Page 100 of The Slayer
“He’s telling you my shit?” Nova asked in disbelief.
“No, he just said it’s complicated. It’s cool. I don’t give a fuck what you’ve got going on. I didn’t ask for details.”
“Listen to me very closely,” Nova growled at him. “I know what the ink on your arm means. If you do anything to my brother while he’s vulnerable, I won’t just hurt you; I’ll make you wish you’d never been born. I can beverycreative about these things.”
“I believe you,” Chuito assured him, because the mafia did some seriously fucked-up shit to make sure they had the right to cry in public. “I’m just trying to help him. That’s it.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“Okay.” Chuito pushed away from the table and walked to his room, finding Tino sprawled out in the middle of the bed where he’d left him, still pale but still breathing. He leaned over and shook him. “Hey, muchacho.”
Tino wasn’t moving, and Chuito punched him once in the arm, hard enough to make Tino suck in a sharp breath and sit up. He blinked at him in shock. “Wha—”
Chuito held out the phone. “It’s your brother.”
Tino rubbed his face and asked, “Which one?”
“Nova.”
Tino groaned and fell back into bed. “Tell him I’ll call him back.”
Chuito just stared at him wondering why Nova was the brother he decided was worth dismissing. That was certainly not how Chuito would have played it. Romeo was a big motherfucker, but at the end of the day he was only a fighter like Chuito. This Nova asshole had just told him he wasn’t only vindictive, but creative about it.
Chuito put the phone back to his ear and started, “He said—”
“Put him on the phone now,” Nova said slowly in Spanish. “Tell him he’s got two seconds before I call Romeo.”
“He says he’s going to call Romeo.”
“Vai a morire ammazzato!” Tino shouted in Italian before he added in English, “Leave me alone, Casanova!”
“Did you hear that?”
“When he told me to go and die murdered, I heard it,” Nova assured him. “Put that shit on speaker.”
Chuito put it on speaker.
“Valentino—”
“Cazzo! Vai via, stronzo.” Tino moaned and then put the pillow over his head.
“I’m trying to help you,” Nova said in English. “You are in a stranger’s house for this shit.”
“He’s a friend of mine,” Tino said and then lifted his pillow and glared at Chuito. “Or I thought he was.”
“Are you joking?” Chuito told him with a laugh. “He threatened to get creative. We’re notthatgood of friends.”
“The accountant.” Tino pointed at his phone and snorted. “The paper pusher. He’s not the creative one, motherfucker. Wake me up again, and I’m gonna get creative.“
Nova let loose in Italian before Chuito could respond.
Chuito caught very small fragments of what he was saying because some of their words were close to Spanish, but for the most part it was lost on him. He only understood the agitation and hurt in Nova’s voice.
Tino responded by yanking his phone out of Chuito’s hand and tossing it across the room.
Then he rolled over, showing Chuito his bare back, dismissing both of them. Chuito stared at him for a few seconds, realizing that he had fallen asleep that quickly.
Chuito walked around and picked up the phone. Seeing that it was still on, he said in Spanish, “He’s asleep.”
