The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (37 page)

“You’re nicer than me,” Carina said with a roll of her eyes.

“That’s a given,” Brianna couldn’t help but point out. “And everyone knows it.”

Carina laughed, but then a knock had her looking toward the door. Another knock, and they both turned to the window. For one crazy, insane moment, Brianna’s heart soared. Tino knocked on the window like that because he didn’t like going through the house to see Carina.

Then just as quickly, Brianna was mad at herself for missing him as much as she did. She squinted into the darkness, seeing Nova there instead of Tino, and disappointment settled down to the dull ache that had been her constant companion since the fight.

Carina rolled off the bed and pushed open the window. “What?”

“Do you know where Tino is?” Nova asked.

“He could be rotting in hell for all I care.” Carina shrugged. “And you can tell him I said that.”

“No, I can’t, princess,” Nova snapped at her. “’Cause he’s not home. Are you sure you don’t know where he could be?”

“He’s probably off fucking his rave girlfriends.” Carina tugged the window down, but Nova caught it before she could close it, and Carina huffed in annoyance. “What?”

“His phone’s off. If he calls you—”

“He won’t,” Carina assured him. “I haven’t talked to him in over a week.”

“If he does,” Nova went on, “please tell me.”

“Fine.”

Carina pulled the window shut and turned away from Nova glaring at her. She fell on the bed next to Brianna and said, “Sorry.”

Nova left, and Brianna sat there for a second, watching Carina read before she asked, “You think he’s okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Carina said dismissively. “He stays out late all the time. Nova’s just paranoid.”

Brianna nodded. “Okay.”

She went back to reading, but she couldn’t shake the edge of nervousness in her stomach. Even after they were done studying, and sharing Carina’s bed to get a few hours of sleep before school tomorrow, she was left staring at the ceiling, listening for the back gate to open.

“I haven’t heard him get back,” Brianna whispered into the darkness, before she turned to look at Carina’s nightstand, seeing it was past three in the morning. “Have you?”

“Bri—” Carina sighed, sounding half-asleep. “Just let it go.”

“What if something did happen to him?” Brianna went on. “How would we know?”

“I’m sure he’s at someone’s house.” Carina sounded hesitant. “He probably fell asleep and didn’t know his phone died.”

Brianna took a long breath, because she understood what Carina didn’t want to say. Tino was at a girl’s house, and Brianna was sitting here worried he was lying dead in the street somewhere.

“You think I’m stupid.”

“I think you’re naive.” Carina rolled over and hugged Brianna. She rested her head on Brianna’s shoulder and said, “But that’s why I love you.”

Brianna knew Carina was right, so she fought to push down the feeling of dread and closed her eyes rather than fail her history test.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Honestly, Brianna forgot about it.

Tino
did
stay out a lot, and she knew enough about Cosa Nostra not to ask why. He wasn’t in school, but she assumed he’d slept late after partying.

She had a test in history and a pop quiz in calculus. She was busy all day, and it wasn’t until she noticed she’d left her dance bag at Carina’s that it came up. She caught a ride with Daniel, who drove Carina to and from school. Her plan was to grab her shit and hightail it to the subway. The back gate was the fastest way to Carina’s room, and it would save Brianna from walking through the kitchen.

She could sneak in through the pool bathroom and be out before anyone knew she was there. That worked for Carina too, because no one wanted to avoid her mother more than Carina did.

Except the second they opened the back gate, Carlo nearly jumped on them. He huffed in disappointment and shouted toward the garage, “It’s just Carina!”

“Love you too,” Carina said dismissively.

“Have you seen him?” Carlo asked rather than get annoyed. “Has he called you?”

Carina pulled back in surprise. “Tino?”

Brianna gaped in horror. “Is he still missing?”

“We don’t know where he is.” Carlo looked back and forth between the two of them, his light eyes glassy with fear. “Have you heard anything from him since school yesterday? Was he at dance?”

“He quit dance.” Brianna’s heartbeat was thundering in her ears. “He hasn’t come back since our fight.”

“That can’t be right,” Nova said from behind them. “He’s been gone every day. Sometimes he doesn’t make it home until after me.”

“He hasn’t been at dance,” Brianna assured him. “Maybe he’s—” She shrugged and gave Nova a look. “Working.”

