“I’m fine,” Dima gritted out, straightening fully. He and Adamo were the same height, too fucking tall for me. Even my biker boots with their thick soles didn’t change the fact that I had to crane my head back. That was the only reason why I missed my high heels.
Adamo shrugged as if he didn’t care either way. “Even if you are miles away from Dinara when the race ends, you won’t move your car another fucking inch. You hit the brakes at exactly four a.m. like all of us do, got it? And don’t try to cheat. We track everyone.”
Dima showed his teeth in a dangerous smile. “You’re too keen to get Dinara on her own, Falcone. Why is that, I wonder?”
“For no reason that requires your bodyguard services,” Adamo said with a hard smile.
I glanced between them. “I don’t have time for your bullshit. I have a race to win. What’s my position in the grid?”
Adamo motioned inside the trailer. “Crank’s got the list. You’ve got to ask him.”
“Go ahead,” I told Dima who grudgingly stepped into the trailer but before he disappeared inside, he growled. “I don’t like the way he looks at you. One day I’m going to burn his fucking eyes out.”
I gave him a hard look, and finally he disappeared.
“What did he say? It didn’t sound very nice,” Adamo said with a hint of amusement. He crossed his arms, accentuating the muscles in them. What maddened me even more than my body’s reaction to his assets was the fact that I wasn’t sure if Adamo was trying to tease them out of me on purpose.
“Maybe you should consider learning Russian. It’s always a good idea to know the tongue of your enemy.”
Adamo regarded me in a way that turned my body temperature up by several degrees, an experience I wasn’t sure I liked. “Are you an enemy, Dinara?”
I smiled. “That depends on the situation, I suppose.”
Adamo chuckled then he shrugged. “We have many enemies. I can’t learn all of their languages. Or do you speak French and Italian?”
My smile widened. “Of course. I had tutors who taught me French, English, and Italian, and at home, I spoke Russian.”
“Impressive,” Adamo admitted. “I only speak Italian and English, but my brother Nino is a walking dictionary.”
I distantly remembered the guy with the cold gray eyes, a hazy image from the past, but hard to forget like so many other images from that time. “My French teacher was never really happy with my pronunciation, but I speak and understand it fluently even if I don’t sound like a Parisienne lady.”
“You don’t look like one either.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Got a problem with my looks?”
Adamo’s eyes trailed the length of me, again lingering on my belly piercing. I’d noticed it before. Maybe he wondered if I had more of them hidden beneath my clothes. I had.“Absolutely not. Your looks are more than okay in my book.”
“Thanks. That’s the kind of approval I needed to feel valued,” I said sarcastically, but I had to admit I got a sick kick every time Adamo checked me out. I didn’t consider myself as ordinarily beautiful. My appearance with my red hair, freckles, and high cheekbones was too edgy for that.
Dima chose that moment to return. His eyes narrowed to slits as he stepped between Adamo and me. “I got our positions. We should start to prepare everything.”
“Mechanics will check if your cars abide by the rules and attach a tracker to your cockpit to make sure you can be punished or disqualified if you drive longer than allowed,” Adamo said, giving Dima a meaningful look, before he stalked away.
Dima glared at his back. “We’re next to each other in the starting formation. We should make sure to stay close together, even if one of us is faster than the other.”
I snorted. “No way, Dima. I’m sorry but I need to be among the first so I can stay close to Adamo. I need more opportunities to extract information from him.”
Dima leaned closer, searching my eyes. “Is this really only about extracting information? I’m not blind.”
“Tend to your wounds, or ask someone from the medical team for help. I need to prepare my car.”
I walked away. I had never been confronted with Dima’s jealousy. He hadn’t made a big deal when I’d ended our relationship, nor had he ever tried to win me back. Maybe he’d hoped I’d eventually return to him and now he saw his chances dwindling. I wasn’t sure but I hoped he’d get a grip soon. I needed to focus on my plan. I didn’t have time to deal with a crazy ex-boyfriend.
Weaving my Toyota through the parked cars and the mechanics, racers and pit girls scattering around them took almost fifteen minutes. I slammed my palm down on my horn so often that my hand hurt, but eventually I found the marked position. My car was in prime condition so I didn’t need to look it over again, and other than some racers I didn’t have a team of mechanics. Dima could repair almost anything and I was pretty capable as well.
Instead of wasting time on preparations, I leaned against my car and watched the busy crowd, soaking in their excitement and nervous energy. I’d only seen another female driver but she’d been in the last row. What a shame. More girls needed to trust themselves to play with the big boys. This wasn’t a sport that required muscles, only daring and cleverness, and that’s something women didn’t lack in comparison to men.
Beside me, a guy who looked Mexican leaned against his car. His body was covered with tattoos and he wore a black wifebeater to show them and his muscles off. Like Dima, his hair was in a buzz-cut, but his was dark. He flashed me a grin when he caught me looking. I didn’t return the gesture, only nodded. I wondered if the Falcones tolerated gang members or members of a cartel to race as well. They seemed pretty certain in their power over the west. I wasn’t here to make friends, and even less to flirt with random guys.
Adamo headed for me and leaned beside me. The guy lost his interest in me at once. “You ready?”
“Always,” I replied. “What I’m wondering is how the whole toilet-break business works. Ten hours is a long time.”
Adamo gave me a meaningful look.
I scoffed. “Don’t tell me there are no official toilet breaks.”
“There aren’t. You have to decide if you want to lose valuable minutes to relieve yourself.”
“Unlike you, I can’t pee into a bottle.”
“Trust me, even for guys it’s not easy to drive and pee into a bottle.”
I couldn’t help but laugh trying to imagine it, but then my mind drifted off, only conjuring up images of Adamo’s naked body. Not a good direction to take before a race. “So you really pee into a bottle?”
Adamo grinned. Whenever he did, he looked more like the dark surfer-boy and not the deadly Falcone brother. I wasn’t sure which side of him drew me in more. “Usually I allow myself one toilet break per race, at least in the first five races. The last two races, however…” He chuckled.
“I won’t pee into a bottle, but I won’t risk falling back just because my bladder is an issue.”
“Well, then maybe you should consider using a catheter. But I should warn you. A few very ambitious guys did last year and got a nasty infection.”