Page 20 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

‘It’s not just your brother.’ Vittoria chewed the inside of her mouth as she appeared beside them.

Her aura of tobacco and thick rosewater perfume engulfed the corner.

‘You are in charge of protecting this family’s fortune, our reputation, our everything.

You are not going strutting off into the woods without your huntsman, Little Red Riding Hood. ’

‘Your huntsman doesn’t work for you anymore.’ Nella very much enjoyed reminding her mother of Grey’s resignation.

‘Not him.’ Vittoria sniffed. ‘You’ll take the chauffeur.’

Honestly, sometimes it was like Vittoria thought she was on the set of Downton Abbey.

‘ Jett ,’ Tom and Nella corrected her. Vittoria sniffed again, which could either mean she was laying the groundwork for a fake illness or had been snorting cocaine from her dresser.

But Nella shook her head. ‘I don’t need Jett standing guard while I look through court documents. What are you hoping he’ll save me from – a paper cut?’

‘You just lectured me over being callous about our previous lawyer’s death,’ Tom said. ‘Your refusal to admit there’s a danger here is the same thing.’

‘You will take the wolf to protect you, Little Red.’ Vittoria gripped Nella’s upper arm with her new nails: coffin-shaped.

Fitting. She planted a kiss on her forehead, which felt more like a branding.

‘Or he doesn’t get to leave,’ she hissed against Nella’s ear.

Then Vittoria pulled back like nothing had happened and turned to survey the rest of the family.

‘ Mama, no, we don’t need the crostoli now. ’ She stalked over to Nonna Maria.

‘What does she mean – Jett has to protect me or he doesn’t get to leave?’

Tom squinted. ‘Mother’s letting Jett out of his contract if he sticks around until the end of the trial.’

‘ Protecting me?’

‘Well, I added that clause,’ Tom said. ‘Now that Lieu’s ... you know.’

‘And what if I refuse?’

‘Then Jett doesn’t go.’

Goddamn it. For all her mother’s faults and apparent lack of concern for the intricacies of her children’s adult lives, she sure knew how to trap them like animals she’d been studying for years.

Vittoria knew Nella cared about Jett, that he was a friend, not just an employee; she knew there was no way Nella would force him to stay against his will, no matter how angry she was at him.

It was his will that was the problem.

‘What’s your plan?’ Tom stood over her, obstructing her view of the family.

‘I’ll let you know once I know.’ Telling Tom that she was planning to search for the information in Clarkson’s notebook after she’d just turned her nose up at his offer of protection wasn’t the best idea.

He would jump to the same conclusion she had – that whatever was in that notebook had got Clarkson killed.

But if she could work out who Abby was . ..

‘Don’t try to slip away from Randall,’ Tom said, beckoning Jett over like he was a dog. ‘You don’t want to ruin his great escape.’

Nella was already walking away. The past six months of penthouse air conditioning meant she was acclimatised to a stable atmosphere of approximately 24 degrees.

The unfiltered Bindi Bindi air was already a hot, soupy breath down her neck before she’d left the mansion steps into the garden.

The cobalt sky mocked her – everything here was brilliantly bright and perfect to contrast the swirling darkness inside her.

Ungrateful , the weather hissed.

Footsteps followed. Even if she hadn’t heard them, she’d know he was there.

‘They told you.’

‘Did you think they wouldn’t?’ she asked.

‘Nella, I ...’

‘You want out, and I’m your ticket. I get it, there’s nothing left to say.’

‘There’s plenty to say.’ He’d caught up to her. Not hard in her Louis Vuittons. ‘I would have stayed until this is over anyway, now that ...’

‘Now that someone else is dead?’

‘I don’t need a contract to want to look out for you, Nella.’

She stopped, her heel wobbling on the uneven ground, but she wasn’t going to let him see. ‘What if it’s never over?’

Jett crossed his arms. ‘I have it on good authority that the best lawyer in WA’s on the case.’

She started walking again. The tang of eucalyptus and lavender tousled with the dying scent of leather but then it grew stronger until it was overpowering the natural bushland as he jogged to catch up.

