“And she’s fit. Smooth. Waxed.” Carlo raised his eyebrows, like he was remembering. “She’s got these eyes. Like the fucking ocean. Dunno where she got them, but they are amazing. I asked, but she never met her father. Doesn’t talk about her mother. I think she had a hard time growing up.”
“Oh, so sad,” Nova said cynically. “Tell her to join the fucking club.”
“I wanna take care of her.” Carlo was smiling again. “I’d spoil her rotten.”
“How old is this girl?” Nova asked suspiciously.
“Relax, Mr. Accountant. She’s legal.”
“How old?”
“Twenty-one. Older than you,” Carlo said with another smile. “But she’s mature. Honest to God, I was shocked when she told me she was twenty-one. She’s got skills. When she fucks me, it’s like I go fucking blind with it. She rocks my world. Minchia, I think I love her.”
Tino met Nova’s gaze, and together the two of them burst out laughing.
“You’re laughing. One day.” Carlo pointed at the two of them. “One day. You’ll find your Wendy.”
“Io passo,” Nova said dismissively.
“I have a Wendy,” Tino said with a smile. “And I bet my Wendy’s hotter than your Wendy.”
“Bullshit. I already told you. Hottest woman in the fucking world.” Carlo raised his eyebrows. “Who cares if enforcers aren’t supposed to have wives? I’ll get the don to give me a new job, ’cause I’m gonna marry this girl. You’re both invited to the wedding. You’ll be the only ones there, unless she invites her friends. Hell, maybe you know her. She grew up in East Harlem. She’s Upper East Side now, but her roots are in Harlem.”
“Oh yeah.” Tino nodded. “’Cause we know everyone from East Harlem. A hundred thousand people live there, stronzo.”
“I’m sure you hang in the same places. She wears that club bracelet like yours. With the fox-head thing on the clasp.”
“It’s a lion.” Tino took another drag, and then something occurred to him through the haze of weed and oxy. “Wait. What?”
“That leather-bracelet thing.” Carlo gestured to Tino’s wrist. “She wears one too.”
“She must like giving hugs,” Nova said in a singsong voice.
Tino’s pulse picked up, thundering in his ears as he stared at Carlo. “How’d you meet this girl?”
“At a coffee shop.”
“You just walked up to her?”
“Hottest woman in the world,” Carlo repeated like a mantra. “I would have to be dead not to walk up to her.”
Tino just stared at him for a long time, unable to hide his horror. “And she lets you fuck her?”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Carlo looked down at himself pointedly. His gaze stopped on his crotch. “Not to brag—”
“Yeah, let’s not brag,” Nova agreed as he stole the joint from Tino.
“It’s long and thick,” Carlo finished. “The package and skill set it comes with is not half-bad either.”
Nova laughed, but Tino was still hung up on this woman wearing a band.
Not just any band, but a lion-head band.
That was the Brambino marker.
That wasn’t kind of suspicious; it was undeniable.
Carlo was the Moretti Borgata’s lead enforcer. He didn’t just make them strong; he made them terrifying. He was fearless and couldn’t care less that he had no friends in a way that was hallmark for any good enforcer, because no goodfella wanted to be friends with their potential executioner. He was one of the dark ghosts that hung out on the fringes of their world—an angel of death no one wanted to look in the eye. Not everyone could do it, but Carlo was a bastard. He didn’t want to socialize in mafia circles. Like Nova, he hated spoiled gangsters and was perfectly happy being feared and ignored.
It left him with virtually no weaknesses.
Or so they’d thought.
Tino hadn’t considered a woman, but if there was one edge the Brambinos had in the underworld, it was knowing how to use sex for profit, control, and destruction.
For the first time since the band ended up on Tino’s wrist, he wished Nova knew what it was all about. He wished he’d talked to him a long time ago. At the very least he wished he wasn’t high as fuck when he found out about this not-so-little problem.
He was still pondering it when Carina called from across the pool, “What are you doing up there?”
“Cazzo.” Carlo gestured to the joint in Nova’s hand. “Put it out.”
“She can smell it,” Nova whispered under his breath. “And she smokes too. She’s like a fucking chimney up here with Tino.”
“Yeah, but I’m her zio.” Carlo gestured to himself. “I’m not supposed to be smoking.”
“You’re our zio,” Nova reminded him. “And you smoke with us all the time.”
“That’s different. It’s a Lost Boy thing. The old man would go crazy if he found out I smoked in front of her. Put it out.”
Nova put it out with his thumbs and tossed the joint over the railing to land in the bushes. Then he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his suit pocket. He lit one quickly and blew a large puff of smoke down the staircase, but the smile Carina gave them at the bottom was amused and mischievous.
“And what are we doing on the top steps this lovely Monday night?” she asked with false innocence.
“Smoking.” Nova blew more smoke at her to make his point.