The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(89)

These pendejos were not very good at this shit. They’d die in two seconds in Miami and probably faster than that in New York.

One thing was for sure—if Chuito or Tino ever did feel like falling off the wagon, they weren’t going to be able to buy drugs in Garnet.

Chuito was friends of the Conners, and everyone knew it.

Tino was tied to them by marriage.

They might as well drive up in a sheriff’s SUV. They’d get the same reception, and Chuito told Tino that one night when he stopped by, but like Chuito, he had a harder time moving past the shotguns than the knowledge that they weren’t going to be welcomed into the crime underbelly of Garnet even if they wanted to be.

Which they didn’t.

“Was it a semiautomatic?”

“No, motherf*cker, it was a 12 gauge. Same tonight as it was yesterday at the place down the way that I guarantee you is a meth house,” Chuito growled at Tino as the two of them sat at the table in Tino’s apartment over the garage, polishing off a bottle of Tino’s Johnnie Walker Black when Chuito stopped by there after his run. “You think I don’t know what a shotgun looks like?”

“But you could shoot them five times before they racked the pump,” Tino pointed out. “Really, they’d be dead five times over.”

Chuito held up a hand and took another drink, slowly, because he was supposed to walk home after this. “I feel like I should start teaching classes. Gangster 101 for rednecks.”

Tino laughed, because he was drunker than Chuito. “Can I help?”

“No, motherf*cker, you can’t help.” Chuito laughed with him. “You’re supposed to be here playing domestic.”

“You know, Jules did take out two of my father’s crew with a shotgun the night she and Romeo were attacked in that hotel room. She clipped my cousin Al and Johnny Napoli. I never got over that. She got off two shots, and these were old-school wiseguys.”

“Then the rest of your father’s crew decorated the room with lead and put both Jules and Romeo in ICU. If she had used a semiautomatic, that shit wouldn’t have happened.”

“You shouldn’t underestimate the rednecks. I knew those guys Jules took out. I grew up around them. They were real motherf*ckers. Both of them. If I’d known it was that easy to kill them, I’d have saved Jules the effort. A f*cking shotgun. What’d they do, just friggin’ stand there and say ice me?”

“They were Italians,” Chuito said with a grin. “You motherf*ckers expect people to just lay there and die for you because you’re mafia. They were probably lazy.”

Tino shrugged at that. “They probably were. Assholes are dead now. Don’t underestimate rednecks, Chu. I’m telling you. They can do some damage. Is there a reason you’re stalling on this?”

“I’m not stalling.”

“I can do it,” Tino said so dispassionately it was disheartening. “Nova doesn’t need to know.”

“Tino—”

“I’m just saying.” Tino took another drink. “He’s been out on bail for two weeks.”

“I have a plan,” Chuito said sharply. “Can you have a little faith?”

“What’s your plan?” Tino arched an eyebrow at him. “Let him go gray waiting for you to put him out of his misery?”

“Look, if they see me running every day, and then they happen to see me at the trailer park the night I take him out, it’s not going to look weird, is it? I need to run by there enough times that they stop flashing shotguns at me. It’s just an insurance policy. People get lazy. We just discussed that. The second I stop looking out of place running by the trailer park will be the second I take him out.”

Tino considered that for a moment and then asked, “Did Nova tell you to do that?”

“No.” Chuito gave him an insulted look. “I was covering my own ass for a long time before I met Nova.”

Tino took another drink and admitted, “That’s not a bad plan. Are you going to keep running by there after you do it?”

“Probably just keep the route indefinitely. It’s hillier. It’s an okay route. I just wished the roads weren’t so slick. Hopefully I won’t have to keep running strapped. Look at this.” He pulled up his hoodie, showing Tino the chafing from his holster. “It’s irritating me.”

“Your holster’s too loose,” Tino said as he looked at it. “And you need to wear a shirt under your sweats.”

Chuito groaned.

“What is the Puerto Rican aversion to undershirts?”

“What is the Italian obsession with them?” Chuito countered.

“Um, how ’bout the fact that we’re not sweating out our clothes and chafing the f*ck out of our arms when we’re strapped. I bet you don’t wear one under a suit.”

“I use deodorant. You should try it sometime.”

Tino covered his face with his hand and mumbled against his fingers, “I’m buying you some undershirts.”

“No.”

Tino gave him an annoyed look. “I use deodorant.”

“I’m just saying I heard things about Italians.” Chuito laughed as he took another drink.

“Motherf*cker—”

Chuito dropped his head to the table and cracked up before Tino could finish.