Page 122 of The Enforcer's Revenge

When Tino was twelve, a deep-seated, long-brewing anger at his brother was born in a basement. Nova made a bad choice, and Tino paid the worst kind of price for it.

After that first beating with their father, Tino had to constantly remind himself that his love for his brother was stronger than the anger, and still, the two of them barely survived it.

Five years later, when Tino was seventeen, Nova was forced to buy Tino out of another basement by signing him up to be an enforcer, and the payment scarred worse than his body. The basement got his soul in the second round, and Tino got angry all over again—but that time, he buried it.

He didn’t have time for it.

Only sometimes, late at night, when the cocaine wore off, Tino would look at the anger just long enough to wish it would go away. The burden of it was too heavy. He was tired of it.

Then at twenty, totally unexpectedly, it died forever.

In an instant, all that fury was gone.

And Tino got to watch it happen.

He felt it gushing past his fingers as he fought to stop it.

The horror of it stained the Don’s basement floor bright red, a physical manifestation of every sin Tino had dumped on Brianna night after night.

She became the lamb of understanding that killed Tino’s anger.

And this was how it was going down.

Brianna bleeding out in a motherfucking basement, and it was all his fault. Holding her down felt like the darkest, most evil deed he’d ever committed. Physical pain he could take. He’d been dealing with that merda his whole life—but this?

It was too much.

The powerlessness that had haunted Tino since the day he was tossed on his father’s doorstep sucked inward, morphing into a raging inferno of anger between one breath and the next.

Tino knew he was going to crack before he heard the footsteps above them. Nova or Carmen didn’t notice, maybe because they weren’t desperate for an outlet like Tino.

Carina had already gone back up the elevator to call 911, which meant she was going to discover the guy he killed in the garages, but Tino didn’t give a fuck.

It just didn’t matter anymore.

He looked toward the basement stairs, listening intently, every cell in his body pulsing with a cataclysmic flood of dangerous energy. Hungry, like a predator stalking prey, he hoped they would come down. All he needed was the excuse, something, anything, to get him away from actually watching Brianna die.

It was Lola all over again. He was sure of it. In his mind, it already happened. The blood, the coroner, and the naked pictures for evidence.

“Tino, you’re not paying attention. You can’t hold her that hard,” Nova said frantically in Italian, like he knew the moment Tino checked out. “You gotta make sure she’s still breathing.”

Before Tino had to answer, Tony came down the basement stairs and said in a hushed, frantic whisper, “I hear them coming. I’m gonna try to hold them back as long as I can, but be ready.”

“Cazzo,” Nova groaned, pausing for a moment like he was at a loss about what to do. “We gotta make a run for it and follow Carina to the garages. Tino can carry her, and we’ll back him up.”

Rather than listen to the Zu, Tino looked to Carmen and said, “Switch with me.”

Brianna was limp when he pulled away, pale in a pool of her own blood, the marks of Tino’s fingers on her cheeks. Flashes of Lola washed over him again, torn skin, the way the blood stained her neck and forehead. Her prone form next to Nova.

Tino knew this was the moment when all his crimes finally caught up with him—just like they caught up with Carlo—and God didn’t care that Tino was forced into it. In the end, the excuses meant jack fucking shit, just like they did to his real father. There was no forgiveness. There was no mercy.

Life took Brianna from him anyway.

Just like Lola.

And his mother.

All that beauty, passion, and talent.