Page 19 of The Enforcer's Revenge

CHAPTER SIX

“So, I’m fucking stupid and worthless and the worst Siciliana ever to be born into the Borgata, but I don’t care. I don’t even want to be in this goddamn Borgata, and I don’t want the fucking gun Tino took away either. All I need is my guitar and a microphone and?—”

“Cosa?” Nova looked up from the target papers Carlo handed him and frowned at Carina, who was sitting across from him at the kitchen table. Then he looked over her shoulder at Tino and asked, “Why’d you take her gun?”

Tino stood behind his sister, bouncing a tennis ball he stole off the tennis court at the Don’s Scarsdale country estate last week. To answer Nova’s question, Tino looked at the target papers pointedly over Carina’s shoulder and then added, “Because she threw it across the room while there were still bullets in the clip.”

“I don’t even want the fucking thing,” Carina snarled and then flipped Tino off for good measure. “Now both of you are gonna gang up on me. I don’t give a shit about your guns or this Borgata. I don’t even want this fucking house.” She gestured around wildly to the Mills Basin mansion they were sitting in. “Take it all! I don’t care! I hate this family!”

“Okay.” Tino rolled his eyes, for once understanding Nova’s annoyance with Carina when it came to her place in the Borgata. “It’s so hard for you in the family.”

“Basically, you’re fighting because Carina’s got bad aim and that pisses you off.” Nova held up his hand and glared at Tino once more. “Why do you care if she can’t do it?”

“She can’t protect herself! She’s gonna end up in a fucking basement!”

Nova burst out laughing and then looked around at the rest of them like they were nuts when they didn’t get the joke. “Are you serious right now? Men fall at her feet. They just do whatever the fuck she wants. It’s a phenomenon. This entire Borgata is scared to death of her, and you think that just because she can’t pull a trigger like you can, she’s gonna end up in a basement? You’re a great shot. You still ended up in a basement. I ended up in one, too. Valentino, I watched her beat her own mother almost to death to saveyour ass. Do you know what kinda balls it takes to beat the woman who gave birth to you with a frying pan? She can protect herself.”

Carina straightened a little and looked back to Tino. “Men do fall at my feet.”

“Madonn’,” Tino growled in disgust, not nearly as surprised as he should be that that was what Carina heard out of Nova’s speech.

“You know,” Nova started as he went back to looking at the targets, “it’s like it’s something more than just bad aim.”

Carina shrugged. “I went to the eye doctor.”

Nova touched a bullet hole outside the target on the paper. “It’s not that she can’t see the target. It’s got to be something else. Tino, throw the ball at her.”

Tino didn’t ask; he just did it. He was annoyingly programmed like that, and he promptly hit his sister in the arm when she didn’t catch it fast enough.

“Motherfucker!” Carina hissed, still very pissed off at him.

She picked up the ball and threw it back at Tino, but he dodged her. She would’ve barely grazed his arm anyway, even if he hadn’t.

Her throwing arm sucked almost as bad as her trigger finger.

“Why don’t you play sports?” Nova asked her. “You never wanted to participate in any sports. Dancing. Karate. You dropped out of everything.”

“’Cause I hate them!”

“Throw the ball at her again.”

“Fuck you with your ball.” Carina turned around to glare at Tino. “Throw it at me. I dare you. I don’t need good aim to slam a fucking salt shaker into your face.”

Carina picked up the salt shaker, and Tino decidednotto follow Nova’s suggestion a second time. It turned out self-preservation was more ingrained than blindly following Nova’s orders. Tino had seen what Carina could do to someone’s face with a hard, blunt object.

Nova didn’t look concerned. “Carlo, hand me the paper on the top of the fridge. I shove them up there when I’m done with them.”

“Why do you still get the newspaper delivered?” Carina asked him. “Not even Nonno reads the real paper anymore. You’re the only one left.”

“I can scan the page faster and I enjoy reading something tangible in the morning. It’s tedious clicking through the pages online. It’s too slow.” Nova took the paper from Carlo’s hand and put it in front of her. “So, read it to me.”

“Fuck you, no,” Carina growled at him. “I’m not reading to you.”

Nova shrugged. “Why not?”

“’Cause I’m not gonna sit here and read it to you so you can make fun of me when I stumble over every other word.”

“Do you stumble over words? Is it hard for you to read a newspaper? Most of them are written at an eighth-grade level.”