That sounded like my brother. “You don’t have to do it. You have options.”
“What options?” Dinara whispered harshly. “It’s not that I haven’t considered killing her. Every night since I found out that she’s alive, I’ve been dreaming about how I’d see her die. Your brother didn’t put the idea in my head. It’s been there all along.” She tipped against her temple.
I took her hand, linking our fingers.
“Did you imagine killing your mother before the day you stabbed her?” she asked.
“For a long time, I believed killing my mother wouldn’t change anything. Part of me even hoped we could make peace with her, and become at least a dysfunctional family. I wasn’t born when she hurt my brothers. I’d always only heard the stories, and even those were sparse. Remo tried to keep the horrors of the day that my mother tried to kill them away from me. But I needed to realize the horrible impact she had on our family for myself.” Nino had once recounted how our mother had cut his wrists, drugged baby Savio and tried to cut Remo as well before she set the room on fire. Remo saved Nino and Savio from a cruel fate. Our mother had still been pregnant with me then, and if she’d succeeded with her devious plan, I would have never even been born. I realized I’d been silent for too long, lost in my thoughts, and so I continued with my story:
“When I saw her that day, trying to kill everyone I cared about and smiling while she did it, I realized what she was. That she was the root of my brothers’ problems, of all of our struggles. Our father hadn’t been better than her, but he at least was dead and couldn’t cast his dark shadow over us anymore. In that moment I wanted to kill her and I never regretted it. I’m glad my brothers did it though. It was their privilege.”
“Did it help your brothers to see her dead? To kill her themselves?”
I considered that. I had never really talked about it with my brothers. The topic of our mother’s death had been buried with her corpse. She was gone. Maybe my brothers talked about it with their wives but definitely not with me, and I’d never dared to talk about it. Putting the past to rest had been a huge step in finding happiness for me.
“I’m not sure it helped them. It didn’t change them. By then we all were already too messed up to find our way back onto a different path, but maybe it gave them peace of mind for a while.”
Dinara swallowed. “Peace of mind was what I wanted when I sought you and the truth. I wanted to uncover the ghosts of my past that kept haunting me, wanted to confront them and put them to rest, but I didn’t know so many of them were still around.”
“You mean your mother and your abusers?”
She nodded. I pulled the car into the half-empty parking lot of the whorehouse and killed the engine but made no move to get out because neither did Dinara. She slanted a cautious look toward the front door of the establishment. It was a simple steel door in a brick building without any windows at the front.
I squeezed her hand. “I’m here.”
Dinara gave a more resolute nod and shoved open the door. I released her and got out of the car, following her toward the entrance of the whorehouse. She froze in front of it and turned to me, her eyes frantic. She reached for my gun holster but I stopped her with a gentle touch. “You can’t shoot her in the middle of a bar. If you want to kill her, you need to do it somewhere private.”
Dinara pulled her hand away, looking lost for a moment. “Will you give me your gun when I need it? I don’t have any weapons on me.”
“Can you shoot?”
“Dima taught me.”
“You can have my gun if you need it.” I still thought Dinara looked too out of it to make this kind of monumental decision so shortly after having the option handed to her on a silver platter.
“It’s my decision,” she clipped, her eyes becoming more focused. “My past, my decision. Don’t try to stop me.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
She took a deep breath before she stepped into the building, followed closely by me.
The air was thick with smoke, spilled beer and sweat as we headed into the dimly lit bar of the whorehouse. A couple of men sat at the bar, chatting with prostitutes, and half a dozen booths were occupied as well. In some of them the whores and their customers had already moved past chatting. In our better establishment any kind of touching was limited to the backrooms but here things were handled a bit more openly. One of the whores was rubbing a fat guy through his pants while he was pawing at her breasts and slobbering all over her neck.
Dinara didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes scanned the room, and I did the same, but didn’t spot anyone who could be Eden. “Let’s go to the bar counter,” I said.
The men at the bar checked out Dinara hungrily but the look I sent them made them avert their gazes hurriedly. The barkeeper, a lanky blond guy in his twenties, came over to us,. “Mr. Falcone,” he said with a reverent nod. “What can I do for you?”
“Two vodka, and you can tell me where Eden is.”
“She’s in a backroom with a customer. Do you want me to get her for you?”
“No,” Dinara said quickly.
The barkeeper gave me a questioning look and I nodded. “We’ll wait for her. Let her finish her business. But get us those drinks. We’ll be over in a booth waiting.”
With a hand on Dinara’s back, I led her toward a booth in the corner. We made ourselves comfortable and a moment later a waitress delivered our drinks. Dinara looked around, her face hard. “This place is disgusting.”
“Are your father’s whorehouses better?”
“Most of them aren’t, no. But he’s got a few more luxurious establishments as well.”
Dinara nipped at her vodka then set it down again. I slid closer to her, seeking her gaze.
“Thank you for being at my side,” she murmured. “You have every reason to mistrust me or to mind your own business but instead you chose to help me, even when I’m being a bitch.”
“You aren’t a bitch. You are stubborn and strong-willed.”
A slow smile spread on her beautiful face but it dropped rapidly.
Her eyes snapped toward the bar and I followed her gaze. A woman and a man had just stepped back into the bar through the backdoor. The man had his arm wrapped around her waist and she was leaning into him, giving him a flirty smile. Her hair was colored a burgundy red and her skin was tanned, but her cheekbones were unmistakable.
Dinara froze. “It’s her.”
She sounded small and terrified, like that girl in the recordings. I ran my thumb over her hand, hoping to give her strength. I narrowed my eyes at her mother who was still all over her customer. Hatred burned in my veins. Hatred and a hunger for revenge on Dinara’s behalf. I wished she’d ask me to handle the woman for her. I wouldn’t hesitate—pretending otherwise would have been a fucking lie. I wouldn’t even have qualms about it.
Eden kissed her customer one last time before he walked off, then her pleasant smile fell and she scowled at his back before she turned to the men at the bar with a seductive smile. She hadn’t noticed us.
“I need to go,” Dinara pressed out. “Now.”
She jerked to her feet, her eyes haunted. I stood, grabbed her hand and led her outside as fast as I could. I wasn’t sure if Eden saw us, and even if she did, would she even recognize Dinara?