The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3)(132)
Even after the agents were all gone, the three of them stayed down, so silent they were barely breathing. Carina started texting on her phone that she had stuffed in her back pocket. Brianna had left hers at home since they’d decided to ditch their purses, and thank God they had.
“Paco got out,” Carina whispered. “He’s gonna meet us at the apartment.”
“El Barrio.” Tino didn’t sound surprised Paco had avoided arrest. “He knows how to get the job done.”
Carina was still typing on her phone. “He got your boy Aaron out too.”
Brianna nodded and breathed another sigh of relief. “Bet he’s never coming out with me again.”
“Fuck Aaron,” Tino growled, as if all the stress from nearly getting caught by federal agents chose right then to rise up. “You can find a better dance partner.”
Brianna turned to look at him for a long time before she asked, “Can I?”
“That was impressive,” Carina added, still texting. “I forgot how good you two are together.”
“I didn’t. I never forgot. Not once.” Tino squeezed Brianna’s bare thigh lightly. “You were awesome, baby. Badass. Sexy badass.”
Brianna turned and looked at him curiously. “The dancing?”
He smiled. “That too.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Tino had been doing a lot of blow over the past two weeks. Not his fault; it’d just been a crazy month. The second he got the cushy Carina-babysitting gig, it seemed Cosa Nostra decided to take a shit, and every shady gangster had tried to either flip against the Borgata or steal from them.
Lately, Carlo had been favoring chemicals to get rid of bodies since the feds had been watching the docks, and he was apprehensive about taking out the boat. There wasn’t anything quite so unpleasant as the smell and sound of chemicals dissolving a human body. The visuals weren’t too f*cking great either.
Tino thought he was immune to death until Carlo pulled the lid off that first barrel and the two of them stood there in protective gear, huffing and puffing as they fought with the body of a dead dealer who’d been speaking to the feds like a f*cking moron. He acted like it was a big f*cking shock the old man had eyes and ears in the government.
What was he? New?
Didn’t matter now. Tino strangled him using wire, because Carlo had Tino do most of the hits these days. Not to be an *; Carlo just wanted to desensitize Tino in case a bullet got Carlo and Tino ended up alone. Carlo had been talking about that shit a lot lately, which didn’t exactly help Tino’s blow habit.
For several months after Tino started being an enforcer, he developed Nova’s stomach issue when it came to stress. He spent a lot of time puking his guts up like he had that first night in the bathroom after Mary left him.
He felt like his soul was being raped all over again.
The first job he went on, they had to shoot the target through the eye, up close and personal. They ended this capo, a guy neither of them knew, because his name ended up on a piece of paper. It was a message job, and they had to leave the body there to be found as a warning that they were watching the crew Don Moretti knew was stealing from him. Not the best introduction to enforcer work, and Nova lost his shit when he saw the report on the news, especially since he was the one who’d tipped the don off on the stealing. The idea of Tino doing a job that left that much evidence nearly sent Nova over the edge, but Tino point-blank lied about being there.
In Cosa Nostra, no one was supposed to know what another person was doing. Even brothers. It was a solid rule. A good rule to protect everyone, most especially the administration, and Tino made sure he protected Nova.
His brother didn’t need to know the dirty details that had Tino puking on the side of the road after he made Carlo pull over.
But that was a lot of hits ago.
Now he didn’t think anything could get him, but those f*cking chemicals were really pushing his limits. He could smell them every time he closed his eyes, and tonight he couldn’t seem to get to sleep to escape it. He was still hyped up on the adrenaline from the roof. Hours later and his heart didn’t want to stop beating fast. He had that horrible hot-cold feeling crawling up the back of his neck, making him realize his body was itching for blow. He’d taken a shower when they got back to Carina and Brianna’s apartment, but he was still sweating.
He had the blow on him.
He and Carlo got special boots made last year that had a secret compartment in the heel. If they got patted down, they weren’t going to get caught for narcotics—packing heat, f*ck, yes, but narcotics, no. With any luck, even if he got pinched, the cops would never find the blow in his shoes.
Tino lay on the couch, shirtless in only his jeans, and shifted as he tried to stop himself from reaching for his boots. He had a strict rule that he didn’t do blow unless he really needed it. When the rush of invincibility might just save his life. When it was absolutely necessary for the chemical high to hit his brain and make his reality a little less horrific.
Lying there and hearing the muffled sounds from Carina and Paco in the bedroom down the hall was not a good reason for blow. So he looked at his phone, actually hoping for a text from Carlo to meet him.
Nothing.
It’d been quiet for two days when it’d been busy for weeks, enough that he was starting to get too dependent on the white-powdered happiness. Not for the first time, Tino made the decision to just suffer the withdrawal, if for no other reason than it’d make the next time he used it much better.