cosa Nostra trained dog. “You can’t bring it in.”

Tino didn’t want to leave his hat. It sort of felt like his good-luck charm. He took it off and sniffed at the brim, because it still had the scent of Brianna’s shampoo. Or maybe he was just imagining it, but either way it made him feel better.

“Did you just sniff your hat?” Nova asked in Italian.

Tino looked at the hat in his hand, and then he smelled it again. “Why can’t I bring it?”

“’Cause you can’t. They pat you down and use a metal detector. You can’t bring anything you could hide something in,” he went on in Italian and then added in English, “It’s a friggin’ jail.”

Tino put his hat over his face and dropped his head back against the seat. He took another deep breath, trying to pretend he was back at the studio in Bed-Stuy.

“You don’t have to come in,” Nova whispered in Italian once more. “You can wait in the car, piccolo.”

“I’m not a baby,” Tino decided for the first time in his life. His mother used to call him the baby, and it was a habit Romeo and Nova picked up. They got better about it as he got older, but sometimes they reverted back to when Tino was five and his name in the house had just beenpiccolo. “Don’t call me that anymore.”

It reminded him of his ma.

He didn’t want to think about his ma.

Nova fell back against his seat and looked out his window the same way Tino had in the other car. He was quiet for a long time as the lawyer sat next to them, uncomfortable because he hadn’t been able to understand the conversation.

At least Tino assumed he couldn’t understand him.

With a name like Abram Levi, Tino was pretty fucking certain he wasn’t Italian even if he did work for Don Moretti.