“If you like oxys, you’ll like blow,” Carlo assured him and opened it. “What the fuck do you care?”
Tino snorted the blow, ’cause Carlo had a very good point.
The don always said people liked the drugs that were worst for them.
Like Nova, who was all about the * and downed ecstasy like candy, which made an arguably bad problem a whole lot worse.
Or Carina, who was already in the clouds, loving weed as much as she did.
Tino always thought cocaine would affect him like it did Nova, leaving him paranoid as fuck and unblinking for days. Cocaine had never been on his radar. Just what Tino fucking needed, something to make him more hyper.
He coughed on the chalky aspirin taste when it hit the back of his throat.
Instead of paranoia, the high hit him like the best kind of summer day, making everything feel a little bit brighter much faster than pills or weed would. All the stresses that haunted him faded to the background. It was like eating a fistful of oxys without the fogginess. Instead he felt strong, powerful with that false sense of well-being narcotics were known for. His shoulder didn’t hurt as bad, and his leg was still an issue, but it was a whole lot better than before the blow.
Most of all, he was overcome with this deep and profound love for Carlo.
As fucked up as it was, Tino appreciated that he was willing to show up and do the dirty work. Carlo loved Tino enough to make sure he didn’t die like Rosie, messy and degrading and likely rotting in a minefield, never to be found, and never to be buried by her family.
Enforcers were the most underappreciated members of the Cosa Nostra. They didn’t just protect the family, they took care of them in a way few could. It was the shittiest of shitty jobs, but Tino still agreed to do it.
Nova thought it was because Tino knew his brother would turn into their father if he didn’t agree.
And Carina thought it was for revenge on the northern motherfuckers who’d tried to get the better of them.
Carlo thought it was because of the blow, and maybe it was, because Tino ended up agreeing to be an enforcer so his zio wouldn’t have to shoot him in the chest and eat a bullet rather than face his only friend after doing it.
That was Tino’s weakness.
His deep loyalty to his family, and it fucked him every time.
Chapter Thirty-Three
They told Tino later that he’d walked out of the Savios’ basement.
God bless cocaine, ’cause he had no idea how he’d managed that with a bullet in his thigh, and as usual, he didn’t remember it.
He was like the anti-Nova.
Always forgetting shit.
But whatever. They said he’d walked out like a fucking boss in front of all those commission assholes from the other families and then passed out in the limo. Carlo claimed it was lucky they were alone when Tino went down, because Nova freaked the fuck out, and Tino was inclined to believe him because the first memory he did have was back in the don’s basement.
Tubes running in him.
High as hell, but conscious enough to hear Nova puking his guts up.
Tino didn’t know how long he’d been down there, and he really wished the don could set up something a little more wiseguy-friendly than a basement.
What mafioso liked a fucking basement?
Tino in particular had a rabid hatred for them, and as usual, no one stopped to think about this shit. So there he was, high as fuck, but not nearly high enough to be in a goddamn basement again, with Nova throwing up like he was ripping his soul out in the bathroom. The sound echoed off the cement loud enough to wake Tino up despite the no-sleep, bullet-hole-in-his-thigh, fever, infection, dehydrated, back-torn-up, and dislocated-shoulder issues.
“He’s been looking for Tino for three long fucking days,” Carlo’s hushed voice whispered in Italian. “He’s just exhausted. It’s the stress. He wanted to come pick you up, but he sent me because he didn’t want to leave Tino. Now you’re here. Tino’s safe. He’s crashing.”
Tino knew it was Carlo even in his hazed state, because Carlo’s Italian was more Sicilian leaning, instead of traditional Italian like Tino’s mother had taught him to speak it. Tino didn’t like to think about it, but though his mother’s parents were full Sicilian, they’d moved to New York from Northern Italy, and their Italian was more conventional because of it. He didn’t know his grandparents, but he pictured them as snobby Sicilians who were trying to forget where they came from and kicked their only daughter out when she got knocked up with Romeo, rather than shame the family. How very northern of them, even if their coloring said something different, but Carlo was Sicilian through and through, and his Italian was always a little faster, a little edgier, a little more filled with the slang of their people.
Tino was used to it.
Nova could mimic it exactly, and usually did when he was with Carlo.
But the person he was talking to said, “Che cosa?”