Page 154 of The Enforcer's Revenge

Tino wasn’t sure why she did it right then, but Maria suddenly grabbed Tino’s hand, stood, and told him, “Come over here.”

She pulled him to the living room, and he followed because he couldn’t think to argue. Tino noticed Nova was flat on his back, sobbing, his entire body quaking, knowing his best friend in the world was dying. Tony was sitting next to him, cross-legged on the fluffy white rug, because there was nothing else for him to do.

Maria used her hold on Tino’s hand to pull him down to the carpet. Tino stretched out, lying on his side beside Nova, seeing the news anchor warn people to stay away from the area.

And since he had Nova with him, Tino was able to ask him later what they were doing at precisely four-fourteen in the afternoon while the NYPD was pumping twelve bullets into their zio.

“He’ll be okay,” Maria whispered, tears heavy in her voice as she sat with Tino in the rays of afternoon sunshine that glimmered in through the windows. “She’s there with him.”

“She is?” Tino rested his head on her knee. “How do you know?”

“I just do,” Maria choked as she said it. “She’s been waiting for him to see her again, and now he can. It’s like waking up. God just shook him a little, and he realized it was all just a bad dream. Now he’s with Lola, and everything’s so much brighter and more beautiful. He wants to tell you about it?—”

“But he can’t.” Tino’s shoulders shook, too; he could barely talk but still had to say, “I’m stuck here.”

“One day,” she promised him. “But you’re not done yet, baby boy. The world needs you here. We all need you here with us.”

Tino knew it was true.

Nova and his stupid co-dependency bullshit.

They were still lying there twenty minutes later when the afternoon anchor told the world that everyone was safe again. The assailant had been killed. It took a full forty-five minutes after that for the news to start speculating on what Nova knew the moment he heard that a bank robbery was going down in Washington Heights.

“We’re receiving word now that the deceased Washington Heights bank robber is possibly Carlo Moretti, who has been the subject of a massive manhunt since this morning. The NYPD considers him the prime suspect for the brutal murders of eight Brooklyn residents. As of right now, there are no reports of any injuries or fatalities in Washington Heights, but we will know more after the new conference at the top of the hour.”

Tino had crawled over to the dining room table by then, found the amber glass vial from the car that Maria had gotten him earlier, and snorted blow. It cut the pain a little, just enough for him to remember Nova was recovering from being shot.

“Nova needs weed,” Tino told Maria, who had followed and was sitting quietly on the floor by the table with him. “He has anervous stomach, and he’s gonna start throwing up soon if we don’t help him. He needs real weed, not those fucking cigarettes he smokes.”

“Our neighbor downstairs smokes,” Maria suggested.

“I will pay him ten thousand dollars if he’ll share.” Tino wasn’t exaggerating. “He really needs it, like right now. It’s a miracle he’s lasted this long.”

Tony was already opening the front door because he was the kind of guy who liked something to do when shit got deep.

Tino got to his feet after that and went over to Nova, who was still on his back. He wasn’t crying anymore. He was staring at the ceiling, listening to the news spout off information about why they believed Carlo was the bank robber suspect who had just been killed.

Tino turned off the television.

It was over.

They knew it was Carlo.

Tino looked down at his brother, who had a hand resting over the Brambino bullet hole from Tampa. He was pale, now more than earlier, and as Tino stared down at him, more tears rolled from the corners of Nova’s eyes down the side of his face.

He looked so defeated.

So very broken.

Tino understood; he felt it bone-deep, too.

“You want to quit?” Tino asked him softly in Italian, knowing Maria didn’t speak it.

It wasn’t sarcastic.

And it wasn’t an attempt to jolt him back to life.

It was an honest-to-god question ’cause if Nova wanted to give up, Tino was right there with him.