Twisted Cravings (The Camorra Chronicles 6)

I met his furious gaze. Grown men fell to their knees before this man but I’d never been scared of him. Maybe I was a fool for thinking I was safe from his cruel side. “Protecting me now, against my will I might add, won’t make the past undone. I know you feel guilty for being unable to protect me back then.”

The fury multiplied, his eyes practically burning up with rage but behind it guilt flared up.

“The Falcones never had the power to throw me into any abyss, because I’ve been living in a fucking hell for years, from the moment the first bastard raped me.”

Dad gripped one of the expensive Fabergé eggs from his desk and tossed it against the closest wall. It shattered with an earsplitting crash and every beautiful piece fell to the floor. The word rape was one we’d skidded around so far. We knew what had happened but somehow putting a word to it had threatened to make it worse. I took his hand, stepping closer. “You can’t save me, Dad. No one can. I need to claw myself out of the abyss my mother threw me into.”

“Don’t speak that name.”

“Killing those men felt good, so good. Their pain took away some of my own.”

Dad cupped my cheeks, searching my eyes as if he hoped to find the little daughter that he’d dressed in princess dresses. But that girl was dead, died many painful deaths to be reborn as something vile and vengeful. “If I could make undone what’s been done to you, I’d kill every single of my men just to get my little Katinka back.”

My eyes prickled. “I know. But she’s dead, and now I’m going to make sure every single person who killed her will be too.”

“A father never wants his daughter to become like him, not if he’s a man like myself.”

“I’m glad I’m like you in this regard. I’m glad I could hold the knife that executed the kill. I’m glad I’m not the princess in need of a prince to settle her scores.”

“But you got help from the Falcone prince, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “He helped me track them down. But it was me who killed them. They’re all dead. Now only my mother is left.”

“I should be the one to kill her, not you. Killing a woman, killing your mother, will leave scars. Scars I don’t think you should inflict on yourself.”

I smiled emotionlessly. “She’s the worst monster of them all. That woman is the reason why I’ll never know what the word “mother” really means. Killing her will set me free.”

Dad stroked my cheek. “I hope it does. I really hope it does, but if I’ve learned something over the years, it’s that revenge rarely sets us free. It only shackles us to new demons. Sometimes those only join the old ones. I can’t lose you, Dinara.”

I pulled back with a frown. “You think I’ll run off with Adamo, join the Camorra.”

“That’s not the loss I worry about.” His fingers curled around my forearm.

“I didn’t try to kill myself. And I haven’t been cutting myself in a while.” Despite the many years that had passed since my slip, Dad couldn’t get over it and I felt guilty because of it, but I was trying to live a new, better life.

Dad’s eyes became distant. “When Dima found you in a puddle of blood with foam around your mouth, I thought I’d lost you.”

“I won’t overdose again, Dad. I’m clean. You know no one’s going to sell me shit in your territory anyway.”

“What about Camorra territory?”

“Not there either, trust me. Adamo made sure of it.”

“Adamo,” Dad repeated, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “What’s really between you and this Falcone boy?”

“He’s not a boy, Dad.”

Dad just kept staring into my eyes. “Is it serious?”

“What would you do if I said yes?”

“You’re going to be torn between two worlds.”

“It’s the same world, just different sides.”

“Exactly. You know I can’t allow you to date the enemy. Nobody will understand it.”

“They don’t have to, as long as you do.”

“Do you realize in what position you put me? Allowing you to keep wandering around in Camorra lands puts the business at risk. Moscow won’t be happy about that.”

“I don’t know anything about your business, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“If the Camorra used you as bait, they’d have me in their hands and you know it.”

I smiled wryly. “You know Remo better than I do, and even I know he’d never use me like that.”

“That man doesn’t have a kind bone in his body, Dinara. There’s a reason why he controls the west without a hiccup.”

“There’s a reason why you’re Pakhan, Dad. Still you live by certain rules. One of them makes sure you’re allowing me to do what I do even though you disapprove, and the same rules have Remo Falcone see me as off-limits as well.”