Twisted Cravings (The Camorra Chronicles, #6)(18)

He cupped my hands. “She is to me, and she should be to you too. Forget she exists. She’s the past and we’ve left it behind us, haven’t we, Katinka?”

Maybe he had, maybe he could. But I saw her in my dreams almost every night, a ghost from the past. I had to see her again, face to face, even if it meant offending Remo Falcone and risking war with the Camorra.





We were cutting it closer than I liked but Dad had insisted I stayed until the morning to grab a few hours of sleep before I took the private jet back to Salt Lake City. He’d tried to convince me to stay altogether. He knew I was taking part in the races and maybe even why, but he had trouble caging me in. Not because he didn’t have the means to do so, but because he worried what I’d do without my freedom and a purpose. He trusted I’d eventually return home, not able to go through with my goal.

It was almost 1 p.m. when Dima and I raced back toward camp. Dima hung in his seat. The right side of his face was swollen and blue, and those were only the marks I could see. Dad had him beaten for admitting to the truth about my mother. Guilt burned a fiery path through my insides. “Next time you don’t come back with me.”

“That’ll only postpone my punishment.”

“Then don’t do things that’ll get you punished for me. Maybe it would be best if you didn’t follow me on this path anymore. Stay away before my father punishes you worse.”

His expression was wounded. “I’ll protect you, Dinara. It’s my job, my desire.”

I sighed. We’d had that conversation before when I’d first decided to join Adamo’s races. Dima could be almost as stubborn as I.

We arrived at the camp. Most racers were busy tinkering on their cars, some of which were already set up in a sort of starting formation: ten rows of three cars each.

Last time Dima and I had to start in the last row because we were newbies but due to our good result in the last race, the first race of this circuit, we were bumped up into one of the middle rows. I hadn’t bothered reading up on the point system and rules in detail. I always wanted to be first, and for that, I needed to drive fast and risk everything. Easy peasy.

Adamo’s car was in the first row, naturally, together with a completely black car I’d butted heads with in the last race. Its owner was an obnoxious, tall rich kid from the suburbs of San Francisco.

I parked my car next to Crank’s trailer to ask for my exact position before I weaved into the grid. Dima heaved himself out of the passenger seat, clutching his left side with a groan.

“Are you sure you can race?” I asked worriedly.

“I won’t leave your side.”

“Looking like you do, I doubt you can keep up with the top drivers today.

Seeing as tonight’s rest stop and tomorrow’s starting point is different for every car, depending on the distance they put behind them in the ten hours of driving, you probably won’t get the chance to stay near Dinara,” Adamo explained as he stepped down the stairs from the trailer. His dark eyes scanned Dima from head to toe, assessing every injury. Judging by the scars on his body, he could probably evaluate Dima’s injuries better than I did.

“I’m fine,” Dima gritted out, straightening fully. He and Adamo were the same height, too fucking tall for me. Even my biker boots with their thick soles didn’t change the fact that I had to crane my head back. That was the only reason why I missed my high heels.

Adamo shrugged as if he didn’t care either way. “Even if you are miles away from Dinara when the race ends, you won’t move your car another fucking inch. You hit the brakes at exactly four a.m. like all of us do, got it?

And don’t try to cheat. We track everyone.”

Dima showed his teeth in a dangerous smile. “You’re too keen to get Dinara on her own, Falcone. Why is that, I wonder?”

“For no reason that requires your bodyguard services,” Adamo said with a hard smile.

I glanced between them. “I don’t have time for your bullshit. I have a race to win. What’s my position in the grid?”

Adamo motioned inside the trailer. “Crank’s got the list. You’ve got to ask him.”

“Go ahead,” I told Dima who grudgingly stepped into the trailer but before he disappeared inside, he growled. “I don’t like the way he looks at you. One day I’m going to burn his fucking eyes out.”

I gave him a hard look, and finally he disappeared.

“What did he say? It didn’t sound very nice,” Adamo said with a hint of amusement. He crossed his arms, accentuating the muscles in them. What maddened me even more than my body’s reaction to his assets was the fact that I wasn’t sure if Adamo was trying to tease them out of me on purpose.

“Maybe you should consider learning Russian. It’s always a good idea to know the tongue of your enemy.”

Adamo regarded me in a way that turned my body temperature up by several degrees, an experience I wasn’t sure I liked. “Are you an enemy, Dinara?”

I smiled. “That depends on the situation, I suppose.”

Adamo chuckled then he shrugged. “We have many enemies. I can’t learn all of their languages. Or do you speak French and Italian?”

My smile widened. “Of course. I had tutors who taught me French, English, and Italian, and at home, I spoke Russian.”