Page 51 of The Enforcer's Revenge
Her body was cold in the middle of summer. Tino ignored it and did what he didn’t want Carlo to have to do. He shoved Lola’s hair away from her face. He let out a sob when he saw her, and the absolutely horrific part? It was a sob of relief that burst out of Tino.
They hadn’t shot her in the face, which was honestly what he was expecting.
Her light eyes were wide, glazed with death. Whoever did it had duct-taped a sock in her mouth to keep her silent. It was obvious they slit her throat on the doorstep and left her there to bleed to death. They wanted Carlo to know how close he was to Lola when she died.
Tino took the tape off her mouth, being careful not to rip her skin, and threw the sock into the bushes. Then he closed Lola’s eyes gently with shaking hands. Her wrists were bound behind her back with a zip tie, and he was working on trying to get it off, but with no knife, it was almost impossible.
He wished he had a shirt on so he could cover her, maybe wipe some of the blood off her face, do more to make her look a little less brutalized when Carlo won the battle and pulled the door open.
He had dragged both the Don and Nova with him. Like a fucking bear, Carlo had managed to make it to that doorknob with Nova draped over his back, holding him in a chokehold. The Don had both big, thick arms wrapped around Carlo’s waist. The Don had spread his legs wide to get leverage and stop Carlo from walking forward, but in the end, these two powerful men, feared above all others, were nothing under the weight of Carlo’s determination to get to Lola.
The world blurred out for Tino, just completely hazed white behind the rush of tears that blinded him when he heard the scream burst out of Carlo. He couldn’t cover Lola before Carlo saw her. He couldn’t wipe away some of the blood. He had to just hand her cold body over to him when Carlo’s grief had him falling down next to them.
The Don and Nova let him go.
Carlo yanked her away from Tino and shouted when he felt her, so cold and lifeless in his arms. “Piccola mia.” He brushed her hair away from her face and started sobbing. “Amuri, no.”
“I’m sorry,” Tino whispered as he sobbed with him. “I’m so sorry.”
“Andate via!” Carlo screamed at Tino, making it clear he wanted him to leave. Then he turned around and shouted in English at the Don, Nova, and anyone else who was listening, “Don’t fucking look at her! None of you look at her!”
“I’ll get something to cover her,” Tino offered, because what the hell else could he offer him?
“No, I’m tired of men looking at her! I’m tired of men hurting her!” Carlo sobbed in Italian as he gathered Lola tighter against him and leaned over her in a protective gesture. “I didn’t take care of her.Miu àncilu.”
Tino wanted to respect Carlo’s wishes, so he crawled past them rather than risk slipping. The Don and Nova both backed up, and together, the three of them fell back into the foyer. It wasthe Don who closed the door, letting Carlo have what he wanted. Tino just collapsed on the tile, leaving blood everywhere because he was covered in it.
He lay there, sobbing, shaking from head to toe.
“We gotta get rid of the drugs and guns, Tino,” the Don reminded him. “Or we areallgoing down. I don’t give a shit about me, but you can’t let him go to lock-up like that.”
Tino lifted his head and looked at the Don, realizing he expected Tino to work. That was Tino’s job. He was supposed to protect the family when shit got deep.
“She was my friend first,” Tino rasped. “I dunno if you fucking know that, but she was my friend, too, Don.”
“I’ll find the stuff.” Nova’s voice was shaking. “And someone’s gotta take him something to cover her. I don’t think it can be one of us. It’s gotta be one of the girls.”
“I’ll do it.”
Tino turned to see that the Don’s soldiers were holding Carina and Brianna back. Both girls’ faces were red, tears streaming down their faces, but still, Carina elbowed the guy holding her again and said, “I’ll do it. I’ll take it to him.”
The thing was, aside from Carina seeing the horror that was on the other end of that door, none of them could think of a good argument against it.
“Niputina mia,” the Don whispered, even as Carlo’s sobbing from outside washed over them. He looked lost, like he didn’t know who to protect, his son or his granddaughter. “No.”
“I’ll do it, Nonno,” Carina said, this time more firmly.
The Don nodded and waved a hand for the soldiers to let them go.
Carina took off up the stairs at the same time Brianna ran toward Tino, but he rolled on his side to dodge her before she could fall down next to him. “Don’t touch me!”
He did not want Lola’s blood on her. It felt like a terrible omen. How many throats had Carlo cut, and look at where he was now, sitting in a pool of Lola’s blood, holding her lifeless body?
How many throats had Tino cut?
“Don’t fucking touch me!” Tino screamed it at her. “I don’t want it to touch you! Don’t let it touch you!”
Brianna stopped and pulled back, her hands held up like she could somehow stop all this from happening. Her breathing was sharp, labored like she didn’t know what to do, but she had obviously dealt with enough of Tino’s nervous breakdowns to understand that touching him would break him.
