Page 94 of The Slayer
“Maybe,” Chuito agreed and then turned to go back down the stairs. “Look, I’m gonna leave. I was loco to come. You don’t need my shit dragging you down.”
He was halfway down the stairs before Tino growled, “Fuuuuuck.”
Chuito frowned up at him.
“Come back.” Tino waved him back with a sharp, hard motion. “Come in, and we’ll figure something out.”
“Tino—”
“Come back.” Tino’s teeth were clenched in anger. “Do it now before I fucking change my mind.”
“If you tell Nova—”
“He will kill your ass,” Tino finished for him. “He will kill you and make it look like an accident. You made yourself a liability, you dumb asshole.For pussy. Do you know how easy pussy is to find? Simple pussy. Pussy that doesn’t ask questions. She never needed to know this shit. Mafia wives live out their whole lives and don’t ask what their husbands do to take care of business.” He gestured to the main house where Romeo and Jules lived. “My brother doesn’t even know the shit I’ve done. Goodfellas keep their shit private. What the fuck is wrong with you that you can’t? You told her the first time you fucked her. You arenotthis stupid. I know you’re not.”
Chuito hesitated, part of him wondering if maybe Tino was going to save Nova the effort and try to kill Chuito himself. What would happen then? The last person Chuito wanted to be in a fight to the death with was Tino. Aside from Marcos, Tino was the best friend he had.
Chuito didn’t have anything else to lose, so he asked, “How do I know you’re not just planning to do the dirty work? That could be a real unfortunate set of circumstances, ’cause I wouldn’t go down easily.”
Tino arched an eyebrow at that. “I guess you’re gonna have to come up here, and we’ll find out.”
The two of them stood there in a stalemate, each of them summing the other up, trying to decide if the risk was worth it. Something in Tino’s statement was ominous, as if he wasn’t sure either. He’d said it himself; his brother would kill Chuito for exposing his association with the mafia to someone like Alaine, a lawyer. A good girl. Someone as far away from the underworld as one pretty gringa in Garnet could be.
A dead liability was better than a living loose end.
Chuito had just stuck Tino in a situation where he had to choose between the two, and everything Chuito knew about the Moretti brothers indicated that they relied on each other completely. Blindly. Without question. Nova was the brain, Tino was the muscle, and together they were scarier than anyone in Garnet realized.
Nova suffered with Tino gone. Chuito saw the wear on him that he didn’t have anyone to trust in New York now that he had gotten Tino out.
Nova would be the first to admit the sacrifice was worth it, just like Chuito felt his sacrifices for Marcos were worth it, but losing his brother as backup made Nova more paranoid than ever.
And a paranoid mafia underboss wasn’t someone to be a liability to.
Why did Chuito come here? Why did he think Tino could help? It was an instinct—when he was down, he tried to band together with others in his crew, but were they really in the same crew?
The past two years loomed between them, leaving one giant question.
Was it enough?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Garnet County
February 2012
“So, there’s gotta be like an underground scene here, right? Every town has an underground.”
Chuito sat next to Tino Moretti in the sweetest Ferrari he ever had the pleasure of riding in. Even hot, it’d be worth well over two hundred g’s, and it was very hard not to notice that as he admired the interior.
Jules’s new conquest, Romeo Wellings, had arrived in Garnet this afternoon, driving this car like it was nothing. Chuito and Romeo had passed each other over the years as fellow UFC fighters, but Romeo’s camp didn’t exactly get along with the Cellar, and they had mostly avoided each other due to the rivalry. Someone had clearly forgotten to tell Jules that, and because Chuito figured he owed Jules, he was babysitting Romeo’s brother so she and Romeo could go off and do whatever the hell they were doing.
Of course, Jules didn’t know Chuito saw through her and Romeo. She made some excuse about showing Romeo the house he was renting.
Whatever.
“Did you hear me?” Tino asked him.
Chuito nodded as he eyed the sound system. “I heard you.”
