Page 12 of The Enforcer's Revenge

“Don’t get your hopes up.” She waved down everyone’s excitement. “I’m here with a few important announcements from the administration. One, this house is sacred ground. I don’t care how loaded you are, if you puke, you'd better clean it up. If you can’t handle that, find a designated sober friend right now and make sure they keep your ass in line. No joke, you fuck up this house, and someone’s finding you. Don’t think we won’t know, ’cause we know everything.”

“Subtle,” Nova said when the entire room fell deathly silent in fear, like everyone was waiting for a mafia hitman to come after them for breathing on a lamp wrong.

It was extra unfortunate because it felt like they were all looking at Tino and Nova, who just happened to have Carlo’s small arsenal of weapons still sitting in front of them.

“Pissing off the family is no joke,” Carina went on.

“Merda.” Nova closed his eyes as if he couldn’t believe Carina just saidfamilyout loud like it was a thing.

Mafia didn’t name themselves.

Not in public.

They didn’t even say mafia. It was always just Cosa Nostra—Our Thing—and even that was whispered unless Carina had the microphone.

“Say hi to my brother.” Carina pointed to the couch, like she knew everyone was looking at them.

“Oh my God,” Nova said with wide eyes as he looked to Tino because they both knew she was talking about him. “Does she want me in lock-up?”

Tino did the only thing he could think of. He jumped up on the couch again, this time climbing onto the arm. Now he stood head and shoulders over the rest of the crowd and held out his arms like they’d planned it.

People all screamed again, and Tino grinned because Carina wasn’t the only one who gained followers easily. He could be charming if he wanted to be. “She’s not joking.” He made sure his voice carried. “I will find you motherfuckers if you fuck up her house.”

“Next important announcement,” Carina cut in, a smile sounding in her voice, “everyone has fun on my birthday. No exceptions.”

“Good, clean fun!” Tino added from his side of the room.

Now everyone was shouting again, laughing, the tension in the room breaking as easily as it started.

“Everyone!” Carina added one more time, like she wanted it heard. “So, for the baddest motherfucker I know…”

Big Pimpin’by Jay Z started playing, and the room exploded. It was so cheesy, so fucking Carina, and the crowd loved it. Tino went ahead and shooed everyone back, and then he did a front tuck because why the fuck not.

It was an impressive trick. That was why he did it. It sucked all the attention off Nova, and it took a while for Tino to break away from the crowd, half of whom were rolling on ecstasy that made them extra touchy-feely.

When he finally did, he saw that Nova’s shoulders were shaking with mirth. His face was in his hands as the song blared. Everyone in the room thought it was for Tino, but only a few people knew it was much more Nova.

“Everyone has fun on my birthday,” Carina reminded them once more as she skated up to the couch. She set four shot glasses down on the table in front of Carlo’s guns. She filled up the first glass, the one closest to Nova, and demanded rather than asked, “Two, one for each decade.”

“What happens if I don’t?” Nova asked with an arch of his eyebrow. “Someone gives you a microphone?”

She arched an eyebrow back at him. “Exactly. Now drink it.”

Nova picked up the shot glass and downed it. He didn’t even wince, even though it was tequila and there wasn’t lime or salt in sight. Carina shouted, and so did half the crowd watching. Tino did, too, and Nova was taking his second shot when someone jumped on Tino’s back.

He wrapped his hands around her instinctively, holding her there because he’d know Brianna anywhere.

“Hey, sexy,” she whispered in his ear. “Miss me?”

He forced her tighter into him, feeling her small, firm tits against his shoulder blades. “You have no fucking idea,” he confessed with a groan he couldn’t hide. “I was just telling my brother all the dirty, perverted things I’m gonna do to you tonight.”

Brianna laced her fingers into his hair, and Tino let her jerk his head back with another groan. She looked at him with a wide, green gaze behind the mask she was wearing as she asked, “What sorta dirty, perverted things?” rather than be offended he’d been confessing his plans to Nova.

Brianna was great about that; she liked Tino just as he was—big, with an Italian mouth and all.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he said and stuck his tongue out.

Brianna licked it playfully and then bit his bottom lip to make her point. “You wanna show me instead?”