‘So what were you and my private investigator up to so early on a Sunday morning?’

‘You mean Max – your friend?’

‘Not anymore.’

‘Have I been cast out of the Coven of Antonella too?’

‘You were never in.’ Gravel crunched and rolled under her heels.

‘We went to church.’ He was walking beside her now.

‘They only took the sangue bottles, so there’s still wine on our property. You didn’t have to steal it from a church.’

He gave a low chuckle, which infuriated her, because this wasn’t something to chuckle at. And also, she deserved more than a chuckle. Multiple organ-engagement laughter or nothing at all, thank you very much.

‘Raphael goes to church every Sunday,’ she said. ‘Is that who you were harassing?’

‘I didn’t want to upset you.’

‘I’m not upset.’

‘Clearly.’

Raphael. Fuck. She couldn’t hear that name without remembering that moment.

Her last breath. Well, what she’d thought was her last before he pulled the trigger.

She still didn’t believe he’d chosen to spare her life out of the goodness of his heart.

There was no goodness in Raphael. There was no heart.

Working for the La Marcas meant he’d sold his heart along with his soul years ago.

‘You think he had something to do with Clarkson?’ she asked.

‘No.’ They’d made it to the door of Jett’s garage.

His home wasn’t a rammed earth cottage like Greyson’s but a more modern, more severe-looking garage where all the Barbarani cars were stored.

He lived in the loft, accessed via a metal spiral staircase.

When Nella was younger she used to think the chauffeur’s residence was incredibly romantic, like something out of a fairytale, because of that staircase and the wide windows looking out onto the vineyards and karri forest.

She studied Jett’s face for signs that he was lying to her. The morning sun made his scar shimmer slightly, like the path cut through the night sky by a falling star.

He realised she was staring and turned to release the garage door.

There was a minor interlude in their feuding while Razor bowled them over with his deliriously happy paws, claws and tongue.

He was a Maremma Sheepdog that Eliza couldn’t rehome after his previous owners abandoned him, so Nella had brought him to the garage to help Jett guard the cars.

She had sympathised with Razor at first sight.

For some reason, she understood him: a crocodile in a gorgeous, pale retriever coat.

Jett liked him because he was loud and he bit hard.

‘I don’t think it was Raphael,’ Jett said finally, opening a can of dog food and plonking it in Razor’s pink diamante bowl; Luca had got it for his third birthday.

He wasn’t telling her everything. She waited until he’d discarded the empty tin before she tried a new tactic. ‘My cousin thinks you’re hot.’

Jett knelt down besides the yellow Lamborghini (Irene), pressing his thumb against her front tyre. ‘Which cousin is that – the one who shoved two crostoli up his nose and then proceeded to eat them?’

‘Sirena, the brunette.’

‘All your cousins are brunette.’

‘Stop. You know exactly who I’m talking about.’

He shrugged, moving on to the back tyres. She clomped along behind him, her heels echoing in the cold garage.

‘Well, I told her you were dating someone.’ Band-aid ripped.

Jett’s shoulders stiffened but he kept doing whatever he was pretending to do – check the tyres, cut the brakes. How was she meant to know?

‘So,’ she continued, annoyance flaring that he wasn’t taking the bait, ‘you’ll have to pretend to have a girlfriend.’

‘Why?’ He turned now, fingertips black. ‘Why does it matter if your cousin thinks I’m hot?’

Call the media, buy the biggest billboard, order one of those planes to fly across the sky with a banner, because Nella Barbarani was officially speechless.

‘You want to ... go out with Sirena?’

‘Would it matter if I did?’

‘You’re not answering my question.’

‘You’re not answering mine.’

She would not be the one to break eye contact first. This was not how it was meant to go. She’d only wanted to get him to bite so she could ask him what he’d learnt from Raphael, but now she’d led them to a place neither of them recognised.

She stumbled forward. ‘You can’t date my cousin.’

‘Well, you’re in luck, Nella.’ He wiped his hands on a rag that had been resting on Irene’s bonnet.