“He’s not dealing on the weekdays,” Nova said defensively. “I make sure he has time to study. You think I’d make him deal instead of study?”

Brianna pulled herself up to her full height. “I never said that.”

“What about his friends? Has anyone called them?” Carina cut in. “All his rave friends. The girls we saw him with that night we ended up staying in Harlem.”

“I called them.” Nova sounded breathless with panic. “I talked to Bobby and Carla. Neither of them has seen him.”

“What about the other girl?” Carlo asked. “The one from breakfast this weekend?”

“I talked to Mei too. No one knows where he is.”

The four of them stood there exchanging looks of horror.

“Have you called Nonno?” Carina asked Nova.

“Yeah.” Nova tossed up his hands. “He has people listening, but—”

He didn’t have to finish. It was such a big city. They couldn’t call the cops. They all knew it. In their world there were no cops. They had to find him on their own.

“Let me drop off my bags,” Carina said quickly. “Then I’ll help you.”

“I will too.” Brianna’s heartbeat was still thundering in her ears, and her chest felt like someone had just shoved a knife into it and turned the handle. “We’ll find him, Nova. We have to find him.”

“Okay.” Nova nodded, looking more lost than Brianna had ever seen him. “Grazie.”

* * * *

Except they didn’t find him.

Nova had pulled out all Tino’s old phone records and was paging through them, looking for clues, because once they started talking, they all started to suspect there were things each of them was missing.

“Maybe he has a girlfriend we don’t know about,” Carlo said and then winced at Brianna. “Or a boyfriend.”

“He doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Brianna snapped at him, because her nerves were long since raw. “He’s not gay. I don’t know why you all keep saying that.”

“He had his feet in that Bobby kid’s lap, and dollars for doughnuts that one’s got a sugar daddy on the side.”

“Bobby’s definitely gay,” Nova agreed, still flipping through the phone records that he had stacked in piles around him. He set aside one page after another in such rapid succession Brianna didn’t understand how he could be reading them, but it seemed like he was. “He’s been Tino’s friend for years, and he’s been after Tino the whole friggin’ time. Before he should’ve been. It was weird.”

“Bobby’s not totally gay, though,” Carina argued. “If you’ll remember—”

“Oh, I remember,” Nova said before she could finish. “Thanks for that, princess.”

“He says he does it with girls,” Carina went on. “He said—”

“He said they like to watch.” Nova lifted his head and looked at Carina. “He said sometimes they like to watch. Sometimes they like
to play
.”

Carina frowned at her brother. “What are you talking about?”

“Bobby,” Nova clarified. “That’s what he said to you on the train, and Tino told him wrong crowd.”

Carina moved to pick up one of the pages of phone records, and Nova smacked her hand. She scowled at him. “What?”

“They’re organized. Stop being so twitchy.” Nova looked at another page, but suddenly it was like he wasn’t seeing it. “Tino said the same thing to you.” Nova pointed at Brianna. “On the train that night. He said he thought about you all the time. Every time. He pretends it’s you. It makes him
play better
. Then he said
wrong crowd
again.”

“I don’t remember that,” Brianna argued. “Are you sure that’s what he said?”

Nova tilted his head and gave her an annoyed look. “Even if I’m not paying attention, I still remember it. Yes, I’m sure.”

“Who’s the right crowd, then?” Carlo asked all of them since they were sitting in a semicircle on the floor in the apartment over the garage. “And what’s he playing?”

“Same thing Bobby’s playing,” Nova said distantly, still flipping through pages.

“So we need to talk to Bobby,” Carlo decided. “If he’s keeping something from us, I promise you I can get that little shit to talk.”

Nova kept studying his phone records. He reached for one, and then another. He leaned way over and grabbed from a stack on the other side of Carina’s knee. Then he stared at it with wide eyes and asked, “What’s Lola’s number?”

“What?” Carlo pulled back. “Why?”

“Is it 718-555-7948?” Nova asked.

Carlo’s light eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”

“’Cause I’ve seen you type it into your home phone every time I’m over.”

“You can do that?” Carlo looked highly disturbed.

“Obviously.” Nova was still staring at the paper in his hand. “I knew this number looked familiar, but I didn’t put it together until now.”

