Page 37 of The Enforcer’s Revenge (Untamed Hearts #4)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Dyker Heights, New York
Early Morning
B rianna was bone tired, emotionally and physically, to the point that she wasn’t sure what was fully real anymore.
They hadn’t slept much the night before; the two of them were stuck on the pull-out mattress from the couch in Carlo’s room.
Carina had tossed and turned next to her, and when Carina did fall asleep, she would jerk awake a few minutes later.
It happened at least five times, and every time, Brianna would hug her, noticing that Carina was covered in sweat and shaking.
The dreams were that bad, but Brianna didn’t ask Carina what she saw on the other side of the door with Carlo.
For the first time since they were young children, they barely spoke.
They finally found something they couldn’t discuss as best friends, openly, without rules, and they had been through a lot of shit together up until that point.
Maybe one day, but right then, it was still too new and horrible to put a voice to.
So, Brianna spent most of the night staring at the ceiling and wishing she was in bed with Tino instead of Carina.
At least Carlo slept.
Hard.
Brianna was a little worried that Carina was too generous with the extra ingredients in his drink, since they were the official Carlo babysitters.
“Don’t leave Carlo alone,” Nova reminded Brianna and Carina before he and Tino took off to find Lola’s sister and bring her home. “Keep him in this house until we get back. Promise me, princess.”
Nova said it like he didn’t trust anyone else in the sea of people packed into the Don’s mansion. Carina was the only one. Even though Nova managed to get the Don out on bond an hour earlier, he was looking to his sister instead.
“I promise,” Carina said solemnly. “We’ll distract him. I know Nonno has enough to deal with.”
Nova let out a sigh of relief, like having one less thing on his shoulders helped him breathe a little easier. “Grazie.”
So, they kept Carlo company, even though neither of them had much sleep.
On the outside, it wasn’t a hard job. It consisted mainly of Carina watching a lot of soap operas and B movies in Carlo’s room and Carlo staring out the window for hours on end after he woke up early, like Carina never drugged him to begin with.
He wasn’t crying like he had when he found Lola.
He wasn’t raging like he had with the medical examiner.
Carlo was just sitting there.
It started raining shortly after the sun rose, and it hadn’t stopped. For hours, the rain fell, taming the hot July weather, and the whole time, Carlo sat at the table by his window, staring at the rain until dark.
He was fully dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.
He even had boots on, but he wasn’t moving.
He wasn’t talking.
He barely answered Carina when she tried to make conversation, and she had tried. For hours after he woke up, Carina talked about anything she could think of until she finally got tired of Carlo’s one-word, monotone responses and just watched television instead.
The Don tried, too, but Carlo didn’t have much to say to him either.
Carlo just apologized, whispering, “I’m sorry, Pop,” every time the Don would pull up a chair and sit next to him, but they didn’t talk about why he was sorry.
They didn’t go over the arrest or the cocaine.
The Don just sat there with his son, letting him be broken.
Since the house was full of family seeking sanctuary from a possible war, women kept bringing up food that Brianna found herself eating out of nerves and boredom.
Carlo never ate anything—not once.
Brianna spent most of her time alternating between texting Tino when Nova was doing the driving to Tampa and staring at her phone, waiting for Tino to be done with his turn behind the wheel. She hated that Tino had to leave, but she understood why he went with Nova.
He was an enforcer.
Brianna was used to him taking off.
She was used to the worry and the waiting, but this time, it was harder.
Night had long since passed.
The rain was still coming down.
The flashes of lightning mixed with the glow of the television in the dark room.
Somewhere in the back of Brianna’s mind, she remembered making love to Tino on this bed under the glimmer of Christmas lights.
Now the memory made her sad to think about.
Instead, she looked back at Carlo, who still sat there, staring out the window.
At some point, she stopped worrying over him and became nervous instead. Brianna got the impression he wasn’t silently mourning.
He was waiting.
Worse, Tino had stopped texting after he got to Carmen’s job, and Brianna was about to come out of her skin from the anxiety after an hour of not hearing from him.
She couldn’t tell them she was terrified, so Brianna stretched out with Carina on the bed since Carlo wasn’t using it. She let her phone charge as the two of them watched television. Carina was lying sideways above the blankets with her head resting on Brianna’s thigh.