She could smell the oil and metal and petrol that was always potent in the garage, but this close to him there was also that undercurrent of pepper and leather musk that was solely Jett. ‘You didn’t lie to her.’

‘What?’ Her heart liquefied.

‘I am dating someone. No need to atone for your sins.’

‘You ... you’re ...’ Something was ringing in her ears.

‘That hard to believe, huh?’ Something shifted in his eyes.

What was going on? Why was she reacting like this? She knew deep down Jett wasn’t celibate. Just because he didn’t parade his love-life around in front of her didn’t mean he hadn’t been dating people all these years.

But would her father have had rules about who Jett was allowed to bring on the property?

Surely he wouldn’t have been okay with his employee bringing random girls into the garage.

It was kind of a shit job if you were trying to build something serious, so Nella had always assumed Jett wasn’t ever in a serious relationship .

.. but he could have been, couldn’t he?

She’d never asked. Everything had always been about her, and her life, and her drop-kick boyfriends he’d had to drive her away from or drive off the property.

Why hadn’t she ever thought to push deeper?

She’d made it her business to know everything about Greyson’s love-life, so why had she always turned a blind eye to Jett’s?

‘Who?’ she demanded, when she found her voice.

But Jett was shaking his head. ‘Just get in the car and tell me where we’re going.’

‘Who? I have a right to know!’

‘Do you?’ His eyes flashed, and she should have let it go and got into the car like he’d said.

Instead, she stepped closer. She was technically his boss, goddamn it.

Yes, she was a foot shorter than him and technically her mother was in charge of the estate workers, but she was Nella Barbarani and he had to follow her orders.

‘I’m your boss,’ she said, hating and loving those words as they swelled together in her mouth.

‘Which, according to laws you should be familiar with, gives you even less of a right to enquire about my personal life.’

‘Why can’t you tell me?’ Now she’d done a 180 from controlled aggression to whiny, pre-teen desperation.

‘Because it’s none of your business. Stop trying to control me just because your own life’s a mess right now.’

Ouch. ‘It’s all right for you, you can just leave all of this behind in your rearview mirror when you drive off to your perfect job with your perfect girlfriend, leaving the rest of us here in this ... this ...’

Fucking nightmare. Never-ending hell. Death row.

The fire was back, in her throat, the corners of her eyes. But she was too angry for tears. They weren’t enough.

‘Nella ...’

‘I’ll drive myself.’ She lunged for the keys in his pants pocket. The shock of her attack sent them both slamming into Irene’s front door. She grabbed at the pocket but staggered as he tried to fend her off. Her hand brushed the bulge she’d been reaching for ...

Okay, that wasn’t the keys. She snapped her hand back, her cheeks on fire. Definitely, definitely not keys.

‘For fuck’s sake, Nella,’ he growled.

‘I’m ...’ Her heart thumped in her throat.

Jett adjusted his belt in what she personally felt was a slight overreaction and slipped the keys out of his pocket. She kept her eyes up.

‘Don’t report me to HR,’ she said.

‘You mean your mother? Yeah, I think I’ll keep this one to myself.’

Her mind spun. She’d never really touched Jett before.

Obviously not there, but they didn’t hug or anything – Giovanni had always been clear about his workers maintaining a professional distance from his family.

Sure, Jett had scooped her up off the floor in a drunken state way too many times, and let her lean on him when she broke her ankle during a netball game, and at eighteen when she’d been drugged by Sally Sue so that she could barely hold herself upright . ..

But this was ...

She grabbed the garage door buzzer, the only part of his keys not enclosed in his fist. ‘So can I, uh ...?’

He raised an eyebrow, face complete stone.

Was he remembering all those times he had given her the keys? Back when he was the only one who didn’t fear for his life with her at the wheel, back when home was still the Barbarani Estate for both of them.

‘You cannot.’

He was pushing her away, and she was acting like a seventeen-year-old brat. She needed to grow up. She needed to let him go.

‘You don’t have a licence anymore, Nella.’

She nodded and let go.