“Put what together?” Carlo barked at him.

Nova looked up at Carlo in shock. “Tino knew Lola. That’s why he was such a dick to her at breakfast. That’s why they both took off to the bathroom forever. They know each other. They’ve known each other for years.”

“Are you saying Tino’s fucking her?” Carlo snorted in disbelief. “He can’t even fuck his own girlfriend.” Carlo gestured to Brianna. “Lola’s five years older than him. No fucking way.”

“It’s not a romantic relationship. They’re not long conversations. They’re quick. Like they’re just touching base over something.” Nova picked up another page from the pile in front Carlo. “On Sundays. After church and crew work. When he goes to dance practice.”

“We don’t have dance practice on Sundays,” Brianna argued. “Has he been telling you that?”

“It’s not all the time. Once a month. Maybe twice,” Nova clarified.

“We
never
have dance on Sundays,” Brianna assured him. “Jasmine has church obligations.”

“He’s been telling me that for years. I’m usually at the don’s on Sunday night, so I never thought to question it, but every time he’s told me he’s going to Bed-Stuy, it looks like he called Lola instead,” Nova said suspiciously as he went back to flipping through the records. “She wears a band, Carlo. The same band Tino wears. There are different ones. All sorts of different ones. Same design, different clasps. I see them all the time. I notice them because of Tino. Mei’s is a dragon, but Lola’s is a lion like Tino’s and Bobby’s. That’s a pretty strange coincidence, considering they’ve been talking in secret for years.”

“I don’t know who the fuck Lola is,” Carina cut into the conversation. “But we need to talk to her.”

* * * *

Nova and Carlo wanted to ditch Carina and Brianna for the trip to Manhattan. Except Carina nixed that instantly. Nova suggested they stay in Brooklyn in case Tino got back. Carina wrote a huge note and taped it on the door instead. Then she pasted four more around the apartment, and the second she mentioned her nonno, the men finally relented and dragged them along.

Brianna suspected the band thing was making them nervous.

They thought Tino was doing something on the side.

Something against the family.

Something that could get him killed…
if they found him
.

“I have to tell Rome,” Nova said as Carlo pulled into an Upper East Side apartment complex that was extremely posh. Nova’s hands had started shaking sometime during the drive, and he looked to his uncle in anguish. “Tino’s been gone for over twenty-four hours. I have to tell him he’s missing.”

“Let’s see what we find out from Lola.” Carlo sounded apprehensive too, which did nothing to calm the rest of their nerves.

If Carlo was nervous, they all were.

“Maybe you two should stay here,” Carlo said as he turned to look at Carina and Brianna in the backseat.

“Vaffanculo,” Carina cursed. “We’re coming.”

“What if you hear something you don’t wanna hear?” Carlo was talking to Carina but looking at Brianna as he said, “You should stay in the car.”

“Maybe
you
should stay in the car,” Nova added, and he was staring dead at Carlo.

“Maybe you should,” Carlo countered as he glared at Nova.

“Maybe.” Nova shrugged. “He’s had that band on since he was twelve. Maybe I
should
stay in the car, because I already feel like eating a fucking bullet, and I don’t even know why.”

There was dead silence in the car after that, and then Carina opened the door and got out, making the decision for all of them. After that brief pause, when reality felt too hard to deal with, they ended up running to the building.

This Lola had a doorman, but the weird thing was, he referred to her as Miss Lola.

No last name.

They might have ignored it, but when they all walked over to the corner, Nova asked Carlo, “What
is
her last name?”

Carlo looked at Nova for a long moment before he admitted, “I don’t know.”

“You’re gonna marry this girl, and you don’t know her last name?” Nova asked incredulously, his voice low enough that the doorman wouldn’t hear them.

“I haven’t asked yet,” Carlo corrected him. “It’s not a huge deal. She doesn’t know my last name either.”

“You sure about that?” Nova quirked an eyebrow at Carlo. He walked up to the doorman, who was calling up for Lola, to ask, “What’s her last name?”

The doorman just looked at all four of them, the phone in his hand, and then said something into the receiver in French.

Which was very slick of him.

Except Nova spoke French.

The doorman never answered the last-name question. He just said very politely, “Miss Lola is coming down.”

The doorman looked extremely disapproving as he said it, though.