“Why would you do that to my brother?” he asked in disbelief. “Nova’s doing what the don said! We’re following the rules!”
“Why do I give a shit what the don wants?” she growled at him. “This is about me. It’s about the retribution owed to me. It’s about you two living in my house and going to school with my daughter, and everyone knowing where you came from. Your whore mother screwed my husband and humiliated me in the process. I’m owed something for that. Since she’s fucking dead, someone else has to pay the debt.”
“Nova’s paying it,” Tino assured her as he gestured to the door. “He’s paying it like a motherfucker.”
“Are you stupid? I already told you I’m not interested in Nova. I want you.” She pointed at Tino with one perfectly manicured nail. “You’re bankable. You’re usable. You look like your whore of a mother because you are a whore. Aren’t you?”
Tino’s mind blanked.
For one long minute, he just looked at this tiny woman who had given birth to his sister, and tried to understand.
It would take him years to recognize that the reason he didn’t understand was because it was something too horrible to comprehend, so for a short time, his brain tried to protect him.
Mary sighed in annoyance and put her crossword puzzle back in her purse. “Look, Valentino, you’re a little slow, but that’s okay. You don’t need to be smart. There’s room for everyone in this business as long as you’re pretty, and you are very pretty.” She leaned back and looked at him. “So I’ll make it simple. You do what I tell you, and your brother doesn’t get fucked by every guard in that jail and sold to every inmate when he gets convicted and sent to prison. You don’t do what I tell you—your brother’s life will be a living hell, and I’ll still find a way to sell you. There’s always a way.”
“Sell me to who?” Tino whispered when his brain decided to start working again.
“Well, that depends on you.” She shrugged. “It depends on how good a learner you are, but if I were you, I’d wipe that dumb look off my face and be a very fast learner. You might not like me, but I’m a lot better than a trucker in the men’s bathroom at a rest stop.”
When Nova got back, he found Tino in the bathroom naked, brushing his teeth. Hair still wet, dripping into his eyes as he leaned over the sink and tried to brush away the taste of wine that he could still feel sticking to his tongue.
“Did you take a shower? You know what the doctors said,” Nova barked at him. “Why didn’t you just take a whore bath?”
Tino gagged, hearing that word in Mary’s voice, which made a sheen of icy-cold nausea wash over him. He tried to remind himself that it was just a term his mother used to say. For those times when a shower wasn’t possible, like when someone had a cast and a back full of stitches, instead they would wash all the vitals in the sink.
Except he wasn’t ready to think about his mother.
He gagged again, leaning over the sink to spit up toothpaste, feeling the sour taste in the back of his throat. He was going to puke in front of Nova, and he really needed to find a way to hold it together.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the threat of a men’s bathroom, and Mary made it very clear that telling Nova wasn’t an option.
It wasn’t like Tino was the same guy he was when they brought him here. He believed the threats now. There wasn’t an ounce of him that doubted Mary would absolutely love to sell him to truckers.
It was pretty fucking obvious she hated him.
So very obvious.
So horribly, terribly obvious after he heard a thousand times that he was a whore, even while he did all the things she told him to and…
Tino dropped his toothbrush and did what he’d been fighting against since Mary left. He puked his guts up, right there in front Nova. Still naked and dripping, he fell down and hugged the toilet and completely lost his shit.
“What the fuck?” Nova whispered as he stood behind him. “Did you take those pills without eating?”
Tino nodded, wishing he had taken a fistful of those pills as he retched again. He was definitely taking them next time. He had a big-ass bottle in the cabinet.
“Why didn’t you just smoke?” Nova sighed. “I brought you food. Good Italiano. Not the merda I make.”
Tino tried to laugh at Nova’s attempt at a joke. It came out more like a sob as he knelt there and rested his head in his hand and willed the world to stop spinning and the horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach to go away.
Mary was gone.
It was over.
He was okay.
But she was coming back.
He lived in her fucking house.
He tried to throw up again, but he felt empty instead. The feeling fell over him like a veil. Just this hollow version of the Tino he’d left behind in East Harlem. Instead of shoving it away, he latched on to it. The void, the blankness, recognizing it for what it was.
Pure survival.