Even from a distance, he got that same weird whiplash feeling of seeing his brother’s face on another person.
“What the fuck?” Frankie sighed as Tino rolled over, now sprawled out and hurting on the cement. “I think their mother smoked too much with this one.”
“It’s very possible. He’s got a raging case of ADHD. It’s all over his file.”
“And I got another one in the house who’s worse. Head’s always in the clouds,” Frankie said sadly. “These friggin’ broads. You’d think they’d eat their spinach when they’re pregnant to save themselves the headache. Mary’s always nagging on Carina about it. Gets herself worked up for nothing. She’s a girl. What the hell does she need to pay attention for? The only career she’s gotta worry about is fucking her husband. But you, pal.” His father sighed. “You better get your shit together.”
Tino tilted his head, looking back to the fence, but the girl had disappeared. All he could do was lie there and wonder why someone hadn’t bothered to mention he had a sister.
Chapter Ten
Truth.
Tino was still pissed off with Nova.
He wanted to see him, but he was mad as hell at him. First, Nova threw Tino under the bus over the ADHD and jumping off the landing. Then he puked all over Miss Laura’s shoes, which freaked Tino the hell out because Nova never lost his cool.
Now there was a fuckload of stairs, a broken leg, his elbows scraped up and bleeding from biting it on the driveway, and no one to give a shit. Just his father gesturing to the building over in the corner of the property behind the pool.
Yeah, a fucking pool.
In his next life, Tino was going to be a legitimate mafia brat instead of a bastard. In this life, it’d be nice for Nova to show up and be a brother sometime in this century. If Tino had broken his leg two days ago, he’d have both his brothers fussing over him. Today, he was tired as hell and trying to take the stairs with crutches all by his lonesome.
Though he supposed out of the three of them, Tino wasn’t the one who should be bitching. Romeo was in jail for attempted murder, and Tino was almost positive it was some sort of setup.
He kicked the door open to the place above the garage.
“Ehi, stronzo,” he called out to Nova and then looked around at all the boxes stacked in the room. “Jesus, what a shithole.”
So much for living it up.
He wasn’t real sure how Nova was going to fix this shit storm, but Tino wished he’d hurry up and do it. In the meantime, Tino was hoping to find out more about the sister he didn’t know.
“Asshole,” he called out again, this time in English, but was met with nothing but silence.
Tino kicked the door closed, already sick of these fucking crutches. This room had to be used as a storage area. There were mattresses everywhere, shoved up against the walls, and so many boxes the whole place smelled like mildewed cardboard.
Where the hell were they supposed to sleep? Tino found a room off the kitchen and pushed the door open, seeing one bedroom, with a bed in the corner and a bathroom.
He shrugged at that, figuring it was workable.
Truth again.
He and Nova slept in the same bed until their ma died.
Two bedrooms, three boys. They had one of those bunk beds that was bigger on the bottom. Romeo slept on top; Tino and Nova slept on the bottom. Then when Romeo moved into their mother’s room after she was gone, Tino slept on top.
Nova lost that fucking bet.
Closer to the ground meant closer to the rats.
Tino shuddered and looked around again. Thousand bucks said the only rats in Dyker Heights were in this room.
“Penso che tuo fratello sia uno stronzo.”
Tino turned around, seeing the girl from the fence standing at the front door. He frowned at her, ’cause how could he not? She had on one of those expensive designer dresses Tino saw on the girls uptown, like their parents brought home living dolls from the hospital instead of kids.
Except her socks didn’t match—one was a blinding shade of yellow; the other was bright pink, which in no way matched with the pale blue dress she was wearing. It came down to midknee, which was a poor choice on her mother’s part. The ink looked like it’d been rubbed at a lot, but Tino could still see the giant peace signs she’d drawn on each kneecap.
“Io lo odio,” she said slowly, raising her eyebrows. “E odio anche te.”
Tino laughed. “You don’t even know me. Hating me already?”
The girl looked so shocked he wondered if she tried her little trick on Nova. Tino was sure that went over fantastic, because though he could understand her, her words were stilted and broken. It was obvious her Italian was a work in progress.
“I speak Italian,” he said simply in Italian, speaking slow so she could understand him. “So does my brother. That’s all we speak at home.”
He left out that was all they spoke until his ma died.
“Oh.”