Page 3 of The Enforcer's Revenge
“Oh, wow,” Tony whispered next to her, though Brianna thought she heard that hint of bitter sarcasm, like the rest of them were too naive to share the same air with him. Then he squeezed her arm again and whispered, “Jesus, that’s…” He swallowed hard as he choked out. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t understand,” she said again. It wasn’t that her husband had died. She had expected David to end up dead the moment Tino disappeared with the knowledge that David hadtried to kill her, but not like this. “Is he…” She looked to Tony in confusion. “What?”
“I think they’re saying he’s gone, sweetheart.” Tony sounded nothing but compassionate.
Brianna let out a sob, and it was mostly honest. She’d been so anxious. Every moment since she got back to New York had her on edge. Tino told her before he left that he was breaking bad from the Borgata, and anyone who lived through the first war knew what happened when an enforcer got pushed too far.
She anticipated bloody surprise attacks, and dramatic news reports.
A flat tire and a broken car jack?
Really?
She was shaking as she cried. Finally, she leaned down to place her forehead against her knees when she realized they were tears of relief. The next great sob was for Tino, knowing he was still much more together than they gave him credit for when he disappeared in the name of revenge. Brianna felt a small glimmer of hope burn inside her chest, despite memories of the past still haunting her.
“They were having problems,” Tony explained, sounding crushed. “She’s been staying with me, but I think she was hoping they could work it out.”
She kept her face pressed against her knees, crying her secret tears of relief for Tino while the police officers gave Tony the card to the coroner’s office, where they’d taken her husband’s body.
Brianna was officially a terrible person.
Someone in the theater called her a car when the news spread like wildfire. Tony stayed in her dressing room as she pulled off her robe and put on her street clothes. Then, the two of them walked out of the back of the theater wearing sunglasses despitethe sunset streaming hues of pink and purple across the late November sky.
Tony kept his arm around her, holding her tight against his big, strong body. She wasn’t sure whether it was an act or not, but he did make her feel safe and protected—like enforcers were apt to do.
Again, it was too similar, and Brianna was torn between wanting to cry on his shoulder and shoving him away for being the wrong enforcer.
Tony gave the driver his address, and Brianna swiped at her eyes, seeing the black mascara on her fingers. She was still staring at them, feeling the stain like blood, when Tony dropped a twenty-dollar bill on her thigh in a casual gesture the driver didn’t see.
She stared down at the money, remembering the bet he had made with her before the cops showed up—twenty bucks on who was the better actor.
“Keep it,” she whispered because Tony was a much better actor than she would ever be.
Maybe he knew it because he took the twenty dollars back. Then he used it to tip the driver when they got to Harlem, tossing the bill at the man like he wanted the whole thing done with.
He wrapped an arm around Brianna again and said, “We’ll call it even.”
Tony livedin the same building as Tino’s brother, Nova Moretti, who was the Moretti Borgata’s current Capo Bastone. The underboss. Second man in charge of a crime family rumored to be one of the wealthiest drug cartels in the world.
That could change, since it was obvious Nova’s grandfather, the Don, wanted Nova dead. Like Brianna, Nova was still doing his job and pretending not to know what was about to go down.
There was another beautiful apartment downstairs since Romeo, Tino’s eldest brother, used to live in the building, too, but hadn’t been back to New York after he got married and settled in Kentucky. Nova took over Romeo’s penthouse apartment a long time ago, and Chuito and Alaine, Tino’s friend from Kentucky and his new wife, had been staying in Nova’s old apartment with an identical layout one floor beneath it.
Thankfully, he’d never gotten rid of it. Brianna supposed that when someone had as much money as Nova Moretti, keeping an extra multi-million-dollar apartment was no big deal.
Now they were all set up, waiting for war together in the high-security building—a luxury high-rise in Harlem that Brianna found out Nova was a majority owner of.
Brianna had gotten to the point that she really didn’t want to know what Nova was worth, individually or collectively, within the Borgata. There was so much that it was likely impossible to fully grasp anyway.
They took the elevator to Nova’s penthouse apartment, even though Brianna would rather go back to Tony’s place and be alone. That was the one nice thing about staying with Tony. He was great at giving her space. He didn’t blare the television or rattle around his apartment like her best friend Carina would.
Tony didn’t need to talk or have company.
He was just quiet.
In that respect, he was very different than Tino.
Tino’s cover was the noise. The chaos. People didn’t see Tino for who he was because he had this fun, outgoing personality that covered all sorts of sins. He told jokes. He danced. He made himself obvious wherever he went so no one would notice he was hiding out in the open. The jokes were Tino’s camouflage.
