Page 14 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

She didn’t want to go there. ‘That’s some heavy baggage to start carrying so young,’ she said instead, picking at a thread on her tracksuit pants.

Every time she thought of Jett as a kid her insides tensed up.

He hadn’t told her much even though she’d been so curious about his parents when she was younger and stupid, asking too many questions.

‘Which one was Black?’ she’d asked.

‘I don’t even know if I’m Black,’ he’d said. ‘My mum was white – says so on my birth certificate. No info on my dad. All I know is that he wasn’t born here – he immigrated from somewhere, one of the other six continents. Probably not Antarctica, but who knows.’

‘Don’t you want to know?’ Some part of her had secretly wished his past was her own, that she didn’t know her father, that she’d been left somewhere, abandoned, with nowhere to go but up.

Instead of where she stood, trying to balance on a pinnacle with everyone tearing at her flesh, hoping to rip her down.

‘No.’ He’d said it harshly. Even at eighteen, she’d known to shut up.

Now, sitting inside Bessy, Jett sighed. ‘It was a lifetime ago.’ He dug his thumbs into the stitching of the steering wheel but didn’t make any movement to drive off.

He clearly didn’t think she was capable of holding any more about his past in the foster system. Did he talk to Grey about it? To her brothers?

‘I’m sorry you went through that. And I know sometimes suicide seems to come out of nowhere, but I’m telling you, Clarkson didn’t do this to himself. Ian says there was a belt around his neck.’

Jett stared ahead, not engaging.

‘He wasn’t wearing a belt, Jett. He was in chinos.’

He raised an eyebrow slightly but she knew he still didn’t buy it.

‘Coincidences don’t exist,’ she continued. ‘The La Marcas sue my family, Clarkson comes in, starts snooping around in everyone’s dirty laundry and ten seconds later he’s dead. Why am I the only one who sees what’s going on here?’

Jett was looking at her the way she never wanted anyone to look at her, ever. Poor, disillusioned Nella with her rich-girl baggage, seeing murder everywhere, trying to stir up drama, making everything about her.

‘It’s not about me,’ she said, before he could. Although maybe that wasn’t entirely true. I knew him. He passed all the challenges. I can’t have been that wrong about a person twice in my life.

‘How close were you?’ Jett asked.

‘Why does everyone keep asking me that? What do you and Avery actually mean when you ask that? Was I fucking him? Or did I kill him?’

He dropped his head towards the wheel. ‘Sometimes a question’s just a bloody question, Nella. Not everyone has sinister motivations to take advantage of you. Especially not me.’

‘Especially because now you’re leaving.’

‘Exactly.’

They fell silent, their breath fogging up the car on this unnaturally cool February night.

‘Did you know Clarkson was already working for Dad before Tom brought him onto this case?’ Nella said eventually, silencing her phone as another call came through.

Jett traced random patterns in the fog. ‘No.’

‘You remember the green notebook he was carrying all day?’

He drew a star. ‘Yeah.’

‘It’s missing.’

‘Could just be in evidence.’

‘Avery said it’s not.’

‘Avery’s barely out of the academy. He should be handling DUIs and locking up aggressive night-clubbers in the city, but because of the cop shortages they’ve given him a detective badge when he’s barely out of training wheels.’

Nella couldn’t help smiling a little. ‘He did spit the proverbial dummy when I called him on his bullshit. He accused me of being a manipulative bitch, using the force or whatever to get everyone to do what I want. Said it was an “art”.’

Jett tapped his finger on the wheel.

Nella frowned. ‘What?’

‘Well.’ He shifted.

‘Yes?’ The word hissed out like a tyre going flat.

‘Come on.’ He raised an eyebrow, dark eyes burrowing into her. ‘You know exactly what he’s talking about.’

‘I use people?’

Jett sighed. ‘You just don’t understand the effect you have on people like Avery.’

‘Redheads?’

‘Men.’ The kick he gave the clutch, revving Bessy awake, felt like it had got her in the stomach instead. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know.’

‘No. Spell it out.’ She twisted so she was facing him.

His shoulders were tight, both hands on the wheel.

(Jett NEVER used both hands, like it was an insult to his skill as a driver or something.) ‘How many poor, helpless males have I driven to commit terrible sins under the hypnotic spell of my siren song?’

‘Ha.’ He checked his mirrors as he pulled out from the car park. ‘If the karaoke at Luca’s twenty-first birthday’s anything to go by, it’s got nothing to do with your singing, that’s for sure.’

