Page 24 of The Enforcer's Revenge

Tino obviously didn’t care because he dipped his finger into the chocolate frosting and then leaned over to smear it across Brianna’s bottom lip. She parted to him rather than complain. His gaze was still trained on her mouth, making her feel like dessert now. When he leaned back into her and licked at her lips, she threaded her fingers into his hair rather than pushing him away. He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth, and she started falling back against the carpet, wanting to feel his weight over her.

Something stopped her before they could get there. Tino made a choking sound, and Brianna blinked, realizing that Carina had caught the neck of Tino’s shirt under the collar of his jacket. It was either let him go or allow his sister to choke him to death.

Carina didn’t release her hold on his shirt until Tino sat back up and growled at her, “Cosa?”

“We’re not doing that.” Carina lit the joint and took a drag off it. After she blew it out, her voice was raspy as she went on, “I didn’t say anything about the A on your menu. Even though you know you deserve to lose it after telling Nova my shit. The least you could do is spare me the trauma. I’m already having a bad day.”

Tino took the joint she offered to him but didn’t smoke it. Instead, he asked, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Carina shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Tino took a hit instead of saying anything. He didn’t hold his breath as long, but his voice was still gravelly when he said, “I love you, Rina.”

“Whatever,” Carina huffed, clearly not so willing to forgive him.

So, they smoked while Brianna ate her cake. Then, seemingly out of the blue, Carina and Tino noticed the other piece of chocolate cake. Tino ripped the lid off the container before the two of them dug into it. They took turns between smoking and eating cake, and neither of them seemed to know who was getting the better deal.

“I gotta tell you something,” Tino confessed as he tore the wrapper off a chocolate bar because Carina was finishing the cake. The joint was left to slowly die in the ashtray, making it obvious the sugar had won in the end. “I didn’t know the A wasn’t supposed to be on her menu. I wasn’t tricking her or lying to her. I just didn’t know it was such a big fucking deal.”

Carina licked her fork and looked at him. “What?”

“How was I supposed to know it wasn’t a thing everyone did?” Tino looked anxious despite the weed. “I assumed it was. Where I learned to fuck, everyone did it.”

Carina just blinked at him several times and then promptly dropped her fork and reached for the joint. She waved her freehand, as if what he said freaked her out. She took a long drag and then held her breath for an extra-long time.

“Nother,” Tino said like he understood what was making her anxious. “Carina, come on, you know it wasn’t her. I didn’t…” He grunted when Carina started choking and coughing. “I swear?—”

“I don’t care.” Carina’s voice was barely a whisper as she fought to hold her breath. “It’s okay. Stop. I just?—”

“I didn’t fuck your mother in the ass,” Tino confessed like his barrier between mouth and brain had been completely wiped out. “You know how she is. How could you think she’d be into that?”

“Oh my God,” Brianna whispered because they all made big efforts not to talk about Tino’s years of sexual slavery at the hands of Carina’s mother for obvious reasons. None of them needed that acute of a reminder about how badly Cosa Nostra fucked up their childhoods, Tino especially, but Carina wasn’t far behind. “What is in that weed?”

“That came out wrong. I’m wired, and it mixes weird with weed,” Tino confessed, which made it obvious hehadlost his protection mechanisms. “I mean, not wired, just high-strung because I was working before you started texting.”

“You stopped working to bring me cake?” Carina asked before he could finish. “Really?”

“Yeah, you’re more important than jumping for the Don. I’m a fucking stronzo for telling Nova your shit. I feel like merda,” Tino said earnestly. “And I didn’t fuck your mother in the ass. I promise that has never been on her menu. Not even our father gets it, and he’s acoglione. That’s probably why he left her at home and fucked my mother because we all know she did it.”

There was a deadly silence for a long moment before Carina cracked and put a hand to her mouth. She was practically gasping for air with her valiant effort to stop herself from laughing.

“I’m not laughing at your dead mother,” Carina gasped as tears rolled down her face. “I’m not. I promise.”

It might have worked. Carina could’ve pulled herself together if Tino hadn’t started laughing, and he hadn’t even tried to hold it back. “But Iamlaughing at your mother,” he confessed. “Cold, mean bitch. She wouldn’t know how to do anal with a GPS giving directions.”

“Puttana,” Carina agreed before they both just collapsed in fits of laughter.

Brianna was very drunk, but even with way too much vodka in her system, she knew enough to say, “I think you both need massive amounts of therapy.”

It just made Tino and Carina laugh harder.

And just like that, all was right in Tino and Carina’s world again, over the most fucked up topic possible, with the help of weed and whatever Tino was wired on from work.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Manhattan, New York

May 21st, 2010