“Really?” Romeo asked like he couldn’t see the lie in Tino’s smile. Maybe he didn’t want to see it as he rubbed at his arm. “I just want you to be safe. I want you to stay outta trouble. I want you to be happy.”
“I’ll be safe. Nova’s got my back,” Tino promised him, even if it was the biggest lie he had ever told in his life, and then said in English, “Just, you know, get the fuck outta here as fast as you can. I can only take so much Brooklyn.”
“You’ll be happy?” Romeo asked again. “And you’ll help Nova? You’ll make sure he doesn’t get too angry? You’ll make him laugh. He needs to laugh, Valentino.”
Tino smiled at him again rather than tell another lie.
“Okay,” Nova agreed for Tino as he ran his hand over the folders in front of him and said in English, “I’m gonna hire you a different criminal attorney. We know someone better.” He looked to Abram. “Right?”
Abram nodded confidently. “Yeah, we got someone.”
“So it’s all good. Tino’s good,” Nova decided for all of them. “I got his back. He’s got mine. We’ll hire you a better attorney, and we’ll all be okay.”
Tino was the only one who knew they were fucking liars.
All three of them.
Chapter Twenty
Dyker Heights, New York
April 2006
“What’s gonna happen when Romeo comes home?” Tino played with the leather band on his wrist as he watched Nova pull on a black shirt. “I mean, seriously, what the fuck are we gonna do about that, Nova?”
“I’ll figure it out.” Nova walked to the mirror in the bathroom and worked on his hair. “Don’t worry about it.”
Is he joking?
Romeo was getting out in two weeks.
They had absolutely no game plan to hide the fact that everything they had told Romeo while he was in prison was a lie. The list of shit he was going to freak out about was epic, starting with Nova dropping out of school and ending with Tino being a soldier in the crew Nova had been running for their father.
“Lemme just enjoy my last few weekends, okay?” Nova ran a hand through his wet hair again. “Can you gimme that, Valentino?”
“Yeah.” Tino nodded. “I can give you that.”
Nova yanked Tino’s backpack out of his hand. “I’ll carry it.”
Tino just rolled his eyes and let Nova believe he was still the big brother protecting him from shit.
What a fantastic job Nova had done with that. Tino felt very protected as a high-quality sex-trafficking product, part-time drug dealer, and full-time Cosa Nostra thug at the ripe ol’ age of sixteen.
Though the sex-trafficking issue wasn’t totally Nova’s fault.
Since Tino had never told him about it.
But for a guy with a big brain, he sure missed a lot of shit.
They were busy. Nova was distracted with the joys of being a Lost Boy on his downtime, and Tino wasn’t too pissed off about it anymore. Most days it wasn’t too bad a gig.
Tino still hated Mary.
That never changed.
He despised getting on his knees for her, but after a while when Tino started to grow into himself, she started renting him out, and some of the other women were okay. They made up for the weekly Mary time Tino still had to put in when Nova was caught up with something.
Tino didn’t know how much Mary was getting for him, but he knew he wasn’t cheap. He worked very, very hard to make sure he wasn’t cheap, because Mary still threatened on a regular basis to sell him to men if he lost his value to women, and Tino was pretty sure Romeo would be fucked if that happened.
Tino would have to eat a fucking bullet.
Women, they had higher standards.
Rich women, even more so.
So Tino made sure he was up to their standards.
No one knew he was sixteen; everyone assumed he was much older. Nova thought it was because he worked out like crazy, but Tino noticed most sex slaves looked older than they were.
Even if their sponsors didn’t want them to.
It just happened, which was unfortunate. It meant human traffickers grabbed them younger and younger because there was billions of dollars in the sex slave industry and most of it was made off minors. The Brambinos were just sick, sick, sick bastards, and Tino hated Don Moretti for tolerating them when he had the power to annihilate them instead.
But he still didn’t mind his personal gig, as whore to all those rich, lonely mob wives who weren’t allowed to touch another man but didn’t seem to mind renting Tino.
Nova thought he was mowing their lawns.
Or shoveling their driveways.
And he let Tino do it, because Mary made him nervous, and he liked to keep her happy. Gold star to Nova for having enough survival skills to notice keeping Mary happy was always the wisest choice.