Page 89 of The Enforcer's Revenge
Carmen leaned against the frame, staring at the darkened television. Her light eyes were glassy, but if it was from sadness or exhaustion, Brianna couldn’t tell.
“I’m sorry,” Carina whispered. “That’s a terrible way to find out.”
“I don’t care about my father enough to cry for him.” Carmen’s voice sounded hollow, almost devoid of emotion as shereminded them, “He was an awful person, Carina. As bad as you think he was, trust me, he was much worse.”
“I believe you.” Carina pointed to the television with the remote still in her hands. “And I’m sorry about the other.” She choked rather than saying Lola’s name. “Brianna’s right, we should stop watching. It doesn’t fix anything. Knowing won’t change it.”
“It’s okay.” Carmen still sounded distant. “You can watch if that helps you.”
“You need sleep.” Brianna could hear how absolutely exhausted the other woman was. They were all tired, but Carmen was suffering from something so much worse. “I’ll get you one of the nice feather blankets from upstairs. You’ll like it.”
“Always so helpful.” Carmen smiled, making her look both beautiful and somehow even more tragic. She turned to walk away and said, “If my father had known Tino possessed such a talent for training good girls, he would’ve made him a professional.”
Brianna gaped at Carmen’s back and then looked to Carina defensively. Carina did a very good job of pretending to care about the old, peeling, flowered wallpaper in the basement bedroom.
“You don’t agree with that,” Brianna barked at her best friend.
Carina looked back to her hesitantly and shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Bullshit, you know what you think about it,” Brianna barked.
“Is there anything you won’t do for Tino?” Carina asked softly. “Where’s your line, Bri?”
“I have a line. I have a big fucking line, I promise,” Brianna assured her. “I willneverbe her for him. It doesn’t matter how badly he wants to be hurt.”
Brianna realized too late that she hadn’t slept either.
She was exhausted, too.
And maybe she revealed more than she should because Carina whispered, “I meant a line to protect yourself.”
Brianna got off the bed, grabbed her phone, and walked out of the bedroom. Fighting would just make everything worse. She knew it, but a part of her still protested not starting something over that.
Carmen was sitting next to Nova again, speaking in those hushed tones. They were still on Spanish because Nova had the ability to just go along, even if he was stoned out of his mind.
It was working until Nova spotted Brianna.
“Where’s Tino?” Nova switched back to English and glared at Brianna. “You know where he is? You always know where he is!”
Brianna remembered again why she and Carina had been hiding in the bedroom after the Don went upstairs to deal with the war crashing down around them.
It was weird how drastically Nova’s demeanor changed the second he noticed other people besides Carmen were there. All his walls came up, and he went back to being Zu, always on the defense and used to being listened to.
Nova stared past Brianna to Carina behind her. “Where’s Carlo? Why hasn’t he come to check on Carmen after he begged me to bring her home?”
“Carmen, I’ll sit with him,” Brianna said rather than answer Nova’s barrage of questions. “Go sleep in the bedroom. We’ll keep the television off and stay quiet.”
Brianna leaned over the bed, reaching for the infusion pump the doctors set up to release morphine into Nova’s bloodstream. Dr. Acciai said they could push it every ten minutes, but Brianna noticed Carmen tried to keep him distracted in other ways, which was why he was so angry now. She obviously didn’t like pushing it, even if the doctors told them it was the best way forNova to heal, at least for the first twenty-four hours since he suffered such massive blood loss and needed rest.
“Don’t you fucking do it,” Nova growled at Brianna, his eyes narrowed. “I see what you keep doing, and I’m not going to forget it. Just because I’m lit now doesn’t mean I won’t remember later.”
Nova grabbed Brianna’s wrist threateningly, which was an improvement—last time he tried to yank the IVs out of his arms.
This wasn’t the first time she came over and pushed the button, hoping Nova would actually sleep long enough for Carmen to let down her guard and rest, too. The problem was that the morphine wore off really fast, and Nova kept waking back up.
Damn Moretti genetics.
“You hurt me, Nova, and we’re going to have a massive issue,” Brianna warned him as she eyed his hold on her. “I’m not scared of you, Zu.”
