Page 107 of The Enforcer's Revenge

After he hung up, Dr. Acciai just stared ahead for a long moment before he looked back to Brianna. “I don’t want to overload his system with anything more stimulating. Maybe Tino’s just being paranoid. Let’s try coffee first and go from there.”

“I can do that.” Brianna nodded, happy to have something to do.

Carmen was talking to Nova, who was blinking heavy-lidded eyes at her. He didn’t seem too motivated to jump up and save the Borgata when Carmen was sitting there, brushing his hair back from his forehead like that.

“The doctor said to start with coffee,” Brianna called out to Carmen as she walked to the stairs. “I’ll get it.”

When she reached the top, Brianna opened the door and was immediately accosted by Carina’s cousin, Gino Moretti, who’d been on guard duty for several hours now.

As far as Gino knew, Nova was just working downstairs, and he’d been an exceedingly annoying guard, constantly teasing her for being down there with Nova, threatening to tell Tino she was fucking around on him with his brother, just stupid bullshit that didn’t help her bad mood. Especially when she couldn’t say Nova was actually passed out under a sea of morphine.

“I need to talk to the Zu. Did Tino really say there’s a raid coming?” Gino looked anxious and edgy instead of bored and teasing like he had been before. “You know I got priors. Zu said I’m fucked if I get arrested again.”

“I’ll tell him you want to leave.” Brianna moved to push past him, but Gino caught her arm. She yanked it back and reminded him, not for the first time, “Don’t grab me.”

Brianna had gone to school with Gino, and he hadn’t changed much since seventh grade.

This time, Gino held up his hands in surrender. “Bri, listen, don’t be giving him the wrong idea. I don’t want to leave. I just wanna lose the weapons, but I’m still on duty. Ask Nova, okay? Tell him to gimme a different job until we’re clear.”

“I’ll tell him.” She had to forcibly step around him, and she didn’t look back when she did.

A fresh pot of coffee was warming in the kitchen, and Brianna poured Nova some, vaguely remembering that he drank it black. Either way, she supposed it was more medicine than recreation and didn’t look for milk.

As she walked out of the kitchen, she ran into Carina sprinting down the hallway. Her arms were full of men’s clothes, some in plastic dry cleaner’s coverings and others in expensive garment bags. She also had two other travel bags, one looped around each arm, and a backpack.

“Help me!” Carina shouted as Brianna dashed up to her.

“How’d you carry all this from upstairs? Shit.” Brianna put the coffee on a plant shelf in the hallway and started helping Carina. “You keep the backpack. It’s too hard to pull it off. Give me the bags.”

There were a lot of colorful words as the two of them worked at dividing up Nova’s things. Brianna picked the coffee back up, and together they returned to the basement.

Gino didn’t have much to say in front of Carina, but he did plead with Brianna, “Promise me.”

“You see me struggling here.” Carina was still fighting to hold onto her half of Nova’s clothes. “Open the fucking door.”

Gino opened the door for them, and they hurried down the stairs. They found Nova sitting up, running both hands over his face. Brianna held out the coffee, letting Carmen take it before she tossed the bags in her arms on the foot of his bed.

Dr. Acciai was on his other side, injecting something into the IV in his arm.

“Wait, wait, no.” Nova tried to pull his arm back, as though only just noticing him. “What’re you putting in there?”

“B-12.”

“Okay. That’s okay.” Nova was still blinking as though trying to keep everything in focus. “I think that’s okay.” He pushed away the coffee Carmen tried to hand him. “Madonn’, no, I can’t drink that.”

“We’re in trouble. He’s legit sick,” Carina said in fearful warning as she dumped her bags on the chairs by the bed. “I’m serious, if he’s shoving away coffee right now, he’s dying.”

“He’s not dying,” the doctor assured her.

“No, I am. She’s not lying.” Nova swallowed hard and closed his eyes like the light was hurting him. “Get this shit off me. You got one minute before I yank it out.”

Brianna saw that sweat had broken out on Nova’s forehead. He sat there, taking long, cooling breaths, while Carmen rubbed his bare back, and Dr. Acciai worked really fast to take the IV out of Nova’s arm.

Nova didn’t even wait for a bandage. He bled all the way from the bed to the bathroom. He couldn’t be bothered to close the door, and Brianna flinched when she heard him throwing up.

“Maybe the morphine’s making him sick,” Carmen said with concern.

“It’s more likely the gallon of rum he drank before he got here,” the doctor suggested. “The morphine just helped seal the deal.”