now, and I wanted them to know. I wanted the whole fucking world to know about Dinara and me, even the Bratva and her murderous father.
The next afternoon, Crank approached me as I was on my way to take a shower. My head was throbbing with a headache. Dinara and I had kept each other awake until the early morning, and even returned to the party in between our alone times. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been this shitfaced. The last thing I wanted was to talk to anyone, especially because Crank’s expression told me I wouldn’t like what he’d have to say. “Trouble?” I asked, waiting on the first step to the washroom trailer for him.
He grimaced. “I heard that Dinara asked around for drugs, Adamo.”
My eyes darted across the camp toward my car and the tent where Dinara and I had spent the night. I didn’t see her anywhere so she was probably still asleep. “What kind of drugs?”
“She wasn’t picky. But cocaine or heroin were her preferred choices.”
I nodded slowly. There wasn’t a rule against drugs during the races. Several racers were loyal customers of the Camorra’s drug dealers, mostly ecstasy and LSD though. And I knew that many people had been high on more than weed last night. I didn’t get involved in this side of our business. It was too risky for me to be around harder drugs, even if I’d been clean for many years. I’d learned not to trust easily, least of all myself.
“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?”