“Mary, John,” I said with a hard smile.
A bare nod from the guy.
The girl took another deep smoke before she squashed it under a heavy black leather boot.
“What lovely names…”
“Actually, it’s Dinara.”
Fake John threw her a warning look. “Mary, what—”
There was a certain edge to his words that belied English wasn’t his mother tongue. “Give us a moment, Dima.” She never took her eyes off me. Dima gave me a harsh look, promising me retribution, and something in his blue eyes made it clear that he wasn’t unfamiliar with the act of causing others pain, but neither was I. He shoved away from the hood and stalked toward his car, a blue Nissan Silvia.
“Dinara?”
She gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Mikhailov. Dinara Mikhailov.”
She said the name as if it meant something, or should mean something to me. I didn’t make a habit of getting too involved in all the business areas of the Camorra. Organizing and driving the races was a full-time job.
“Sounds Russian.” And not just that, it was the name of the fucking Pakhan in Chicago, Bratva royalty. Mikhailov was a common name in Russia though, so this didn’t mean anything.
“It is.”
“Why the fake names if you give them up at the first chance you got?”
She shrugged. “Dima insisted, and it got me your attention.”
As if she would have needed fake names for that. This girl was hard to ignore.
“A Russian name would have had the same effect.”
Her smile widened, white against the luscious red of her lips. “You don’t like Russians?”
I walked around her car, taking a closer look at the paint job. Viper was written across the passenger door and a snake curled along the side of the hood. “Just a certain kind of Russian.”
She never took her eyes off me. I couldn’t tell if it was due to worry that I’d do something to her car, or because she had trust issues in general. Probably both. “And what kind of Russian would that be?”
I stopped beside her and leaned against the hood of her car, an open provocation. You didn’t touch another’s car without permission and you definitely didn’t use it as a chair. “You want to race?”
She smirked. “Quick thinking.”
I stifled a smile. I liked her sass. “That takes courage. Few girls ever make the final cut. It’s a rough game. People get hurt. People die.”
She rose from the hood, making herself taller than me. A flicker of anger lay in her eyes. “I’m not like other girls.”
“I have no doubts.” I stood, towering over her again. This was my territory and everything followed my rules, even this girl would have to learn this. “Good luck with the qualification race. Don’t get yourself killed.”
“I’m hard to kill.”
I nodded then with a smirk toward Dima who hadn’t let us out of his sight for a second, I headed back to Crank in the gas station. He’d gotten rid of his T-shirt, revealing his scarred, naked back. Since a car accident last year, the burn wounds marred his back and left arm.
“And?” he asked, looking up from one of the laptops. Wi-Fi could be spotty but we tried to keep track of incoming bets. Nino and a couple of accountants handled most of the betting, but if things went too slow, it sometimes required us to make the races a bit more challenging to drive up the excitement.
“As we suspected. Not their real names.”
Crank grimaced and picked up their registrations. “So what do you want to do? Kick them out with a warning? Or…?”
“I’ll have to give Remo a call. Maybe he knows what’s going on.”
“Only forty-five minutes until the race.”
“It won’t take long. Remo hates chit-chats.”
I threw a glance out of the window. Dinara observed me too. If she was involved with the Bratva, she was playing a dangerous game. The days of our truce had elapsed. If she was a spy or wanted to manipulate the races, I’d have to deal with Dima and her. The thought didn’t sit well with me but a time when qualms held me back from doing the necessary were long over.
I’d done my research on Adamo Falcone. Anything else would have been foolish. But he still surprised me. The photos I’d found of him in the Darknet had made him look younger, more sunny-boy like with his unruly, slightly curled hair and the trimmed beard. Like the surfer boys I’d watched during a vacation in Portugal. I’d expected a spoiled brat who threw around his last name like a grenade, trying to impress, and with a name like Falcone he would have been certain to succeed.
I’d met more than enough men of that type before but I could already tell he wasn’t one of them. I’d seen a couple of videos of him in the cage. There hadn’t been many but I’d had trouble linking those brutal fights to the sunny-boy smile photos in the Darknet. Now I got it. Something dark lurked behind those brown eyes. I had a feeling he could switch from easy-going to ruthless brutality in a heartbeat. A Falcone after all. Their reputation carried far beyond their borders. Fear wasn’t my strong suit, so I’d never understood the reverence in the voices of so many people when they talked about the monsters from Vegas.
I didn’t doubt he carried the name Falcone like a weapon if required, but he seemed confident enough to control the racers with his own charisma. I watched him return to the shabby gas station. A couple of pit girls who’d gathered in the shadow of the roof followed him with their hungry eyes. A powerful name, money and the aura of a bad boy with the indisputable fact that Adamo had a body few girls would dismiss drew them in like a moth to the flame. His sweaty shirt clung to his chest, revealing the lines of muscle and an impressive six-pack, and his ass in the dark blue jeans wasn’t shabby either.
I knew he’d be calling Vegas now, asking for further instructions. Adamo may be the organizer of the races but his oldest brother and Capo Remo Falcone was a control freak and would keep a watchful eye over everything. Two Russians showing up in their territory definitely required a family chat. My pulse picked up thinking of Remo but I squashed my anxiety. This wasn’t a sprint, it was a marathon.
Dima stalked toward me. “This is bad. You know that, right?” he whispered in Russian.
“We’ll see,” I replied, not bothering to lower my voice. Soon everyone would realize we were Russians, why try to hide it?
“We should call your father in case things go badly. I can’t protect you alone.”
“No,” I clipped. “Remember your promise, Dima.”
“I do. And the first oath I ever made was to protect you.”
“We’ll be fine.” I didn’t feel the same amount of confidence my voice conveyed. Adamo hadn’t been overly hostile, and I had a feeling Remo wouldn’t hurt me. I wasn’t completely sure about Dima’s safety, but every attempt to make him leave my side had been futile. Torture or death weren’t my main concern though. I didn’t want to be sent away. I needed to get to know Adamo Falcone, get him to trust me so he’d tell me everything I wanted to know. But for that to happen, I had to become part of the race circuit.
Remo wasn’t answering his phone, so I called Nino.