Page 75 of The Enforcer’s Revenge (Untamed Hearts #4)
Brighton Beach, New York
“ J ust one step at a time,” Tino whispered it like a prayer almost every day since he first started pushing Nova up the steps of Maria and Tony’s old brownstone.
Now, over four years later, he sat on the windowsill of a small one-bedroom apartment, located over a Turkish restaurant in Brighton Beach on the Russian side of Brooklyn.
He narrowed his gaze when the Don came walking out of the Russian Health Food store across the street, and changed his comment, “More like one bullet at a time. Deficiente. ”
“You’re not going to shoot him now?” came the concerned question behind Tino. “This is my family’s restaurant, and I run the business in the back. I can’t have the heat showing up. The Bratva will retaliate, and?—”
“Calm down, I’m just fantasizing about it.
” Tino turned back and glared at the boss of a small crew of Turkish criminals who had banded together in order to protect themselves from the much larger Russian Mafia that had a tight hold on this area.
Canner ran his family restaurant below them, and was currently letting them use his apartment to spy on the Don, but not for free, so Tino didn’t feel bad as he growled, “I don’t just shoot men in the middle of a busy street with kids walking around excited to go to the beach for sunset.
Is that how your crew does it? ‘Cause I don’t like hearing that. I live in this city too, motherfucker.”
Canner shook his head, and said quickly, “We would never.”
At the same time, Tony asked, “This is your city again?”
“Well, not this particular city,” Tino said with a pointed look, because neither of them bought property in Brighton Beach.
They weren’t exactly welcome in the predominantly Russian neighborhood, even if the Don seemed to be in love with it.
“But, yeah, I guess so, and not Brooklyn either. Don’t start with that shit again.
I’m still East Harlem. Kentucky changed nothing. ”
Tony leaned a hand against the wall next to the window as he stood there, waiting for Tino to make his assessment. “But, you’re back for good? That’s the plan.”
“For however long that lasts.” Tino picked up the binoculars Tony pulled out of the car when they got there.
He looked through them, really honing in and studying the Don’s face.
Tino hadn’t seen him in years, not since before he moved to Kentucky, but he knew him well enough to agree, “You’re right, this motherfucker is being way too casual. Something is definitely off.”
Tino watched his grandfather closely as he stood outside with Nikolai Aristov, the Russian mafia boss whose crew tried to have Nova killed in Miami a few weeks ago.
They were all standing next to the Moretti limo parked on the street, just shooting the shit.
The Don had three security guys with him, and Monte.
That wasn’t a lot of protection for a guy who failed at something that just dumped a fuckton of gasoline on the slow-burning fire of Moretti civil war that had been kindling since the day Carlo died.
Tino knew for a fact that Nova had spoken to the old man more than once since the incident in Miami. The Don was very aware that Nova was still alive. Even if Tino was currently no contact with his brother, Tony wasn’t, and Tony assured him that Nova and the Don talked on a regular basis.
The Don should be a lot more nervous about Aristov’s failed attempt, not walking around like nothing happened.
The old man was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.
Despite what Brianna, Chuito, and the others knew, the Don was very aware that Tino would be stalking him for even thinking about trying to take down Nova.
It was a miracle the old man was still alive, even without Miami, and no one knew that more than the Don, but there he was, chilling with the guy who had sent soldiers to kill and torture Nova.
“There has to be something we don’t know,” Tino agreed with Tony’s assessment of the situation, still looking through the binoculars. “Why is he so chill?”
“Unless the old man doesn’t know what went down,” Tony suggested. “That’s the only explanation. I’ve been saying it. I don’t think he did it. He’s not that fucking stupid.”
Tino glanced over his shoulder at Canner, still standing behind them, looking understandably nervous about the two Italian enforcers he let into his apartment for this project.
Tino wished Tony spoke Italian, but he was used to it by now. So, he just kept his opinions to himself as he went back to watching the Don now shaking hands with Aristov.
That was a business handshake.
It could be a new arms deal.
It could also be some new plan to kill Nova.
