I didn’t smile, only stared up into Dad’s pale blue eyes. He was only in his late forties, one of the younger Pakhans, and his blond hair still hid the gray streaks well.
“Dinara,” I corrected, even though I knew he wouldn’t use my second name. When I’d stopped using my first name, Ekaterina, named after Ekaterina the Great, another reason why Dad had chosen to build her palace, he had been heart-broken, and continued to call me by the nickname Katinka. I rarely corrected him anymore, nor did I wear the clothes I preferred when I was around him.
I always chose dresses or skirts in light colors, because he loved seeing me like that. Ekaterina meant pure after all and he wanted to see me in the light, not stumbling into the darkness that lingered deep inside of me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and led me inside the splendid mirror-walled foyers with its white and gold décor.
“Where are Jurij and Artur?”
“They are already asleep, and so is Galina.”
Dad always tried to keep his young wife and my half-brothers out of sight, as if he worried his new family would upset me. I gave him an exasperated look. He needed to stop thinking I needed to be put on a pedestal. I’d been happy when he’d married, and Galina had given him heirs. That meant he wouldn’t hover as much anymore and I’d have more freedoms.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
I nodded. Except for vodka and gin, I hadn’t consumed anything yet, and it was starting to show in the fuzziness in my brain. Dad snapped his fingers and at once a member of the staff who’d been lurking in the background rushed off toward the kitchen. “Let’s go to my office.”
Calling the vast room where he worked an office was a mockery. Its sheer size awed most people, and some families of four or five lived in apartments that were much smaller. The gold and white décor carried on, but the furniture was darker. A reddish wood dominated everything, and Dad’s desk was the size of a small queen-size bed. We settled on the plush gold and blue sofa that he’d bought from a collector and which originated from the 18th century: Catherine the Great’s time. Dad was a man with one foot firmly set in the past and one in the future, maybe that made him so well respected among his men.
A knock sounded and our cook entered with a tray of fresh khachapuri, baked bread in the shape of an almond with cheese and egg filling. She carried it over to us and carefully set it down on the table in front of us before she disappeared again. I reached for a khachapuri, wincing as it burned my fingertips but too greedy for the delicacy of Dad’s childhood. The runny egg yolk spread on my tongue, mingling with the saltiness of the cheese and comforting denseness of the dough. Dad had spent the first few years of his life in the Caucasus. I swallowed the first bite then put the bread back down on the plate.
I was done postponing the inevitable, so I met Dad’s gaze.
“Why did you lie?”
A muscle in Dad’s cheek twitched, a sign of his displeasure. Many people would have had reason to cower at this sign of danger, but I wasn’t one of them. “Dima wasn’t supposed to tell you.”
“He didn’t. Adamo Falcone did, and then I didn’t leave Dima a choice but to admit he knew the truth. You know I can be convincing if I put my mind to it.”
Dad chuckled. “Oh, I know. You have the stubbornness and cunning of a great empress.”
I sighed. “Why did you lie? You made me believe she was dead. All these years.”
“It was for the best. I wanted to protect you.”
“That’s bullshit!”
Dad’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Not that tone around me.” He hated when I cursed, and maybe even more when I spoke in English.
I took a deep breath. “Sorry.”
“The truth doesn’t matter, because what I said is as good as true. She’s dead to us, erased from our lives, and out of our reach in Camorra territory.”
“Nothing is out of your reach, Dad, if you really want it.” He’d dragged his wife Galina out of the furthest corner of the Caucasus, a small village where her parents had hidden her away from my father, despite it being under the control of the enemy.
He shook his head with a rough laugh. “I’m a businessman and I’ve survived many attacks to my life, only because I’m cautious. Going to war with Remo Falcone isn’t wise. Breaching his territory for a dead woman is insanity.”
“She’s not dead,” I whispered harshly.
He cupped my hands. “She is to me, and she should be to you too. Forget she exists. She’s the past and we’ve left it behind us, haven’t we, Katinka?”
Maybe he had, maybe he could. But I saw her in my dreams almost every night, a ghost from the past. I had to see her again, face to face, even if it meant offending Remo Falcone and risking war with the Camorra.
We were cutting it closer than I liked but Dad had insisted I stayed until the morning to grab a few hours of sleep before I took the private jet back to Salt Lake City. He’d tried to convince me to stay altogether. He knew I was taking part in the races and maybe even why, but he had trouble caging me in. Not because he didn’t have the means to do so, but because he worried what I’d do without my freedom and a purpose. He trusted I’d eventually return home, not able to go through with my goal.
It was almost 1 p.m. when Dima and I raced back toward camp. Dima hung in his seat. The right side of his face was swollen and blue, and those were only the marks I could see. Dad had him beaten for admitting to the truth about my mother. Guilt burned a fiery path through my insides. “Next time you don’t come back with me.”
“That’ll only postpone my punishment.”
“Then don’t do things that’ll get you punished for me. Maybe it would be best if you didn’t follow me on this path anymore. Stay away before my father punishes you worse.”
His expression was wounded. “I’ll protect you, Dinara. It’s my job, my desire.”
I sighed. We’d had that conversation before when I’d first decided to join Adamo’s races. Dima could be almost as stubborn as I.
We arrived at the camp. Most racers were busy tinkering on their cars, some of which were already set up in a sort of starting formation: ten rows of three cars each.
Last time Dima and I had to start in the last row because we were newbies but due to our good result in the last race, the first race of this circuit, we were bumped up into one of the middle rows. I hadn’t bothered reading up on the point system and rules in detail. I always wanted to be first, and for that, I needed to drive fast and risk everything. Easy peasy.
Adamo’s car was in the first row, naturally, together with a completely black car I’d butted heads with in the last race. Its owner was an obnoxious, tall rich kid from the suburbs of San Francisco.
I parked my car next to Crank’s trailer to ask for my exact position before I weaved into the grid. Dima heaved himself out of the passenger seat, clutching his left side with a groan.
“Are you sure you can race?” I asked worriedly.
“I won’t leave your side.”
“Looking like you do, I doubt you can keep up with the top drivers today. Seeing as tonight’s rest stop and tomorrow’s starting point is different for every car, depending on the distance they put behind them in the ten hours of driving, you probably won’t get the chance to stay near Dinara,” Adamo explained as he stepped down the stairs from the trailer. His dark eyes scanned Dima from head to toe, assessing every injury. Judging by the scars on his body, he could probably evaluate Dima’s injuries better than I did.