Page 11 of The Enforcer's Revenge

“Buon compleanno.” Nova spared Carina a side glance away from his phone. If Tino wasn’t stone-cold sober, he would’ve thought he imagined the smile tugging at Nova’s lips, but then his brother said, “Just do me a favor, princess. Can you try not to burn the house down and save me the fucking headache with your nonno?”

And all was right with the world again.

“What’s my motivation?” Carina asked, as if burning the house down was a possibility.

Nova gave Carina his full attention. He considered her for a moment and then said loudly over the music, “I’ll make you a deal. Keep it standing, and I’ll talk him into signing it over to you as a birthday present.”

“No shit.” Carina slipped out of Tino’s arms and landed on the tile without busting her ass in her skates. “You’d do that?”

Nova raised his eyebrows pointedly. “If it’s still standing.”

“Why?” Carina scowled at him, like she didn’t dare trust it. “What’s in it for you?”

Nova shrugged. “We need this property to stay intact. It’s important for business, and we will all hear it if it burns down. I have enough fucking problems.”

Carina tilted her head and said, “Maybe it has nothing to do with Nonno. Maybe you’re just being nice.”

“If you wanna believe that, go ahead.” Nova looked back to his phone.

“Maybe it’s for business. Or maybe you care,” she taunted, though Tino thought he heard a strain of longing in her voice that made that constant pain in his chest grow a little more as Carina said in a sing-song voice, “Maybe you love me, even if you don’t want to.”

Like any good Moretti, she sensed the weakness and went for Nova’s jugular. Nova looked up at her again, and Tino could almost sense something cutting and harsh coming out of his brother. Nova would have to say it, even if a small part of him didn’t want to.

“Hey, where’s my girl?” Tino hit Carina’s shoulder as he jumped down off the couch.

“Huh?” Carina turned back to Tino, looking a little dazed.

“Where’s Bri? How’d you lose her in the five minutes since you got off stage?”

“She’s changing.” Carina still seemed lost. “Going undercover like we did for Lola.”

“You did that?” Tino asked with a smile. “You invited Lola?”

“Yeah.” Carina shrugged. “It’s my birthday.” She looked back to Nova and arched an eyebrow in the same distinct way Nova always did, making it blatantly obvious they were siblings, whether Nova wanted them to be or not. “Everyone’s supposed to be happy on my birthday.”

“Hey, I love you,” Tino repeated, this time in English, and hugged her again. Then he kissed the top of her head because even in skates, she was still way shorter than he was. “Go find Briand a bottle of something good, and we’ll do a shot with you for hitting twenty.”

Carina looked to Nova again, but he was back to staring at his phone, so she shrugged again. “Okay.”

Tino watched her skate away as the lights pulsed until she disappeared into the red smoke, then he turned back to his brother and sat back on the couch. He picked up Carlo’s Beretta on the coffee table and checked the safety for no other reason than needing something to do with his hands.

“Are you really going to get the old man to sign this place over to her?” Tino finally asked in Italian.

Nova just shrugged the same way Carina had, rather than say anything. There were times, even now, when it struck Tino how bizarrely similar some of Carina’s and Nova’s mannerisms were, considering they weren’t raised together. It made Tino wonder if that was one of the reasons it was easier for Tino to love Carina.

“For real, Casanova, you think the old man would give it to her? You can’t promise her things like that and not follow through with it. That shit hurts her, and she’s never done anything to you,” Tino reminded him for what had to be the millionth time. “If you’re fucking with her about this, I’m going to have a massive issue with that. If this is some sort of power play to make the old man look like an asshole to her or make Carina look like a spoiled brat to him, that’s fucking bullshit. You hurt her on purpose on her birthday and?—”

“It’s my house,” Nova cut him off before Tino had to say out loud the lengths he’d go to protect Carina. “We don’t put everything in the old man’s name. The Borgata has to spread the wealth a little, and this one belongs to me. I get to sign it over to whoever I want. If I say she can have it, then I mean it.”

Tino gaped at him.

He couldn’t find his voice for a long time but finally choked out, “Why?”

Maybe Nova would’ve answered, but Tino never found out. The music skidded to a stop, making that horrible scratching sound that happened when someone fucked up a DJ’s mix. There was a rasp of whispering, harsh and demanding, even if Tino couldn’t make out the actual words.

“Hello, motherfuckers!” Carina was back on the stage, still in her skates. Several guys from her band were working on pulling the cords out of the way while Carina turned on her heel and started skating backward as she asked the crowd, “Miss me?”

The room exploded with noise as everyone screamed in response, making it obvious they had indeed missed her even if she’d only left the stage five minutes ago.