The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(82)

There were a hundred mafia movies that romanticized them.

It wasn’t favoritism. The Cosa Nostra just made it seem so compelling.

Organized crime was their thing, and the way they did it was well aged and classy like fine wine.

There weren’t too many movies about Latino gangbangers unless they were the villains. That was because crime with the Italians wasn’t dirty the way Chuito knew it.

It was clean, in designer suits after big dinners that involved a lot of laughter and sibling affection. It was, at its core, designed to revolve around the basic principles humans evolved from.

Family above everything.

Protect the home front at all costs.

Anything else was expendable.

Money was nothing next to family. Nova had proved that the first time Chuito spoke with him. He threw a quarter of a million at him without even blinking, simply for caring for his brother.

But a f*cker could get thrown into the ocean for reneging on an arms deal for the same amount. It wasn’t about the cash. It was about the principle. Everything they did was to protect the family. To keep them strong, invincible, powerful enough that intimidation alone kept enemies in line.

Who couldn’t get sucked into that ideal?

Maybe the Russians.

But there were no Russians in Garnet.

Just a couple of Italians, a Latino gangbanger, and a few badass rednecks who had caught the crime virus without realizing it. It wasn’t like Nova and Tino were leaving bodies in the streets. They were largely family motivated, with hugs and kisses, excited to be uncles and happy their brother found a woman like Jules to settle down with.

It was easy for Jules to overlook little things.

It was easy for Wyatt to overlook them too.

“Madonn’, Nova,” Tino said in annoyance as Nova swept for bugs in Romeo and Jules’s house. “You think I haven’t friggin’ checked the place? Oobatz.”

“Can you let me do my thing?” Nova called from the living room.

“Fine, do your thing,” Tino said and gestured to himself, even though Chuito was the only one who could see him. “We’ll just sit here f*cking sweating it out. It’s not like I was up all night watching Jules almost bleed to death. Again. I’m not friggin’ tired or stressed out or anything.”

“How bad was it?” Chuito asked in concern.

“Holy shit.” Tino dropped his head to his folded arms on Romeo’s kitchen counter. “You should see all the blood upstairs. I’ve seen a lotta motherf*ckers bleed in my time, but—”

“Chiudi la tua fottuta bocca, Valentino!”

“What’d he say?” Chuito asked curiously.

“He told me to shut the f*ck up.”

“I don’t want to hear about it anyway,” Chuito decided as he took a deep breath. “At least she’s okay now, and the babies are okay.”

“Yeah.”

They were all stressed out and tired. Jules had hemorrhaged when she went into labor. She’d nearly lost the twins. She was still in intensive care, and Romeo was there to be with her and the babies, but the doctors had assured them everyone was going to be fine.

That wasn’t why Chuito, Tino, and Nova were meeting up, midday, despite no sleep the night before.

In the pandemonium, it had been revealed Wyatt shot someone before they’d been able to tell him his sister was bleeding out. Wyatt and Jules had a weird way of mirroring chaos in their lives. Clay said it was a twin thing. It sort of freaked Chuito out.

The guy Wyatt shot was alive, but the situation was “complicated,” as Nova put it. The fact that Chuito was at this little meeting told him it was probably more than complicated.

And Chuito wasn’t real sure how Wyatt, a sheriff, ended up needing Nova to handle his issue, but it couldn’t be good. Chuito had firmly believed if anyone was immune to the crime virus, it was Wyatt Conner.

Obviously, he’d been wrong.

“Okay.” Nova set the electronic device he’d used to sweep for bugs on the kitchen counter and then leaned against it, eyeing them both. Chuito had hung out with Nova a few times over the past year, but the two of them weren’t friends, not the way he and Tino were. There was very clear hesitance in Nova as he eyed Chuito with that hard gaze and asked, “Garcia, how loyal are you to the Conners?”

Chuito glanced to Tino and then turned back to Nova. “Are you asking me if I’d smoke someone for them?”

Nova thought about it for a moment before he nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m asking.”

Chuito pulled back at that, shocked. “What happened?”

“We have this rule in Cosa Nostra.” Nova rubbed at the back of his neck. “To get a job done, we make sure one man doesn’t know what the other man is doing. Everyone has a job, a small one, but the different players don’t know all the details. Together we get it taken care of, but no one has enough information to sell out the entire organization.”

“I appreciate that,” Chuito said with a laugh. “But I’m not in the Cosa Nostra. I need to know some f*cking details before I take someone out.”

Nova gave him a stern look. “Tino said you were a friend of his.”

“And I wouldn’t expect Tino to take someone out without telling him why either,” Chuito assured him. “The respect goes both ways, Moretti.”