Page 36 of The Enforcer’s Revenge (Untamed Hearts #4)

“I agree with her.” Tino winced when he thought of how far away New York was and growled at Nova, “Tell us how to fix you. I know you fucking know how, you suicidal stronzo. I see what you read.”

Nova was silent, as if he were still entertaining the idea of drowning them instead.

“Casanova!”

Nova sighed in defeat and looked down at his chest.

He pushed his shirt aside and rubbed the blood away with his open palm as though really studying the injury for the first time.

Tino had to give Carmen props for not freaking the fuck out because only Nova could analyze a bullet hole in his own body that clinically.

Tino had been shot before. He knew how blindingly painful it was.

“I guess if someone called me with this problem, I’d tell them to use towels, shirts, anything to stop bleeding.

Press and hold, don’t lift up until they can get to a store and buy supplies.

It’s not a sucking wound. There’s no exit point.

I’m still talking, so it’s obviously not a lung injury.

” Nova’s breathing was still raspy, like he was trying to push past all the other issues to determine what they should do.

“Then, uh…” He swallowed hard, losing some of his hard veneer.

“I’d probably tell them to give the guy something—pills, weed, something. ”

“Why?” Tino was already pulling at the buttons of his shirt. “Why the drugs? Besides the big, gushing hole in your chest.”

“I guess, if you wanted to keep the guy alive all the way to New York…” Nova tilted his head like he was considering the problem as Zu instead of the guy with the hole in his chest. “You’d have to pack the wound as sanitarily as possible.

” He grunted when he said it. “And that has the potential to be exceedingly, mind-numbingly painful for a very long duration of time. That’ll hurt anyone, even me. ”

“Do what you said.” Tino tossed his shirt at Nova. “Press and hold.”

“I don’t forget shit,” Nova reminded him. “You do remember that, right? No one wants the resentment this will cause to exist in the world.”

Tino didn’t pay attention to him. Any boss suffering from lead poisoning automatically loses all decision-making power. That wasn’t even Tino’s rule. It was an enforcer rule.

Bosses were dramatic as fuck without the bullet.

Tino popped the trunk and jumped out of the car, desperate for clothes because the three of them were running a little thin on acceptable, non-bloody attire for a stop at the drugstore.

He opened the trunk and then stood there staring for one stunned second. He lowered the lid and looked behind him, making sure they were hidden in the darkness as cars whizzed by from the bridge.

A bullet didn’t stop Nova from being Zu.

With a hole in his chest and Tino knocked unconscious, Nova still managed to load up the body of Sammy, the Brambino bodyguard, rather than leave it in the parking lot.

As an added bonus, Desi, the guy Tino shot in the hand, was stuffed in there, too, thanks to the Bentley’s massive trunk.

Tino only briefly glanced at the two men, but he knew his business well enough to be certain they were both very dead.

Nova’s dry cleaning was still in the corner, lying under Sammy’s designer shoes. Tino opened the trunk once more and grabbed the clothes before he slammed the lid shut quickly. He glanced back to the road, but the cars were still going by, none the wiser.

“I guess I should’ve told you about the surprises in the trunk.” Nova still sat in the front seat with his eyes closed, like the pain was catching up to him. The massive adrenaline rush from killing the bouncer was obviously wearing off. “Sorry, Valentino.”

“We’ll worry about it later,” Carmen said before Tino could respond. “We have worse problems.”

Carmen started helping Nova hold Tino’s shirt to the wound.

Something about it looked a little too real and way too deadly under the dome light.

Seeing his brother sitting there bleeding, Tino instantly forgot about the dead bouncers in the trunk.

Nova was an asshole, but Tino was pretty sure he would lose his mind if his brother died.

Literally lose his fucking mind.

Since the day Tino first started breathing, Nova had been right next to him. Hell, there were times when Tino still ended up sleeping in Nova’s bed if the girls were busy and Romeo was training late. Tino would hang with Nova, watching television in his bedroom downstairs, and just pass out there.

That was how fucked up they were.

Tino was twenty years old and couldn’t sleep well alone—and he knew Nova didn’t either. Nova had his own very expensive apartment downstairs, and he slept on Romeo’s couch most nights.

“I have to call 911.” Tino started to legitimately hyperventilate. “He’s gonna fucking die. I can’t handle that. Fuck it, I’ll go to prison. I’ll say I killed the motherfuckers in the trunk.”

