Page 39 of The Enforcer’s Revenge (Untamed Hearts #4)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
T he Don freaked out about Carlo getting away.
Worse than Brianna had ever seen him lose it. She was scared shitless that he would blame her, but at the end of the day, he came to the same conclusion they did.
Nothing could’ve stopped Carlo once he decided to break free.
Enforcers always found a way.
At least that was what he said to Brianna’s face.
The Don sent a few soldiers after Carlo with orders to keep it quiet that he was missing.
So far, they had zero leads.
Carlo didn’t even take a car—he just disappeared into the night.
In the morning, the Don decided they would move all the families seeking shelter to Frankie and Mary’s house.
Mary was out of the country getting some sort of state-of-the-art plastic surgery in Brussels, and Frankie was still in prison.
The other Moretti mansion was a good, safe, well-guarded place.
They kept it quiet that Carlo was gone, and they made double sure no one knew the Borgata’s much-loved Consigliere had taken a bullet to the chest.
Tino never told Brianna why he couldn’t take Nova to the hospital, so the Don felt it best that no one knew Nova was injured while they waited. It wasn’t odd to have doctors there when war was brewing, so they stuck to that story.
Moving everyone took all day.
Brianna and Carina helped, even though they were both close to dropping dead from exhaustion. The urgency created a wild surge of adrenaline. Aided by large amounts of caffeine, they were going on day three with almost no sleep. They barely ate, and every time the phone rang, they jumped in fear.
Brianna carried around Nova’s burner phone like a lifeline.
Tino checked in four times with quick updates, but he didn’t have time to waste, so their information was minimal. They knew Nova was still alive and conscious, but that was about it.
The house was empty by sunset, save the dozen soldiers who stayed behind to protect them and the doctors who were waiting on Nova’s arrival. The Don turned on the evening news in his den and invited them to join him.
Brianna got the impression he didn’t want to leave them alone much, like maybe he didn’t trust them not to say something about Carlo or Nova. More than likely, it was just Brianna he didn’t trust, but she couldn’t think about that right now.
The Don sat in the large leather chair behind his desk.
Brianna fell onto the couch. Carina stretched out with her, eventually ending up with her head resting on Brianna’s thigh as the three of them stared up at the news playing on the expensive flat screen mounted on the wall.
“What would happen if we warned the Brambinos?” Brianna mused as she let her head fall back against the back of the couch. “Would it help?”
She knew it wasn’t her place to question the Don, especially when she was already on thin ice, but she was too exhausted to censor herself.
“Fuck the Brambinos.” Carina’s eyes drifted close. “Too bad the puttana who gave birth to me isn’t there to bury with the rest of ’em.”
“Sick cunts,” the Don agreed.
Brianna almost explained herself because she didn’t care if Carlo burned the entire Brambino Borgata to the ground, and she didn’t want them to think she did.
Unlike Carina and the Don, Brianna knew some of the details from what happened to Tino during the dark years when the Brambinos sold him.
She wanted the Brambino Borgata to go down more than anyone, but not at the cost of losing Carlo.
If the Brambinos knew Carlo was on the prowl, maybe that would stop him from doing something that could send him to prison for a very long time.
Then the Don said, “Hope he makes it worth it.”
And Brianna realized they understood what she was saying all along.
So, the three of them sat waiting for Nova and Tino to get there, watching the news and silently anticipating the moment when the rest of the world found out the Moretti Borgata was sinking.
“Don.”
Brianna jerked awake.
Carina sat up next to her.
The Don lifted his head from where he’d been sleeping against his desk and barked, “What?” at the soldier standing by his office door.
The news on the television was just wrapping up, so it couldn’t have been that long, but Brianna was extremely disoriented, and it was obvious she wasn’t the only one. The Don blinked heavy-lidded eyes at the soldier standing there apprehensively.
“Tino’s here in Zu’s car. He’s at the back entrance. You told me not to let anyone in, but?—”
They hadn’t told the soldiers about Nova getting shot.
The Don had been very serious about no one knowing, but he made sure the guards knew to notify him the moment someone tried to get in. They were in a war situation, so his paranoia was more than normal.
With all that effort to keep the secret, the urgency was probably more than obvious to the guard when Brianna, Carina, and the Don all ran past him, even though they’d been dead to the world asleep thirty seconds before.
