Mom?”
“She’s dead and so are the men who hurt you.”
I ducked my head. He knew.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Katinka. I’ll never let you out of my sight again. Nothing will ever touch you again.” He kissed my head. “Soon we’ll be home and then everything will be how it used to be. You’ll forget what happened.”
I never forgot. And things didn’t return to how they used to be. I’d become the fragile porcelain doll. Now, back at home in Chicago for a brief visit between races, I felt that way all the more.
I ran my fingertips over the edge of the shelf that held my Fabergé eggs. There were twenty-one of them. Dad had bought one for my birthday every year, even when Mom had taken me with her. He’d given me that egg the day I returned home with him and I’d put it in my shelf to all the others. Everything had been how I remembered it. Only I had changed. Surrounded by the prettiness of my past, I felt out of place, like an intruder in a life I didn’t belong anymore.
“Katinka,” I tested the word. It still felt as if I were talking about someone else. Tolstoy, our cat, a gorgeous Russian Blue, brushed up to my calf, maybe sensing my distress. I patted his head, causing him to purr.
Dad had tried to make me forget, had moved back to Russia with me for a little while, thinking we could leave the horrors behind, but they followed me.
Eventually, he, too, realized that I wouldn’t become the Katinka I’d once been. Every time he’d looked at me with pity or sadness in his eyes, I’d been reminded too. Now he didn’t give me that look anymore. I was stronger than I used to be. I didn’t need anyone’s pity.
I wondered if Adamo would look at me differently, too, once he found out what had happened.
My ride back to Vegas was accompanied by a sense of foreboding. Dinara’s past obviously held horrors. Possibly created by my brothers. She was worried I’d see her in a different light once I found out but I worried that old resentments for my brothers, especially Remo would rip open. Remo had done too much for me to lose my loyalty, but maybe the truth would destroy our relationship or at the very least set it back to the grudging tolerance I’d felt toward him in my teenage years.
I’d sent Remo and Nino a message that I would be visiting again this weekend before I’d set off from camp but not the reason why. Maybe Remo had an inkling. His messages over the last couple of weeks had revealed his suspicion about Dinara’s and my relationship. My brother had always had a sort of sixth sense when it came to sniffing out people’s secrets.
I drove toward the Sugar Trap because Remo had asked me to meet him and Nino there. Usually I avoided that place because it reeked of too much despair for my taste. That Remo considered it the best place to discuss whatever he suspected to be my visit about didn’t bode well. Stepping into the gloomy light of the whorehouse corridor always gave me a sense of entering a sort of limbo.
The corridor opened up to a bar area of red velvet and black lacquer, which only intensified the hellish vibe of the place. There were poles and booths with velvet curtains and several doors that branched off the main room where the whores took their customers for privacy. Another long corridor, also held in red and black, led to Remo’s office.
When I entered the long room without windows, Remo’s eyes said he knew why I was there. Nino sat on the sofa, eying me with a hint of disapproval. He thought I sought fights with Remo, but that wasn’t the case. But unlike Nino, I had a conscience and it sometimes clashed with Remo’s ruthlessness.
“Your visits are becoming more frequent again, but this isn’t a simple family reunion, is it, Adamo?” Remo asked, arms crossed in front of his broad chest. He was in workout clothes, probably because he’d kicked the living hell out of the heavy bag hanging from the ceiling between his desk and the sofa. His dark eyes held a hint of suspicion. Maybe it was my own emotion reflecting back at me.
“How are things with Dinara?” Nino asked calmly, trying to be the deescalating presence but accidentally poking the beehive.
I narrowed my eyes. “She’s still part