“Hey!” Carmen pressed harder on Nova’s chest. “He’s not going to die! And no one’s going to prison because we are not calling the heat with those two coglioni in the trunk! I’m not going down for them, and you two aren’t either.”

“Nova could pass out, and we won’t know what the fuck to do!” Tino shouted back at her. “How do you know he’s not going to drop dead on the way there? How can you promise me that?”

“I have my hands on him. I can feel his energy, and I’m telling you he’s not going anywhere. He’s still strong. I know it.”

“Your magic hands aren’t good enough for me right now!” Tino growled at her. “If he passes out, we’re both fucked ’cause I’m not a doctor, and you aren’t either!”

“I’m a woman.” She pushed so hard on Nova’s chest that he grunted in pain. “Nature makes me bleed just for the fun of it. I can pack a bullet wound. I don’t need a road map from your Zu.”

“If we get pulled over, you tell the heat we kidnapped you.” Nova placed his hand over Carmen’s on his chest and squeezed her wrist until she looked back at him. “Everyone at the club will back it up.”

Carmen shook her head, making it clear that didn’t sit well with her. “I’m in this too. We both know why you killed Sammy. Besides, what happened after?—”

Nova cut her off with a stern look. “I’m trusting you to protect yourself, Carmen.”

Nova’s game was full throttle.

Zu voice and everything.

And he wasn’t playing it like a guy about to drop dead.

“Okay, then.” Tino got a renewed sense of optimism.

“So, we’ll go to a drugstore for supplies, and Carmen will do that .

” He pointed to Nova’s chest, trying desperately to stay sane under the fear.

“Then, we’ll stop at the hotel, grab our shit to cover our tracks, and she’ll drive back. I’ll make sure you stay awake.”

“That’s a great plan, except one thing.” Carmen winced at him. “I don’t drive.”

“What?” Tino shouted. “You just gave me your magic warrior woman speech! That doesn’t include driving?”

“I’m sure I could drive, but that’s too much independence. I’ve never been allowed to get a driver’s license, and I have ten times more freedom not driving. It makes them feel safer thinking I’m trapped places.”

“ Bella .” Nova sounded pained, like just hearing it hurt him.

“Nope!” She glared at Nova. “This bullet was enough from you.”

Now Tino felt like an asshole. “I guess I could drive.”

“Can you? How’s your head?” Carmen asked seriously.

“It’s okay.” Tino was still trying to breathe past the panic. “I’m a good driver. I can do it with a headache.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re not going to pass out and kill us all?”

Carmen was looking for a good reason not to let Nova drown them a few minutes ago, but he decided not to point that out. “I’m solid.”

The two of them worked together to get Nova in the back seat.

Carmen was still pressing the shirt to his chest. Rather than let up, she told Tino to pull Nova’s shirt off, too.

Once he was bare-chested, she just put Nova’s shirt on top of Tino’s instead of replacing it completely and risking stopping the compress.

Tino knew there was too much blood.

Way too much blood.

“I won’t let him die.” Carmen sat straddled over Nova, both hands on his chest. She turned to look back at Tino and promised him, “For my sister, I can do this for you, Tino.”

He understood that protecting Nova represented a lot more to Carmen than just saving the guy who unnecessarily took a bullet to defend her.

And Tino found himself fighting tooth and nail to believe Carmen’s promise. A virtual stranger. A Brambino. A Lost Girl who knew what loss felt like more than any of them wanted to. This was it for her, saving the bleeding gangster under her.

Carmen was them on the other side after Cosa Nostra took everything. That scary thing Tino thought about late at night when he was stuck staring at the ceiling hating his job: a Tino with nothing to lose and everything to gain by blowing the whole fucking thing up.

He even began channeling his anger into that Tino, giving him a stockpile of cash and supplies to use in case he needed to take it all down just to be a motherfucker.

Tino pinned all his rage on that guy, setting it in nice, neat corners across the city so he could manage the rest of his life.

And Tino knew for fucking certain that if he had safe houses full of guns and cash, Nova must have a secret empire designed to nuke the entire existence of Cosa Nostra off the map because the bullshit never stopped.

It only got worse and worse until they were all ticking time bombs. Any one of them—at any time—could start trying to hurt back instead of just surviving. They had the tools and the skill sets. All they required was the motivation, and it didn’t take much.

Nova just proved that.

Tino needed to give Carmen a reason to stay good so desperately that he bet his brother on it.

He got behind the wheel without another word and pulled out of the mangrove enclave by the water, praying the whole time he didn’t accidentally unleash his own monster by trying to save Carmen from hers.