good distance away from Dima but the windows of the car were down and I didn’t want to risk him overhearing our conversation in case he was part of the reason for Dinara’s tension.
“Nothing,” she said quickly, but her voice proved her answer wrong.
“I didn’t think you’d be back in time for the race tonight. I worried it would take you days to convince your father you were safe here.”
She looked away briefly and when she met my gaze again, her walls had come up, locking me out of her mind and heart.
“Dinara,” I said imploringly, taking her hand. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Her eyes locked on mine then she pulled her hand away. “I didn’t return for the race tonight. I won’t race again. Racing was always only a means to an end, and so were you.” Her voice wavered when she said the latter.
“Liar,” I growled, stepping closer again. I wouldn’t allow her to put distance between us, not physically and not with words either. We’d gone through too much. We were both haunted by inner demons—demons only we could understand. Maybe we’d been born on different sides but fate had thrown us together because we were meant to be, because no one would ever see the world the way we did. “If I was only a means to an end, you wouldn’t be here right now. You would have left without an explanation or ditched me over the phone. But you are here, Dinara. Why?”
She held my gaze, trying to appear resolute and emotionless, but I’d seen every emotion in those green eyes and knew her too well to believe her charade.
“I simply thought you deserved to find out in person after everything you did for me. I’m not ungrateful, even if I used you for my purposes.”
I smirked. “You need to do better to convince me.”
Dinara glared. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not here to convince you, Adamo. I’m here to inform you about my decision. This is the last time you’ll see me. I won’t stay in camp, nor will we ever meet again. I belong in Chicago with my people.”
“Your people? The people that want you to dress up as a fake version of yourself? The people who only know one side of you, but not every aspect of yourself, not the dark parts only I got to see.”
Dinara reached into her pocket and took out a smoke. Her fingers were unsteady when she lit it up.
“I thought you wanted to stop?”
She shrugged. “It wouldn’t work.”
“The not-smoking or us?”
She took a deep drag and glanced at her boots. “Both.” She peered back up at me. “Listen, Adamo. This is a courtesy. I won’t explain my reasons. What we had was fun as long as it lasted but it was never meant to be forever. You have to accept my decision. But even if you don’t, it won’t change a thing. Dima and I’ll fly back to Chicago today and I’ll return to my old life, and so should you.”
“We aren’t the same people from our old lives. We changed.”
“I should go now. This is pointless,” Dinara clipped and tossed her cigarette to the ground then stomped it out with her boots.
Despite her words, she didn’t move a muscle, as if she was rooted to the ground.
I took a step closer. “You can trust me with anything, Dinara. Didn’t I prove that over and over again in the last few months? Tell me the fucking truth. Is this because your father doesn’t want you to be with me?” I asked in a low voice.
Dinara looked away, obviously fighting to keep her expression neutral. “We always knew that our relationship had an expiration date. We’re from two different worlds.”
I positioned myself right in front of her, cupped her cheeks and forced her to meet my eyes. She narrowed them to keep me at a distance but I knew her too well for that. What we’d done these last couple of weeks, killing and torturing together, overcoming past demons, that had given me a key to look past her barriers, just like she could look past mine. “Maybe our families are from different worlds, and on different sides, but we aren’t. Our life as we’ve led it over the past year has been in a world of our own.”
“Exactly,” she whispered. “But we can’t stay in our own bubble or world or whatever else you want to call it. We got family and we belong with them.”