Twisted Cravings (The Camorra Chronicles 6)

Dima sent me a searching look, as if he considered me another enemy for my father, but then he left.

I wasn’t Dad’s enemy, would never be, but I’d stop him from killing Adamo. Once it was only the three of us, Dad walked around his desk and sat down in his chair. That he had turned his back toward Adamo could be a sign that he didn’t consider him a threat, a game of power and testosterone, but it could also be a signal of peace. I begged for the latter. I didn’t want either of the most important men in my life to get hurt, especially not by each other’s hand.

“You’re an idiot,” I whispered, looking into Adamo’s eyes.

Adamo smiled wryly. “I know.”

Dad tapped his fingers on the desk, his eyes lingering on my hand in Adamo’s. “There won’t be peace with the Camorra. That ship has sailed after the last few attacks.” Dad spoke in English, and my pulse slowed a bit more. Dad was trying to make Adamo feel more comfortable by talking in his mother tongue.

“I’m not asking for peace. I’m asking for the chance to be with your daughter.”

“How are you going to be with my daughter if you’re on different sides in a war? That could become a problem. Unless you hope to take her from me and make her a part of your Falcone clan and the Camorra.”

Behind Dad’s cold mask, I recognized his worry about losing me. Family meant everything to him and even though he had Galina and his sons, he needed me to be part of it as well.

Adamo raised his eyebrows. “Dinara isn’t really part of the Bratva, is she?”

Anger flashed in Dad’s eyes but Adamo continued unfazed. “But I have absolutely no intention to take Dinara from you, not that she would let me. She’d kick my ass, because she loves you and wants you in her life.”

Dad’s gaze met mine and for an instant, uncertainty flared up. The hint of doubt festered inside of him. I held his gaze, hoping he could see that I couldn’t imagine a life without him in it, but neither could I imagine being without Adamo. I didn’t have many people in my life I really cared about and I wanted those few as close to me as possible.

“Dinara’s happiness is and has always been my main concern,” Dad said firmly. “I won’t forget that you helped her bring justice to the monsters of her past.”

“I’d do anything for her.” I squeezed Adamo’s hand. Words like those had always seemed a meaningless promise to me but now I knew he meant them absolutely.

“Leave the Camorra?” Dad asked with a cocked eyebrow. I sent him an incredulous look. He knew Adamo would never betray his brothers, not even for me, and if I asked that of him, I wouldn’t deserve his love anyway. We both needed our families in our lives even if we could never become one big family.

Adamo gave my father a knowing smile. “Are you suggesting I could join the Bratva?”

Dad didn’t say anything, only scrutinized Adamo with an unreadable expression.

The Bratva would never accept a former Camorra soldier in their rows. No matter how well Adamo would learn to speak Russian, he’d always be an alien—the enemy.

Before I could voice my thoughts, Adamo said, “I think we both know that I’d never find a home in Chicago and I have absolutely no intention to leave my family or the Camorra. Both are part of my identity, of my very being. Leaving the Camorra would be like leaving myself behind and changing who I am. Your daughter loves the man I am today, not an alternate version of me.”

Adamo’s dark eyes slanted to me and I gave him a nod. I didn’t want him to change. I wanted the man I’d met.

“Then what do you suggest? It seems we’re at an impasse, stuck on different sides of a war. Dinara would be torn between us.”

“I won’t be torn. It’s not like there is an open war between the Bratva in your territory and the Camorra. The Las Vegas Bratva doesn’t have strong ties to your organization.”

“We don’t need a truce. We need an agreement of mutual ignorance. A simple non-aggression pact,” Adamo said.

“The line between a truce that could bring me the wrath of the Outfit and a non-aggression pact seems fleeting.”

Adamo shook his head. “A truce often entails cooperation. We agree on co-existence. We don’t help you against the Outfit. You don’t help us against the Outfit.”

“You can’t come to Chicago as you please in that case. Outside of my home, you won’t be protected from attacks. My men won’t help you if the Outfit tries to kidnap you again.”

Adamo smirked. “The Outfit won’t capture me again. I was a naïve boy when they did. And if they’d ever catch me, the Camorra would come to my help. I wouldn’t need the Bratva for that.”