Which it was, more so than anything else she’d done in her eighteen years.
Carina wrapped an arm around Brianna’s waist as if afraid Brianna might just plunge over the edge and take Tino with her. Brianna looked down once. She couldn’t help it. Watching Tino move across that ladder so quickly made the view twelve stories down more appealing. Then in the next breath Tino was grabbing the ledge, and Brianna let go of the ladder so he could crawl onto safe ground with them.
“Get down,” he said as he leaped onto the roof.
Tino bent over to grab the ladder, grunting when he unhooked it. He managed to keep it from slamming against the building when he pulled it off from where it was balancing on the other ledge. Then he brought it up quick and didn’t bother to slide it back into place. He just tossed it on the roof and then ducked down between Carina and Brianna when they both sat to catch their breath.
“Porca puttana, Tino.” Carina clutched her chest but wasn’t able to finish, because Tino slammed a hand over her mouth.
“Wha—” Brianna started, but Tino’s wide-eyed look shut her up.
She instinctively ducked down farther, and only then did Brianna hear the chaos from the other building. The bark of dogs as federal agents swarmed onto the roof. The glint from flashlights hit their roof, and Brianna’s heartbeat nearly deafened her as the dogs’ barking got louder.
“There’s no fucking way. Unless it was Spider-Man up here. The dogs are losing their touch.” A voice echoed from the other side. “It’s clear.”
Tino took a shuddering breath next to Brianna, but the three of them stayed there for a long time. Though the guy deemed the other roof clear, it took forever for the ATF agents to go back downstairs. Tino shrugged out of his jacket and gave it to Brianna. She didn’t like the idea of his arms bare, but she went ahead and put it on because her dress didn’t cover very much, and she could freeze to death waiting.
Even after the agents were all gone, the three of them stayed down, so silent they were barely breathing. Carina started texting on her phone that she had stuffed in her back pocket. Brianna had left hers at home since they’d decided to ditch their purses, and thank God they had.
“Paco got out,” Carina whispered. “He’s gonna meet us at the apartment.”
“El Barrio.” Tino didn’t sound surprised Paco had avoided arrest. “He knows how to get the job done.”
Carina was still typing on her phone. “He got your boy Aaron out too.”
Brianna nodded and breathed another sigh of relief. “Bet he’s never coming out with me again.”
“Fuck Aaron,” Tino growled, as if all the stress from nearly getting caught by federal agents chose right then to rise up. “You can find a better dance partner.”
Brianna turned to look at him for a long time before she asked, “Can I?”
“That was impressive,” Carina added, still texting. “I forgot how good you two are together.”
“I didn’t. I never forgot. Not once.” Tino squeezed Brianna’s bare thigh lightly. “You were awesome, baby. Badass. Sexy badass.”
Brianna turned and looked at him curiously. “The dancing?”
He smiled. “That too.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Tino had been doing a lot of blow over the past two weeks. Not his fault; it’d just been a crazy month. The second he got the cushy Carina-babysitting gig, it seemed Cosa Nostra decided to take a shit, and every shady gangster had tried to either flip against the Borgata or steal from them.
Lately, Carlo had been favoring chemicals to get rid of bodies since the feds had been watching the docks, and he was apprehensive about taking out the boat. There wasn’t anything quite so unpleasant as the smell and sound of chemicals dissolving a human body. The visuals weren’t too fucking great either.
Tino thought he was immune to death until Carlo pulled the lid off that first barrel and the two of them stood there in protective gear, huffing and puffing as they fought with the body of a dead dealer who’d been speaking to the feds like a fucking moron. He acted like it was a big fucking shock the old man had eyes and ears in the government.
What was he? New?
Didn’t matter now. Tino strangled him using wire, because Carlo had Tino do most of the hits these days. Not to be an asshole; Carlo just wanted to desensitize Tino in case a bullet got Carlo and Tino ended up alone. Carlo had been talking about that shit a lot lately, which didn’t exactly help Tino’s blow habit.
For several months after Tino started being an enforcer, he developed Nova’s stomach issue when it came to stress. He spent a lot of time puking his guts up like he had that first night in the bathroom after Mary left him.