I met his furious gaze. Grown men fell to their knees before this man but I’d never been scared of him. Maybe I was a fool for thinking I was safe from his cruel side. “Protecting me now, against my will I might add, won’t make the past undone. I know you feel guilty for being unable to protect me back then.”
The fury multiplied, his eyes practically burning up with rage but behind it guilt flared up.
“The Falcones never had the power to throw me into any abyss, because I’ve been living in a fucking hell for years, from the moment the first bastard raped me.”
Dad gripped one of the expensive Fabergé eggs from his desk and tossed it against the closest wall. It shattered with an earsplitting crash and every beautiful piece fell to the floor. The word rape was one we’d skidded around so far. We knew what had happened but somehow putting a word to it had threatened to make it worse. I took his hand, stepping closer. “You can’t save me, Dad. No one can. I need to claw myself out of the abyss my mother threw me into.”
“Don’t speak that name.”
“Killing those men felt good, so good. Their pain took away some of my own.”
Dad cupped my cheeks, searching my eyes as if he hoped to find the little daughter that he’d dressed in princess dresses. But that girl was dead, died many painful deaths to be reborn as something vile and vengeful. “If I could make undone what’s been done to you, I’d kill every single of my men just to get my little Katinka back.”
My eyes prickled. “I know. But she’s dead, and now I’m going to make sure every single person who killed her will be too.”
“A father never wants his daughter to become like him, not if he’s a man like myself.”
“I’m glad I’m like you in this regard. I’m glad I could hold the knife that executed the kill. I’m glad I’m not the princess in need of a prince to settle her scores.”
“But you got help from the Falcone prince, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “He helped me track them down. But it was me who killed them. They’re all dead. Now only my mother is left.”
“I should be the one to kill her, not you. Killing a woman, killing your mother, will leave scars. Scars I don’t think you should inflict on yourself.”
I smiled emotionlessly. “She’s the worst monster of them all. That woman is the reason why I’ll never know what the word “mother” really means. Killing her will set me free.”
Dad stroked my cheek. “I hope it does. I really hope it does, but if I’ve learned something over the years, it’s that revenge rarely sets us free. It only shackles us to new demons. Sometimes those only join the old ones. I can’t lose you, Dinara.”
I pulled back with a frown. “You think I’ll run off with Adamo, join the Camorra.”
“That’s not the loss I worry about.” His fingers curled around my forearm.
“I didn’t try to kill myself. And I haven’t been cutting myself in a while.” Despite the many years that had passed since my slip, Dad couldn’t get over it and I felt guilty because of it, but I was trying to live a new, better life.
Dad’s eyes became distant. “When Dima found you in a puddle of blood with foam around your mouth, I thought I’d lost you.”
“I won’t overdose again, Dad. I’m clean. You know no one’s going to sell me shit in your territory anyway.”
“What about Camorra territory?”
“Not there either, trust me. Adamo made sure of it.”
“Adamo,” Dad repeated, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “What’s really between you and this Falcone boy?”
“He’s not a boy, Dad.”
Dad just kept staring into my eyes. “Is it serious?”
“What would you do if I said yes?”
“You’re going to be torn between two worlds.”
“It’s the same world, just different sides.”
“Exactly. You know I can’t allow you to date the enemy. Nobody will understand it.”
“They don’t have to, as long as you do.”
“Do you realize in what position you put me? Allowing you to keep wandering around in Camorra lands puts the business at risk. Moscow won’t be happy about that.”
“I don’t know anything about your business, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“If the Camorra used you as bait, they’d have me in their hands and you know it.”
I smiled wryly. “You know Remo better than I do, and even I know he’d never use me like that.”
“That man doesn’t have a kind bone in his body, Dinara. There’s a reason why he controls the west without a hiccup.”
“There’s a reason why you’re Pakhan, Dad. Still you live by certain rules. One of them makes sure you’re allowing me to do what I do even though you disapprove, and the same rules have Remo Falcone see me as off-limits as well.”
“Having men like us in your hand, that’s a powerful position to be in, I hope you realize that,” he murmured, cupping my head. “I’m gifting you with more freedom than I’d ever allow anyone else and not because of these rules you mention.”
“Because of pity,” I guessed.
Dad smiled wistfully. “Oh, not pity either. The girl before me today doesn’t need my pity.” He kissed my temple. “Love’s a fool’s game. Don’t play it.”
“I need to return to Vegas to finish what I started.”
Dad’s lips thinned. “Don’t lose yourself. Don’t give your mother any power over you. She deserves to die and be forgotten.”
The last few killings had been easy, easier than they should have been, but maybe killing lay in my blood like Adamo always claimed it lay in his.
Today was different though, and nothing about it would be easy. I felt even more nervous than before the very first kill. Adamo squeezed my hand, his gaze seeking mine, trying to determine if I was okay.
I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. My emotions tumbled all over themselves, and I’d thrown up what little I’d had for breakfast. This was the summit I had to climb. Every kill until this point had been mere preparation for this day. When I’d talked to Dad yesterday, he’d offered to kill her if I couldn’t go through with it. Adamo, too, wouldn’t hesitate to take this burden off my shoulders, but I couldn’t allow either man to kill for me. This was between my mother and me. She was the one who’d sold me to the highest bidder, who’d ripped me away from my home and my father because she wanted freedom. Dad had never revealed the details of their relationship—until last night.
He’d met her as an escort but their sexual encounters had ended in my mother becoming pregnant with me, and my father insisting she kept me. Later, he forbade her to work as an escort, sent her into a rehabilitation clinic and forced her to live in his mansion, so I had a mother. He’d wanted me to have parents but my mother had never wanted to have me, to be a mom, to be clean. She wanted her life back and when it became clear my father wouldn’t give it to her, she used me as a means to punish him and to get what she wanted.
“Dinara?” Adamo asked, worried.