The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (11 page)

“I have no chance of surviving an endgame anyway,” Tino pointed out as he looked at his brother in annoyance. “Are you gonna let me win? At least go easy on me.”

“No.” Nova said it as if it was an insult to ask. “Is it gonna be fun for you to know I let you win? Where’s the challenge in that?”

“Casanova,” Tino said slowly as he raised his eyebrows. “I don’t wanna play your geek game. You’re not Romeo. You can’t make me do this.”

“This is good for you. It teaches you how to strategize. We can’t afford any more notes from school next year. You need to learn how to sit and focus this summer.” Nova gestured to the board with his cigarette. “This’ll help you.”

“You’re telling me what’s good for me?” Tino snorted and then coughed when smoke flew in his face. “Romeo’s gonna beat your ass if he finds out you’re smoking.
In the house.
” Tino took another breath and put a hand to his bare chest, doing a very good job of feigning a wheeze. “I think it’s giving me asthma.”

“Really?” Nova asked in disbelief. “We’re doing this again?”

Tino waved a hand in front of his face. “I need air.” He leaned over and pushed the window farther up. He took in a huge gulp of night air and made a move to crawl onto the landing, when Nova caught his arm.

“Hey, Tino!” his friend Paco called from the street despite it being past midnight. He had a basketball under his arm and held up his hand impatiently. Paco and Nova were the same age and had been in the same classes since kindergarten, but like most of the kids in their area, he got along better with Tino. “You wanna play a quick game?”

“Fuck off, Paco. It’s midnight,” Nova called out, but Tino was already halfway out the window.

Feeling the getaway in his bones, Tino used Nova’s distraction to punch him. It was mostly playful. They were both still in their karate pants from class earlier, so Tino thought it didn’t really count, except Nova’d been taking a drag when Tino hit him.

“Motherfucker!” Nova brushed at the spray of glowing ashes that hit his bare chest and then dived for the cigarette when it landed inside on the carpet.

“
Ay carajo
,” Paco said from below, and Tino agreed.

He cleared the window, nearly losing his pants when Nova tried to grab his ankle. Tino kicked back on instinct, catching Nova in the face.

Yeah, he hadn’t planned on that either.

“Oh, merda,” Tino cursed when Nova wiped at his face, coming away with a handful of blood.

“Run,
avanza, pendejo
!” Paco shouted.

Tino didn’t need to be told twice. He was already dashing down the stairs. When he hit the third-floor landing, he saw Nova was behind him.

A few other teenagers came out when Paco kept yelling his encouragement. It was summer. They all had the inclination to stay up late. Some just to hang out and play ball like Paco, others for more sinister reasons. Tino heard Jorgie say, “
Que estúpido.
He’s dead.”

That was predictable. Nova had a notoriously bad attitude since their mother died, and no one wanted to fuck with him in their neighborhood.

There was also the little matter of the parent who should not be named. Tino and Nova didn’t even talk about their father anymore. They didn’t know him too well, and they didn’t miss him, but he had left them with a last name that made people very nervous.

Kids didn’t fuck with Tino too terribly much either.

Even the gang members steered clear.

Plus, Tino could hold his own, and everyone knew it, but he’d rather not get into a fight with his brother on the landing at midnight.

Over fucking chess.

They were supposed to be playing nice in case of a surprise social-worker visit, so he flew down the stairs and shouted up to his brother in Italian so no one else understood him. “I’m going to dime on you about the smoking, Casanova! I’m telling Romeo when he gets home tonight!”

“Do it, bitch! Dime me out! I’ll tell him I forged his name on the last three notes you brought home before school ended.”

“Go for it,” Tino announced in English. “He’ll kick your ass first.”

“And I’ll stop doing your math for you.” Nova was still speaking Italian, so close behind Tino could practically feel Nova at his heels as he went on, “You can help Romeo explain to the social worker why you’re failing it like a fucking champion next year.”

Well, fuck.

There was no way he was passing prealgebra without Nova.

He also wasn’t getting the ladder to the street down before Nova caught him, so he made a split-second, very stupid decision to crawl over the railing of the first-floor landing.

“Merda, no, no, no!” Nova’s tone changed from pissed off to frantic. “Valentino, don’t!”

“I dare you!” Paco called up as a whole group of kids stood there, eyes wide. “You don’t got the balls,
cabrón
!”