“Radio them to let him in,” the Don shouted at the guard, then he told Carina, “I’m grabbing backup. Have Tino park over in the garages.”
“You get them,” Carina said quickly to Brianna. “And I’ll open the garage.”
It made sense for Brianna to make the run across the property. Not that Carina couldn’t run fast, but Brianna was a professional athlete. She flew across the grounds and got there just in time to see Nova’s Bentley roll past the guard gate.
Tino stopped when she got to the car and unlocked the doors as Brianna ran up to the passenger side. Their luggage was in the front seat, and Tino shoved it down to the floorboard.
She jumped in, keeping her feet up since their bags were on the floor, and said, “The Don said take him to the garages. We’ll sneak him into the basement from there. No one knows about Nova being shot.”
“Good call,” Tino agreed.
It took a second for Brianna’s eyes to adjust to what she was seeing.
Tino was wearing a designer white shirt, like one usually worn under a suit.
The sleeves were pushed up, and she could see blood splattered on Tino’s arms. There was more on his forehead, like it ended up there when Tino ran his fingers through his hair.
His eyes were bloodshot. His hair was a mess, and dark stubble was starting to show because he was one of those men who had to shave every single day.
Tino looked like he’d been through hell.
And the car smelled grim.
It was sort of like an emergency room, only worse, a horrible combination of stale blood, sweat, and alcohol. She wasn’t sure why it hit her like it did, but she cupped her hand to her face and turned around on instinct.
She let out a choked sound of shock.
Brianna knew Nova had been shot in the chest.
She understood there was a lot of blood.
And packing the wound made sense when she heard about it.
But the reality of it was ghastly.
Brianna tilted her head, looking at the floorboard, seeing all the bloody medical supplies that had been tossed aside: bottles of water and rubbing alcohol, a box of gloves, several empty containers of saline solution, and tons of red-soaked gauze.
Nova was bare-chested, wearing only a pair of pants that had once been white but now were drenched with blood like everything else.
She couldn’t see the wound in his chest because a woman was straddling him, holding stacks of gauze to the injury.
She had on a thin, blood-stained dress that left very little to the imagination, but she was still unbelievably beautiful.
Even with her wild, curly blonde hair streaked pink with blood.
Even if traces of long-worn mascara left dark smudges under her light eyes.
Even with blood smeared on her cheeks and forehead and the same shell-shocked look that Tino had, she was stunning.
This woman was Lola-grade gorgeous, and seeing her stole all of Brianna’s breath. There were more than a few noticeable differences between the two sisters, the blonde hair being the largest, but it was still like seeing Lola come back to life, and the effect almost hurt.
Nova gave Brianna a bored look while she tried to recover from her shock. His eyes were glazed, heavy-lidded, and bloodshot as he took a long drink out of the liquor bottle in his hand, like he needed the distraction.
“ Questa è la bff per sempre ,” Nova said as he turned back to Lola’s sister, straddled over him.
Even though Nova spoke Italian, it was obvious his words were very slurred.
He held up the bottle toward Brianna and switched to English when he gestured back to the woman over him. “This is Carmen Brambino.”
“Yeah, I figured that out,” Brianna whispered when she realized he was introducing them. “Hello, Carmen. I’m so sorry—for everything.”
“Thank you.” Carmen’s voice was raspy, like she’d been screaming or crying for a long time. “I assume you have a real name besides BFF forever.”
“My name’s Brianna Darcy,” she clarified when Nova started laughing, like that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
Then he started coughing, which made every muscle in his arms and shoulders tense in pain so obvious that Brianna hurt for him when he gasped, “Cazzo.”
“Look at me, bello.” Carmen grabbed his face with her free hand, forcing him to look at her, and then whispered something in Italian.
She traced her thumb over his bottom lip, and something about it must’ve helped.
Nova noticeably relaxed as Carmen switched back to English and said, “You’re okay now. You made it.”
“ Sei tu, bella.” Nova grabbed her hand and kissed the top of it. “ Solo tu. ”
Brianna arched an eyebrow and looked back to Tino, who explained, “We had to let him self-medicate before Carmen packed the wound, and liquor turns Nova’s game on like a motherfucker. He’s been working hard at it the entire ride.”
Brianna gaped in disbelief. “For eighteen hours?”