The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3)(67)

That never changed.

He despised getting on his knees for her, but after a while when Tino started to grow into himself, she started renting him out, and some of the other women were okay. They made up for the weekly Mary time Tino still had to put in when Nova was caught up with something.

Tino didn’t know how much Mary was getting for him, but he knew he wasn’t cheap. He worked very, very hard to make sure he wasn’t cheap, because Mary still threatened on a regular basis to sell him to men if he lost his value to women, and Tino was pretty sure Romeo would be f*cked if that happened.

Tino would have to eat a f*cking bullet.

Women, they had higher standards.

Rich women, even more so.

So Tino made sure he was up to their standards.

No one knew he was sixteen; everyone assumed he was much older. Nova thought it was because he worked out like crazy, but Tino noticed most sex slaves looked older than they were.

Even if their sponsors didn’t want them to.

It just happened, which was unfortunate. It meant human traffickers grabbed them younger and younger because there was billions of dollars in the sex slave industry and most of it was made off minors. The Brambinos were just sick, sick, sick bastards, and Tino hated Don Moretti for tolerating them when he had the power to annihilate them instead.

But he still didn’t mind his personal gig, as whore to all those rich, lonely mob wives who weren’t allowed to touch another man but didn’t seem to mind renting Tino.

Nova thought he was mowing their lawns.

Or shoveling their driveways.

And he let Tino do it, because Mary made him nervous, and he liked to keep her happy. Gold star to Nova for having enough survival skills to notice keeping Mary happy was always the wisest choice.

Mary was the crowning glory in a long list of reasons why Tino’s life was totally dysfunctional, and he was starting to suspect that somewhere along the way, he had become highly and irreversibly f*cked-up. Like the fact that seeing pills in a bottle made his dick hard, and seeing naked women made him think about being high.

If he went too long without seeing Mary or getting a job, he started to get itchy. He didn’t know if he was itchy for the drugs or itchy for the sex. He supposed he could solve it by taking the drugs when he wasn’t f*cking, but that seemed wrong for some reason, and he could never bring himself to do it.

Drugs were for survival.

At least to Tino they were.

Others had different reasons for them.

“Why do you like the weekends so much?” Tino asked Nova as he followed him down the stairs. It was dark out, past nine, which was about the right time for Lost Boys to head out and play.

“It’s a break. A few days off. I don’t owe anyone anything,” Nova explained very reasonably.

How nice for Nova. It wasn’t Tino’s day off.

Tino didn’t really have a day off.

He was always doing something for someone.

School.

Karate.

Dance team.

Dealing.

Fucking.

Crew work.

What the hell would he do if he had a day off? Probably exactly what Nova did.

“That’s not what I meant,” Tino argued, still following after Nova, who was motivated to get the hell out of Dyker Heights for the night. “Is it the E or the girls?”

Drugs.

Or sex.

Which one was it that made him sweat for more?

“It’s both.” Nova walked past his Porsche in the driveway. “They sorta go hand in hand.”

Instead of catching the bus, Nova called a car service to get to the subway. The lack of stops in Dyker Heights never stopped being annoying. Nova carried Tino’s backpack, but Tino was still packing heat, so chances were they were both going down if they got stopped.

They never did.

The Borgata had most of Brooklyn in their pocket, but they could never be too careful.

When they got on the train, Nova dropped his head back against the seat and looked up. Tino tugged at his leather bracelet again, still worrying about Romeo and wishing today was a Monday instead of a Saturday so he could work off some of the nerves.

Tino f*cked on weekdays, when men went to work.

Nova f*cked on weekends when party girls came out to play.

“What the f*ck are we gonna do about Romeo?” Nova sighed, still staring at the roof of the subway car. “Cazzo, Tino, we are screwed.”

That pretty much summed it up.

There was nothing to be done about Romeo.

They were just f*cked. Romeo was going to find out they’d been playing in Neverland instead of staying on the straight and narrow like they had led him to believe.

“Can I ask you something?” Nova asked in Italian, which meant it was private.

“Sure.”

“Are you gay?”

Tino frowned and turned to his brother. “What?”

“I don’t care.” Nova sat up straight again and looked at Tino earnestly. “I just need to know. I need to plan. Gay doesn’t fly in Cosa Nostra. They will f*cking kill your ass. Badly. Then I’ll have to eat a f*cking bullet, so can you just tell me and help me avoid a disaster?”

“You’ve been thinking about this,” Tino whispered in awe. “You’ve put actual thought into it.”

“It’s the dance-team thing,” Nova said in exasperation. “Why are you so obsessed with it?”