“Fuck!” Nova slid down the last flight and fell to his knees as he dived for Tino, but it was too late.

Tino jumped.

He made sure to make his knees soft when he landed, but Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he hadn’t really stopped to consider just how far a fall it was and how hard a landing it was on cement.

He hit the curb but ended up on the street when his ankle gave out. Tino blinked up at Paco when he walked over to him, the basketball still under his arm as he whispered in awe, “You jumped.”

“Yup,” Tino groaned, street cred intact, feeling like his shins had just been shoved up into his brain and his ankle had exploded. He rolled over to his hands and knees. “One game.”

“One game, my ass,” Nova growled as he came down the ladder to the street. “Paco, you better run, you motherfucker!”

Tino caught the basketball when Paco dropped it, using it to hide the fact that he wasn’t all fired up to get to his feet. Instead he would just lie here with this ball and pretend the asphalt was his friend as he watched Nova tackle Paco, forcing him to the street.

“Someone should probably step in,” Tino mumbled when he saw Nova punch him, because Nova really shouldn’t be beating on someone in front of their building. “You know we got the social workers on our asses since we lost benefits.”

“Yeah, you step in.” Jorgie snorted.

“Really?” Tino held up his hand. “Did you see how far I just jumped?”

“My
mamá
told me not to mess with Nova.” Jorgie shrugged as he avoided Tino’s glare. “He’s all yours, pendejo.”

“Cazzo.” Tino groaned and pulled himself to his feet. His ankle was on fire, and he was inclined to limp, but everyone was still watching.

The joys of living in El Barrio.

So he walked over slowly to save Paco, biting his tongue the whole time to hide the pain. Nova was cussing Paco out, mostly in Spanish. Nice of Nova to use someone’s own language when he kicked the shit out of them.

“Are you loco, Paco? You knew he’d jump! And you
dared
him!” Nova shouted and then jumped to his feet. “You don’t tell an
Italiano
they don’t got the friggin’ balls to do something!”

“I didn’t think he’d do it.” Paco rolled onto his back, not looking too terribly put out about the tackle as he grinned past Nova to Tino. “That was awesome, though.”

Nova jumped at him again, but Tino reached out and grabbed his arm. “Come on, Nova. I’m the one who did it.”

Nova turned on Tino and punched him, catching him off guard, nearly knocking him off his feet when he was still unstable. He was suddenly really scared to see his ankle. One punch and he was almost on his ass again.

Though he supposed he deserved the sucker punch.

“We don’t have any benefits, and you jumped?” Nova screamed at him in Italian. “What if you’d busted your ass, genius?”

What if?

Tino
did
bust his ass.

Badly.

“
Oye
,” Jorgie called out to them, and Tino turned to see the white social-worker car they knew so well, followed by not one but two police cars.

“Oh fuck,” Nova whispered.

Tino’s breath caught, and he felt guilty for the silent prayer he sent up pleading that DCF was there for another family. Not like they were the only family on the street being hounded. Another special benefit of living in their section of East Harlem—the government fucking with things that weren’t broken and ignoring the things that were.

Nova reached down and helped Paco up, patting his back in concern that seemed genuine. “Are you okay?”

Maybe because Paco’s family was one of those under the microscope, and Nova likely felt guilty for saying the same silent prayer Tino had.

“I’m okay.” Paco hit Nova’s arm, giving him a wan smile. “It’s good. I shouldn’t have told him to jump. Sorry, bro.”

And Tino realized they all felt guilty.

All the teenagers who stood on that street, looking at those cop cars, knowing someone was going away tonight if they wanted to or not. This wasn’t an ordinary visit. Someone’s guardian was dead or in jail or had lost their job.

The list of reasons they could get taken away was endless.

And Tino’s heart was thundering so hard he temporarily forgot about the ankle issue. Everyone else on the street blended into the woodwork, heading back to their buildings. Jorgie and Paco went for the ladder Nova left down, but Tino and Nova just stood there in the street.

Maybe because both of them knew.

They knew it was for them.

Tino wasn’t sure why he knew, but he did and Nova did too.

They stayed there and let everyone else make a getaway. Even if they looked the most ridiculous, both of them barefooted and bare-chested, still wearing their karate pants from class earlier, standing on the backstreet at midnight.