Carina had a pillow hugged to her chest, clutching at it as though she needed the comfort, while her gaze kept darting to Carlo, as if she got the same impression Brianna did.
They both knew that if Carlo was waiting, it was Brianna and Carina he was waiting on. It was starting to feel more and more like they had an enforcer in the room instead of a trusted friend and uncle.
Brianna didn’t want to be scared of him, but she was.
The danger throbbing off him started to become tangible, like every minute that went by drained the old Carlo out of him, letting a new, terrifyingly furious one grow in its place.
“Are you hungry, Zio?” Carina asked for the thousandth time since Tino and Nova left. “You haven’t had anything. You should eat.”
Carlo didn’t look at her. He just said, “No.”
Carina sighed and tilted her head on Brianna’s thigh to stare up at her, like she expected Brianna to have an idea.
“Lola would want you to eat, Carlo.” Brianna couldn’t think of any other way to convince him. “I know she would.”
Carlo flinched when Brianna said Lola’s name for the first time since she died, but then he surprised them by saying, “Fine.”
Carina sprang up the moment the words left his mouth and headed for the door, warning Brianna on the way out, “Stay here.”
Brianna had taken a few walks, but it was obvious Carina needed a break. She hadn’t once stepped out of this room since she promised Nova she would watch their uncle.
Brianna was back to lying on her side and looking at her phone, waiting for a text from Tino.
If Carlo in enforcer mode wasn’t making her nervous, the radio silence from Tino was.
She was in the process of checking her last texts to see exactly how long it had been since Tino messaged her when her phone started ringing.
Brianna didn’t recognize the phone number, but she answered it without hesitation. “Hello?”
“Hey,” Tino said quickly. “I think Nova left his phone. Can you check the bottom right drawer of the dresser in his room? I’ll call it so it’s easier to find.”
Brianna looked at Carlo, who was just sitting there, waiting. “But?—”
“ Aiuto , baby.” Tino said it casually, but Brianna could hear the undercurrent of panic in his voice. “Find the phone. He’s freaking out.”
Tino had never once used the family code word aiuto with Brianna. That was a life-and-death code word that meant drop everything and help.
“Okay.” Brianna’s heart skipped a beat in fear. “I’m going now.”
Brianna took off, still clutching her own phone even though Tino hung up. She ran down the hallway, and when she pulled open the door to Nova’s room in the Don’s mansion, she could hear the shrill ring of a burner phone.
She started jerking open all of Nova’s bottom drawers in his dresser and found the phone hiding between two pairs of jeans. It was an old-fashioned, untraceable flip phone from one of those places that allowed Nova to pay for monthly usage in cash.
She answered quickly and barked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nova’s been shot.” Tino’s voice was shaking. “He took a bullet right to the chest, and it’s still in there.”
“Oh my God.” Brianna sat on the ground because all the feeling fell out of her legs. Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears, and her chest was tight because she forgot to breathe. “Is he?—”
“He’s alive,” Tino said before she could finish. “We’re heading home. You have to tell the Don to get the doctors ready for him. He has a bullet in his fucking chest. This could kill him.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Where are you?”
“We’re still in Tampa,” he sounded more frantic than she’d ever heard him.
“What?” she choked because she had temporarily forgotten that part. “You can’t make it all that way. You’re talking about a bullet wound in his chest! Take him to the hospital, Tino! Take him right now!”
“We can’t! Lotta shit went down, and we just can’t.
” Tino’s breathing was hard and uneven, like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“We have to pack the wound. You know, like a battlefield injury. Nova’s gonna talk us through it.
He thinks it’ll stop the bleeding enough to get him there, but there’s a lotta fucking blood, Bri.
The Don has to have those doctors ready.
Nova says he’s O positive, so tell them to have it there. ”
Brianna opened her mouth, but no words could make it past the fear lodged in her chest.
“Did you hear me?” Tino barked at her.
Brianna nodded even though no one could see her. “I’ll tell the Don. We’ll be ready.”
“I love you.” Tino always sounded like he meant it, but this time more than most. “I can’t let him die, baby. If I have to take him to the hospital, I will. So, if I go down?—”
“You won’t go down,” she said before he could finish because she couldn’t even think about it. “Please hang up and get him home.”
“Okay, I probably won’t be able to call much because I’m doing all the driving—just be ready for us.”
“We will,” she promised.