The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3)(160)

“Nothing.” Tino shrugged. “Just looking at your shit.”

“Bullshit,” Nova growled as Tino picked up one of the gold money clips. “Are you trying to be me? Is that supposed to be me?”

“I told you,” Carlo said with a smile at Tino. “It’s the tie.”

“Hey, lemme see the money clip in your pocket,” Tino asked, but knowing Nova, he went ahead and jumped at him. Tino reached into his pocket despite Nova smacking his head. “Stop it, stronzo! You’ll mess up my hair.” Tino leaped back, money clip in hand, now much more realistic with all those hundreds shoved in it. “I need this.”

“I wanna know what the hell is going on,” Nova barked at him and then yanked his money clip back. “I like this one. No.” He reached over and picked up one of the silver money clips he used to take with him when he did crew work a million years ago. “You can have that one.”

“I have a gold tie on.” Tino gestured to the tie pointedly. “I need one of the gold ones to match.”

“You can’t have one of my gold money clips. Get the f*ck outta my closet!”

Carlo caught Nova’s hand when Nova tried to yank a Rolex away from him. He looked at Nova’s sleeve and told Tino, “You need to get some of his cuff links too. Oh, you should get those dollar-sign ones. Those are so f*cking ghetto. They’re perfect.”

“Holy shit, yes.” Tino laughed with him. “The ones with the little diamonds in them.”

Carlo cracked up. “It doesn’t get more Siciliano than that.”

“What the f*ck is going on?” Nova shouted at the two of them. “Whatever the hell you two are doing, I promise it’s a bad idea. If you have to dress up like me, that means it’s something you can’t tell me about, and it’s a mistake.”

Since Tino was sort of working on this truth thing, and he figured Nova would find out eventually, he went ahead and admitted, “The school officials are trying to push Brianna outta school for being associated with us.”

“Madonn’.” Nova groaned. “So what, you’re gonna go to the school and do what?”

“Well, I wanted to go in and dent them a little.” Tino gestured to Carlo as he fished in another drawer through all the neatly displayed cuff links. “But he said I’d ruin the symbiotic levels of society if I did that and destroy the ecosystem of Midtown. So I thought I’d do it like you do it.”

“What?” Nova scowled at them like they were speaking another language. He yanked the dollar-sign cuff links out of Tino’s hand. Then he paused and stared at the cuff links. “Do you really think they’re ghetto?”

“Oh my God, Casanova,” Tino said with an incredulous look.

“I love these ones. The don bought them for me,” Nova mumbled as he stared at them in his open palm.

Tino rolled his eyes.

“He bought you the playing cards too,” Carlo reminded Nova. “With the rubies for the ace of hearts.”

Tino laughed but didn’t say anything.

“I love those ones too.” Nova looked like his world was ending. “Am I one of them? Have I turned into one of them? Am I a f*cking pirate now?”

“It’s okay.” Carlo grabbed Nova’s face and kissed his forehead. “We still love you.”

Then Carlo reached into Nova’s front suit pocket and grabbed his cigarettes. He tossed them to Tino. “Take those too.”

Tino caught them on instinct and made a gagging sound, but opened them anyway. “I dunno why you smoke these.”

“Yeah, me either,” Carlo agreed. “Why don’t you just smoke weed if you have to smoke something? Those motherf*ckers will kill you.”

“You two do blow, and you’re giving me shit about cigarettes?” Nova asked incredulously. “Really?”

“We don’t do blow that much,” Carlo said defensively. “Hardly ever.”

“Gimme a f*cking break,” Nova snapped and then pointed out the door when Tino lit one of the cigarettes with the lighter that was stuffed in the pack. “Don’t smoke in my closet.”

Tino pushed past him and smoked the cigarette as he went. He coughed and choked and winced at the same time. “I hate these.” He made a gagging sound again, but he kept doing it because he felt like if he was going to be Nova, he should probably know how to smoke a cigarette.

“You’re doing it like you’re smoking weed,” Carlo coached. “Just blow it out.”

Tino did it, but it was in a harsh, quick motion to get the smoke out of his lungs as fast as possible.

“No, you have to be cool when you do it. Like James Dean,” Carlo went on. “Act like you’re gracing the f*cking room with your presence just by being here.”

“Okay.” Tino stood in Nova’s living room and shrugged his shoulders to capture that casual intensity Nova always had. Then he took a long drag off the cigarette and blew the smoke out slowly like Nova would and arched one eyebrow at Carlo. He made sure to wipe off any semblance of amusement and said, “So you think you two can just go to the school and be me. You think it’s that f*cking easy.” He let out a sardonic laugh. “Really?”

Carlo was on the floor. Literally, he just cracked up and fell to the floor.