Who knew?
Tino set the binoculars down after Rocco opened the limo door for the Don.
The old man crawled into the back seat, and Monte followed him.
When Rocco closed the door, Tino saw the Moretti Borgata’s longtime limo driver and muscle man glance up.
Rocco looked directly at the apartment window pointedly, as if he knew he was being watched.
Tino glanced at Tony again, because it was pretty obvious where Tony got his information about this meeting.
“Rocco’s cool,” Tony assured him. “You know he’s loyal. He’d take a bullet for the Zu.”
Tino wasn’t so sure.
He liked Rocco.
But he didn’t trust anyone fully.
He hadn’t for a long time now.
Tino stood when Rocco got into the driver’s seat. He watched until the limo started pulling away from the curb and Aristov walked back into the health food store.
Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the cash. He slipped his money clip off it and handed it to Canner. The crew leader was thirty at most, with short dark hair. He was shorter than Tino, but had the strong, wiry build of a man who clearly worked hard for a living.
Canner took it quickly, his eyes lighting up at the stack of hundreds Tino handed him in exchange for his silence. He even had the balls to unfold the bills like he was going to count it in front of them. Tino just arched an eyebrow, waiting to see if he would actually do it.
“He’s good for it,” Tony growled, the insult heavy in his voice. “If he says it’s five gs, that’s how much it is. He doesn’t need to screw you for a few bills. That’s not how we work.”
“Right, sorry.” Canner stuffed the money into his pocket, still looking hesitant as he glanced back and forth between them.
Tino knew what he was waiting for, but instead he said, “I know you don’t like Aristov. Money’s not the only reason you agreed to help us. There’s a lotta tension between your crew and the Russians, and you said, ‘yes,’ pretty fucking fast. You want him to die.”
“He takes thirty-five percent of everything. Not of the profit, off the top,” Canner explained quickly.
“My family has had this restaurant since we moved here when I was five. My father spent over twenty years building it up, and we’re fighting not to lose everything.
Aristov is the reason I’m a criminal. It’s the only way I can stay in business.
I work every day, and that’s not the only thing he’s done to my family.
I can’t say out loud what else he’s done.
It’s too horrible. You wouldn’t fucking believe.
It’s the stuff of nightmares, and we’re not the only family that’s suffered like this because of him. ”
“I might believe it. I’ve been in this business a while.
I was born into it. I’ll believe almost anything at this point, and thirty-five is high if you’re not getting anything back for it,” Tino agreed with him.
“Last I checked, we only charge twenty, and with our connections and talents, our associates always start making much more than it costs them. Arrangements like that are supposed to benefit everyone.”
“Are you offering?” Canner asked hopefully.
“Usually, the answer would be, absolutely not. This place is not worth a war with the Bratva, but Aristov made a mistake we can’t forgive.
That means you might be in the right place, at the exact right time for a war we didn’t start, but we definitely plan to finish,” Tino said with another pointed look.
“And that could work out for you, Canner.”
“Tell me what I need to do. I’ll do anything, Mr. Moretti.”
“Well, if Aristov and the power players in his crew all happened to meet with an accident.” Tino shrugged and looked around the apartment.
“That would clear the way for a new boss in your area. I can tell you’re a hard-working guy.
You got hustle. You’re leading a crew. You got your business going in the back, but even still, typically, it’d be impossible for you take over.
You were born in this neighborhood. You know that more than we do.
You have a lotta Russian neighbors with connections to the Bratva.
The only way it’ll work out for you is to have a partnership with another organization, one powerful enough to discourage your Bratva neighbors from getting ambitious.
Now if that happened, if the Morettis took a vested interest in your success, if our muscle became your muscle.
” He gestured back to Tony, who was easily the most impressive example of Sicilian muscle in the city.
“This neighborhood could start being a lot more Turkish-friendly. How nice for your crew and all your Eastern European neighbors that you’ve banded together with, provided you’re a better leader than the Russians? ”
“You’d do that?” Canner asked hopefully. “You’d take on the Russians for us?”