Twisted Cravings (The Camorra Chronicles 6)

“I thought you might want to know,” Crank said.

“Did anyone sell her shit?” I growled.

Crank gave me a crooked smile. “Nobody dared to do it before asking you for permission, seeing as she’s your girl.”

I didn’t contradict him, even if Dinara probably hated being branded as mine—or anyone’s for that matter. “Good. I’ll go talk to them to make sure they keep their drugs under wraps.”

After a quick shower, I went to one of the racers who also worked as our drug distributor and told him to make sure no one in Camorra territory dared to sell anything to Dinara. Word would spread soon. She was mine and whoever dared to provide her with stuff would pay with blood.

I headed back to my tent but Dinara had disappeared so I went in search of her and eventually found her at her Toyota.

She leaned under the open hood of her car, tinkering with the engine. Her long legs peeked out of her jean shorts and the soft bumps of her spine invited my tongue to trace them, but I held back my need to be close to her. We had issues to discuss first. Noticing me, she straightened and narrowed her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

I leaned against the car, trying to stifle my annoyance. She acted as if last night hadn’t happened and was back to her distant self. But the paleness of her skin and the way she squinted into the light revealed the truth of last night’s revelry. “This is my race, and people tell me things. Nobody deals with drugs unless they have the okay from the Camorra.”

“I know. That’s why I asked someone if they could buy me stuff. I anticipated that I’d have a hard time getting anything myself because people seem to think you can decide what I do or don’t do.”

“You didn’t come to me.”

“You wouldn’t have sold me drugs, or would you? Judging from your pissed look, I’ll get a lecture now. I’m really not sure if I have the brain capacity after last night.”

“No, of course I won’t let you buy drugs! I took the shit myself. Heroin, cocaine, even crystal. I know what it does to the body. It ruins you. Your body, your mind, everything.”

I laughed bitterly. “I have danced with the devil before. I know what it does.” Part of me was glad for Adamo’s concern but the bigger part felt caught and defensive. I was so tired, from last night, from trying to forget my twisted feelings. At the party and with Adamo, I’d forgotten about my mother for a few hours, but this morning everything had slammed right back into me. I couldn’t escape reality, at least not for long, not without my old vices.

“How long have you been clean?”

I closed the hood and sighed. “Almost a year now.”

Worry and frustration battled in Adamo’s eyes. “And now you want to throw it out of the window, for what?”

I’d thought the exact same thing the first night after our return from Vegas, alone in my tent after everyone had refused to sell me stuff. For a moment I’d considered driving to the next big city, a place where nobody recognized me, much less knew that I was Adamo’s girl, how everyone around here called me. With the last shreds of my resolve, I’d stayed put and spent most of the night staring at the ceiling of my tent, too afraid to fall asleep and be haunted by new memories, awakened by my recent trip to Vegas. Becoming clean and staying clean had been a struggle. This was the longest I’d succeeded to stay away from drugs since I was fourteen and I’d almost thrown it all away because of my mother. She’d ruined my life once and I’d almost given her the power to do it again. I was furious at myself, but as usual too proud to admit it.

I glared. “You can’t even imagine what kind of images my mind’s been replaying since I saw my mother. So much buried shit has come up. It’s eating away at me, and I know the only way to stop it is to knock myself out with drugs.”

Adamo moved closer. I could tell that he wanted to touch me, maybe even hug me, and I wanted him to, but still I didn’t move. Last night our bodies had joined, fueled by passion and exhilaration, now every touch would be filled with emotions I didn’t want to deal with. “The memories come back twice as bad once the effect wanes off, Dinara. You can’t escape them. I tried too.”

Fuck, it took every ounce of restraint not to fly into his arms. I wanted to be held by him, but I didn’t want to look weak. Though, it was probably a little too late for that. In Vegas, I’d completely lost it. Seeing my mother had twisted my insides, had made me feel like a little girl. She’d changed so much over the years since Dad didn’t pay for her beauty treatments anymore and she worked as a cheap whore, but my mind had pulled up past images.