Nova still had a bloody nose.

Tino hurt his ankle making a jump he hadn’t needed to make.

They should’ve stayed upstairs playing chess.

“Thank God you made a run for it,” Nova whispered next to him and wiped at his face. “They would’ve busted me smoking.”

There was that.

Hopefully the window being open was enough to air it out.

Why the fuck did Nova need to smoke?

Probably the same reason Tino needed to jump.

A part of them had just been born bad. They could thank the parent who should not be named for that. Poor Romeo, stuck with them for half brothers.

God, please don’t let him be dead.

“Maybe we should just run,” Tino mused, fantasizing about running away before those cops and social worker could tell him something he didn’t want to hear.

Yeah, he needed to run.

He made the move to do it, but unfortunately, that move was on his bad ankle, and he choked back a shout. “Motherfucker.” He hopped onto his good foot, his eyes almost rolling back from the pain he wasn’t prepared for. He came up with a long list of expletives that started with, “Shit. Fuck. Merda,” and ended with him bent over, pulling up his pants and squinting at his ankle in the darkness. “Suck my fat hairy one. Cazzo.”

“What did you just say?” Nova growled, giving him a look of disbelief. “Romeo will shit if he hears you talking about someone sucking your fat hairy one. Then he’s gonna blame
me
. Like it’s my fucking fault you talk like you do.”

“Look at this.” Tino pulled his pants up farther, showing off the bump sticking out above his ankle like a bone was trying to push its way out. “Is it supposed to look like that?”

Nova stared down at his leg and then choked in horror. “Fuck.”

“Right?” Tino glanced up at his brother. “Looks like I have two ankles. This is bad, huh? Did I break it? Is it broken, Casanova?”

Nova shook his head, still staring at Tino’s ankle. “I—”

“Moretti?”

They looked up when a woman stepped off the curb, eyeing both of them hesitantly. This wasn’t their usual social worker, and she clarified, “Casanova and Valentino Moretti?”

“Yeah.” Nova wiped at his bleeding nose again. He went ahead and wiped it on his pants, but it just made him look worse, with a big red smear of blood down the side of his white pants. “How, um, how did you know?”

Nova seemed casual, but Tino could hear the panic in his voice.

“Have you been attacked?”

“What?” Nova asked, still sounding disoriented.

“You’re bleeding. Has someone attacked you?” The social worker took another cautious step toward him, before glancing back to the police who came up behind her, hands on their guns.

Nova watched Jorgie and Paco make their way quietly back to their apartments. Then he stared down at Tino’s leg again and took a deep breath, as if searching for an explanation.

“I was trying to get Tino to play chess,” Nova started. “He’s, uh, he’s ADHD. The counselor at school told my brother Romeo that Tino’s supposed to be working on focusing his attention in a positive manner and—”

“Then why are you bleeding?” one of the cops asked.

Nova winced, glancing at Tino hesitantly, and rightfully so, because he knew Tino was pissed as hell. Nova had the world’s biggest brain, and the only thing he could come up with was
My brother’s ADHD, so it’s his fault
.

It didn’t matter that in this case, it
was
Tino’s fault.

And the ADHD probably didn’t help.

Nova was supposed to have his back.

“He wanted to go out and play basketball. But it’s midnight, so I chased him. When he jumped, I fell trying to catch him.”

Tino felt his face heat, and he glared at Nova. “I hate you.”

“He jumped?” the social worker asked in horror.

At the same time Nova whispered to Tino in Italian, “I’m sorry.”

“Where did he jump from?” one of the cops ask.

Nova looked to the first-story landing. All the adults on the street glanced up, their mouths hanging open in shock. It was a pretty impressive jump. Tino was sure he looked badass doing it. Now he wished someone had taken a video of it.

He wouldn’t mind seeing a replay.

“Are you okay?”

“What?” Tino looked back to the social worker, who still seemed completely horrified. “Sure, I guess.”

“No,” Nova cut in. “He’s not okay.” He raised his eyebrows at Tino. “You’re not okay.”

“Oh, right.” Tino looked back to his foot. Jesus, his ADHD was hanging out all over the place, but he was stressed the hell out. He felt like his brain had fractured and gone in a million different places. It was the social worker’s fault, and he couldn’t help but snap at her, “Why are you here?”