The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3)(58)

When Nova got back, he found Tino in the bathroom naked, brushing his teeth. Hair still wet, dripping into his eyes as he leaned over the sink and tried to brush away the taste of wine that he could still feel sticking to his tongue.

“Did you take a shower? You know what the doctors said,” Nova barked at him. “Why didn’t you just take a whore bath?”

Tino gagged, hearing that word in Mary’s voice, which made a sheen of icy-cold nausea wash over him. He tried to remind himself that it was just a term his mother used to say. For those times when a shower wasn’t possible, like when someone had a cast and a back full of stitches, instead they would wash all the vitals in the sink.

Except he wasn’t ready to think about his mother.

He gagged again, leaning over the sink to spit up toothpaste, feeling the sour taste in the back of his throat. He was going to puke in front of Nova, and he really needed to find a way to hold it together.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the threat of a men’s bathroom, and Mary made it very clear that telling Nova wasn’t an option.

It wasn’t like Tino was the same guy he was when they brought him here. He believed the threats now. There wasn’t an ounce of him that doubted Mary would absolutely love to sell him to truckers.

It was pretty f*cking obvious she hated him.

So very obvious.

So horribly, terribly obvious after he heard a thousand times that he was a whore, even while he did all the things she told him to and…

Tino dropped his toothbrush and did what he’d been fighting against since Mary left. He puked his guts up, right there in front Nova. Still naked and dripping, he fell down and hugged the toilet and completely lost his shit.

“What the f*ck?” Nova whispered as he stood behind him. “Did you take those pills without eating?”

Tino nodded, wishing he had taken a fistful of those pills as he retched again. He was definitely taking them next time. He had a big-ass bottle in the cabinet.

“Why didn’t you just smoke?” Nova sighed. “I brought you food. Good Italiano. Not the merda I make.”

Tino tried to laugh at Nova’s attempt at a joke. It came out more like a sob as he knelt there and rested his head in his hand and willed the world to stop spinning and the horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach to go away.

Mary was gone.

It was over.

He was okay.

But she was coming back.

He lived in her f*cking house.

He tried to throw up again, but he felt empty instead. The feeling fell over him like a veil. Just this hollow version of the Tino he’d left behind in East Harlem. Instead of shoving it away, he latched on to it. The void, the blankness, recognizing it for what it was.

Pure survival.

Nova brought him a glass of water, and he rinsed his mouth, spitting it into the toilet.

“You need to eat. Those pills on an empty stomach don’t work for you,” Nova said as he pushed Tino’s hair back from his forehead as if he was using the gesture to secretly feel for a fever. “You’ll feel better after you eat.”

Tino turned to look at him. “I will?”

“Yeah,” Nova assured him with the confidence of a guy who knew the answer to everything. “I promise.”

There was this stupid part of Tino that still believed Nova’s promises.

So he ate.

Nova set him up in bed, with a tray table they’d found a few days ago in the corner. He did it up too, with the silverware instead of plastic. He put the food on one of the plates they’d brought from home, and it was good, very expensive Italiano they probably couldn’t afford.

Tino really wished it didn’t taste like cardboard to him.

He stared at his plate as the replay of what happened earlier kept going in his mind, flashing over and over again behind the strange void that was trying to wash him away. He tried to focus on something happy, but that was f*cking impossible. Instead he tried to think about something equally horrible, like the basement, but even that didn’t push Mary out of his mind.

“Are you okay?” Nova asked as he sat next to Tino in bed, reading.

“No.” Tino shook his head, still staring at his plate, fighting to remember every moment of his father almost killing him so he could forget about Mary. “I’m not okay.”

“Please pull your shit together.” Nova tossed his book aside and turned to him. “You can’t fall apart, Valentino.”

“Why not?” Tino asked him distantly, feeling himself slip further into that void that was trying to fall over him.

It sort of reminded him of bleeding to death.

Nova was quiet, as if he was trying to think of a good reason Tino wasn’t allowed to completely fall apart. That was when Tino realized that Mary sucking the life out of him was far worse than anything his father could do.

“’Cause I need you,” Nova finally whispered, as if it was a confession he didn’t want to make. “’Cause in this shithole, being your brother is the only f*cking thing I have to keep breathing for.” Nova took a long, shuddering breath and choked out, “If you fall apart, I will too, and I can’t protect us if that happens.”

Tino turned and stared at him for a long time. “Us. Like, me, you, and Romeo? That us? That’s who you’re protecting.”

“Is there any other us?”