He was indulging her. Was it because he sensed she needed to breathe before she dived back down to face the cold, murky reality of Clarkson and the lawsuit? Or because he still saw her as the bratty teenager who didn’t have the emotional intelligence to cope with such heavy matters?

‘Avery’s straight.’ Jett indicated onto the main road that would take them back to the Barbarani Estate. ‘It’s part of his evolutionary make-up to want to say yes to you and give you the key to the evidence room.’

‘Because my surname’s Barbarani ? You know you’re literally just reiterating why I have my challenges.’

‘Because ...’ Jett’s eyes flicked over again, and this time they stayed on her a moment longer. ‘You know why, Nella, for fuck’s sake. Stop trying to trip me up. I’m not being sexist, I’m just telling it like it is. Cut Avery a break. He’s not deliberately sabotaging this investigation.’

‘Why are you angry at me?’

‘I’m ...’ He breathed out.

That’s not why he wanted to fuck you.

Everything had been off-balance between her and Jett since he’d come to the penthouse to drag her back here.

Or, okay, since the funeral. What she’d said wasn’t exactly a paper cut she could pat better.

Her words had gouged deep into layers of skin.

Maybe even hit bone. This wasn’t going to heal quickly.

But god, she desperately wanted their old banter back, the easy way they could be with each other.

Now she was second guessing everything she said.

Now he was leaving.

‘How did you get your scar?’ she asked.

Her chest untightened as his shoulders visibly relaxed. ‘Alien abduction.’

She glanced at him. ‘Think you used that one two years ago.’

‘I didn’t. I’m keeping track – got a spreadsheet.’

She leant back into the seat; the scar question was always a call for truce.

Even though it had never really been a game to her, she’d never been able to let his silence on the matter go.

Did that dark, rotting part of her want to know in case it was something she could use against him to keep him on the Barbarani Estate, even if she had no intention of staying herself?

An evil witch searching for a spell to bind him to her forever.

Tom called again; he’d been ringing so frequently her thigh felt dead when the phone wasn’t buzzing against it.

Jett glanced at it, the tiny bones in his jaw clenching. ‘You know what he wants.’

‘I can’t.’ She pressed her nails into her palm as they soared past the forest. Tiny pinpricks of stars were starting to puncture the sky like spilled glitter glue. They were never like that in the city.

‘Nel.’

‘ I can’t .’ This time she couldn’t freeze the tears before they scorched down her cheeks. If she kept facing the trees, maybe Jett wouldn’t notice.

CRSSH. The ground rumbled. ‘What are you ...?’

Bessy’s wheels crunched over gravel as Jett steered her to a stop by an old farm gate. The only reason he would ever sacrifice Bessy to gravel was if he were having a heart attack. What was he doing?

‘Hey.’

His voice pulled the tears out faster. She wiped them quickly with the back of her hand. Her phone vibrated again.

The La Marcas. This was all them. They weren’t going to stop until they’d taken everything, until Nella and what was left of her family were either in jail, dead or stripped of everything they once had.

And how dare they! It was her grandfather who was killed fifty years ago, not Antonio La Marca.

If they thought Emilio Barbarani had stolen the wine recipe, wasn’t his untimely death enough of a punishment?

But no matter what Jett said about Avery, there would be no evidence tying the La Marcas to Clarkson’s death.

Just like there was no evidence tying their future son-in-law to the wine poisoning.

Poppy Raven.

Clarkson Lieu.

How many more people had to die before this generational war could be buried?

She’d meant to say all this in her head, but it had come out, as free-flowing as her burning, embarrassing tears.

She felt Jett sigh. Then the car shook as he slammed the driver’s door and strode around Bessy’s nose. Cool night air and smells of eucalypt, damp bark of the Karri trees and spicy, leather Jett scent blew over her as he opened her door.

‘Hey,’ he said again, bending so she was forced to look into his dark rum-coloured eyes. Gently he pried her hands away from her face and pulled her out of the car. Her legs gave way as everything hit her all at once. Clarkson, dead. Ian, traumatised. Forrest, free. Jett, leaving.

He caught her body against his, pulling her upright. She leant against him and Bessy, the sharp night air freezing her tears in the way she’d been unable to.

He let her stay there, breathing in the scent she’d become so familiar with, the scent of safety and comfort and coming home. What was the smell of home going to be when he was gone? What had it been before him? She couldn’t remember.

His chin rested on her head. They weren’t embracing exactly, just leaning on each other. Friends again.