Page 86 of The Enforcer's Revenge

Brianna walked over to the window, her heartbeat still pounding with a wild combination of fear and anger. She leaned down past the open window, feeling the outside wall blindly in the dark.

She groaned when she found the small ledge, just long enough for someone to step on in an emergency. How stupid were they to think only Carlo’s window had this little escape route?

Enforcers liked having all their bases covered.

They left when they wanted, and there wasn’t much to be done about it.

Except wait.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Tino made a split-second decision to ditch the boots.

After leaving Nova behind, it wasn’t that hard.

Turning the other way when his brother was having a bullet pulled out of his chest was the hardest thing Tino had ever done in his entire fucking life.

He also knew Nova would never forgive him if he didn’t try to find Carlo before their zio did something stupid and life-altering. Brianna would’ve likely tried to talk him out of it when she returned, and he didn’t have time to waste if Carlo had been gone that long.

He grabbed his clothes from Nova’s room and a regular pair of boots that he put on once he got out, tugging them on one at a time, hopping on one foot and then the other all the way around the outside of the house. Going through the basement wasn’t an option, but he needed to get to the garages where he left Nova’s car. Luckily, the garages were empty since everyone was caught up with taking care of Nova.

The one great loss. He was markedly short on weapons. All he had was the 9mm Beretta he left in the car with the shoulder holster he’d taken off in the rush to get Nova home. That was it, in the middle of a war, which left him feeling decidedly naked,but he didn’t want to waste any more time driving to another house.

There was too much other shit to do.

Tino still had to get rid of the bodies in the trunk and dump Nova’s car. The Don probably wouldn’t be too pleased with Tino for the rotting corpses in the garages if he didn’t. Tino had known the moment they decided to drive back to New York that he was going to be doing this tonight.

Sammy, the bodyguard, and Desi, his lackey, ended up as residue in a vat of chemicals.

Nova’s beloved Bentley found its final resting place torched to a shell of its former self and shoved off a Jersey bank into the Hudson.

That shit took Tino all fucking night, but it had to be done. Doing it by himself made everything a thousand times more difficult. Moving bodies and cars without a backup driver was a nightmare. He walked miles and miles. He had no idea how Carlo had managed it all those years before he partnered with Tino.

The adrenaline got him to the first streaks of sunrise, casting their glow over the dark sky, but then Tino started wavering. His head was throbbing from being coldcocked by Nova in primal Siciliano mode.

It really was a miracle Tino wasn’t dead.

The fear for both Nova and Carlo made Tino’s chest tight. By the time he got back to the safe house in the New Jersey Palisades, he started to feel like he couldn’t breathe from the terror. It just grabbed him all of a sudden. He needed blow and its false sense of well-being—quickly—or he was going to shut down.

Tino stumbled when he stepped inside. He blindly reached for the light switch and made his way into the partially furnished house.

This one wasn’t his. It was Carlo’s, so Tino spent another forty-five minutes trying to find where Carlo stashed his blow.

He gave up and spread out on the tile in the kitchen after searching in the vent under the fridge. He only planned on closing his eyes for a minute, just enough to get the energy to start searching the bedrooms.

The sun was blaringwhen Tino woke up. A ray found him through the kitchen window, warm on his face, and he rolled over to hide from it. His hand hit the open grate from the bottom of the fridge, and everything flooded him all at once.

He sat up and pulled out his phone, seeing that it was past three in the afternoon. He’d missed six phone calls but didn’t hear any of them.

He slept the entire fucking day away.

And just to mock him, Tino spotted the glint of glass in the front corner beneath the fridge. He leaned over and picked it up, staring at the amber vial in his hand.

Blow.

Found ten hours too late.

Tino snorted it anyway and caught up on his texts while he let the cocaine wake him up a lot faster than coffee would have. He dropped Romeo a quick line since most of the calls had been from him. Tino let him know they were alive, hoping he was telling the truth, and told him they’d likely be gone for another day. Romeo knew Tino and Nova were caught up with the Lola funeral drama, plus a war, and he didn’t like to ask for details.