Page 53 of The Enforcer's Revenge
No wonder Nova was so paranoid about bullets and constantly reminding both of them to cover their tracks. If they were this intense about the evidence, collecting every single drop of blood, studying every microscopic fiber, talking about looking under Lola’s fingernails for skin, and entering all that shit into the database to be stored forever… Tino was fucked.
When it was over, the medical examiner’s assistant handed Tino a new set of his own clothes, and Tino looked at them in surprise because he hadn’t left with them.
“We have clothes here, but your brother brought yours. Lucky you,” the assistant offered, making it obvious Nova remembered at some point what was going to happen to Tino for wearing Lola’s blood. “He’s waiting for you in the lobby.”
Tino was the first one out to the lobby, probably because he hadn’t been wearing many clothes to begin with, just jeans and underwear that he handed over to the medical examiner. Dollars for doughnuts, he was also far more cooperative than Carlo and Carina about stripping down and being photographed.
He was still vibrating with fury over the DNA thing, but when he got to the lobby, every drop of anger at his brother dissipated. Tino forgot things, too, in the aftermath. Really important things. Lola’s death was just that horrendous, and Nova looked completely dazed, like he didn’t know what problem to solve first, because Carlo, Tino, and Carina losing their clothes at the coroner’s and giving up DNA samples wasn’t his only huge problem.
The Don got arrested.
And they’d done such a great job cleaning the house, too. Nova, Brianna, and the soldiers threw a small fortune in firearms into Jamaica Bay. There weren’t many drugs, even though they had been at the Mills Basin mansion to party.
Carina was off weed and benzos.
Tino was off blow.
Nova’s weed-laced cigarettes slipped by—again.
The Don didn’t do drugs—that often.
The soldiers were working.
And no one else had gotten there for the party yet.
’Cept they hadn’t known about Carlo’s boots.
The only one who knew about the secret compartment was Tino, and he fucking forgot to tell them. The dogs found those motherfuckers in about five minutes, and thanks to the labels on the doors left over from Carina’s party, they knew they belonged to Carlo.
For a heart-stopping few minutes, they all truly believed the cops were going to take Carlo, who was out of his mind with grief, to lock-up. Then, without fucking hesitating, the Don stepped up.
Those labels on the doors were old, left over from December.
The Don was staying in that room because he liked the view of the bay.
The boots were his.
He even cried a little, which didn’t look that hard under the circumstances, saying he didn’t want his grandchildren to know he did blow. He was worried they were going to be disappointed in him. He let them down by setting a bad example.
Yeah, the head of the largest drug ring in North America was actually selling that bullshit.
The cops fucking bought it, though, and the boots happened to be his size. It turns out locking up a don was much more appealing than dragging in the devastated boyfriend of the deadwoman lying on the doorstep. They had the Don in handcuffs in a heartbeat.
In the end, the Don went in one cruiser to the station.
And Carina, Carlo, and Tino went in another set of cruisers to the coroner’s office, but it wasn’t easy to pull off.
Lola was still on the doorstep, and Carlo wasn’t fully understanding that leaving her wouldn’t make much of a difference now. He didn’t want to go, and it was only Nova, cursing him out in Italian, that got Carlo to play along. At that point, it was a fucking miracle Carlo wasn’t going to jail instead. So, Nova stopped being his friend and turned into his boss. It kicked Carlo’s well-honed survival instincts into gear against his will.
None of them were safe from that shit.
They left Nova and Brianna standing there behind the crime scene tape in a sea of cops—the only two left unscathed.
It had been a really long day, but when Nova jumped up and hugged him, Tino let him. He clung to his brother harder, needing the comfort desperately. Hours later, they were both still shaking. Nova squeezed his bicep under the sleeve of his shirt and pulled back, looking at him in concern.
“What’d they do?” he asked in Italian.
“They, just um…” Tino shrugged and resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. He was sure to be careful of what he said, despite speaking in Italian. “You know, took my clothes. Took my picture.” He stared at Nova with wide eyes. “Swabbed the inside of my mouth.”
