Page 101 of The Enforcer's Revenge

“Catch anything interesting?”

“He scares away all the big fish.” Maria sent a glare at Tony. “Why do you look awful?” She slipped her hand inside Tino’s jacket and gripped his shoulder. “My God, you’re shaking. Tell mama.”

Tino opened his mouth, but the words couldn’t come out.

He just couldn’t say it again.

“Aren’t you talking to your friends?” Tino asked her incredulously, and he turned to look back at Tony. “How did you not hear? I know they’re talking.”

“We’re on a break from our friends.” Tony gave Tino a wide-eyed look. “Trying to avoidold habits.”

“I’m on a cleanse. Totally willing, doing it myself,” Maria admitted, sounding unapologetic. “My father still pays him to keep me in line and block all unsavory phone numbers while I’m sleeping.”

“Kiss my ass, Maria,” Tony growled, sounding like it was something he was sick to death of discussing. “You should not be this pissed off about it. The cleanse is making you a cunt. I was blocking your unsavory phone numbers for a long time before your father got involved.”

Maria rolled her eyes before she squeezed Tino’s shoulder again because she hadn’t let him go. “At least now he’s getting paid for all his pain and suffering. Ten thousand a month. I don’t mean to drag you into our shit, Tino, but if you two are fucking, I’m definitely playing. That money is going to something useful.”

“I’m sorry, man, bad timing. This is a thing right now.” Tony rubbed his hand over his forehead, looking sick before he rounded on Maria. “Lola’s dead! Someone got her, and you’re bitching to Tino about checks from your father?”

“What?” Maria looked back to Tony and then turned to Tino in horror. She seemed to wilt before his eyes as she rasped, “Is that true?”

“Fuck, now I’m the cunt,” Tony groaned and then walked past both of them to sit heavily on the living room couch. His leg was shaking, and he stared down at the rug distantly. “Did she suffer? I mean, I know that’s uncool to ask, but?—”

“Not that much,” Tino managed to choke out. “It was probably quick for her. If they were decent, but maybe they weren’t. They dropped her phone. That was pretty amateur.Honestly, it wasn’t a great way to go,” he finally admitted to Tony and Maria what he wouldn’t to anyone else. “I would’ve picked something different.”

“Oh my God,” Maria whispered in front of him. “Tino, baby.” Her hug this time was tighter, completely genuine, and it was easy to return it. She turned to Tony with her hand over her mouth. “We lost one.”

“I know, mama,” Tony whispered miserably. “I’m sorry about the checks.”

Maria shrugged. “It’s okay. He should probably be paying you more. You do step on my game enough to really impress him.”

“I don’t step on all your games, just the dangerous ones, because old habits die hard, and I don’t like to see you hurt. You step on plenty of mine, too. It’s a two-way street. I just took the checks your father offered because I needed the references. You know Moretti’s a pain in the ass. No offense, Tino.”

“It’s fine. He is a pain in the ass,” Tino had to agree before he apologized to Maria, too. “I’m sorry about Lola. It feels like my fault.”

He was still feeling his confession to Tony, and when Maria used her hold on him to pull him closer, Tino let her. It was easy to be weak in front of people who had already seen him at some of his lowest points. Much easier than it was in front of his own family, or even Brianna.

“It’s not your fault.” Maria cupped his cheek lovingly. “Let’s do a spa day for old time’s sake. I’ll make it lovely.”

“No, I have to go. You don’t want me here. The heat’s coming down on us. Someone torched the Brambino compound. The news said Carmine’s dead.” Tino said it like an afterthought, but then he realized who he was speaking to and repeated it again for all three of them, “Yeah, so I guess Carmine’s dead, too.”

Maria just slipped her hand into her robe and stared at him with a stunned, warm brown gaze before she looked to Tony, still sitting on the couch. She took a shuddering breath and whispered, “Holy shit.”

“Just like that?” Tony sounded pissed off about it. “Now he’s fucking dead.”

“Yeah.” Tino nodded, understanding more than he wanted to. “Or maybe not. Maybe it wasn’t just like that. We don’t know. It was a fire. It probably destroyed most of the evidence. That’s definitely not amateur. Whoever did it knew how to really drag it out, and he was angry enough to actually do it.”

Maria and Tony both looked at Tino hopefully.

“It wasn’t me,” Tino almost felt sorry to admit, and then confessed, “But I haven’t heard from my zio in a while.”

“Are you in the middle of a war, Tino?” Maria asked him, her voice still low and stunned.

Tino nodded once more, even though it killed his head. “Pretty dead center. You should definitely tell me to get the fuck out.”

“Feds were following him. I spotted three teams.” Tony looked back to Tino. “What do they have on you?”

“God, who the fuck knows?” Tino rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m serious, you two should kick me out.”