Page 23 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

Nella

‘To Clarkson.’ Five shot glasses clinked, and then the burn of tequila tore down Nella’s throat.

Saying his name in sombre cheers felt hollow and heartless after the funeral.

Everyone from the office had stayed long enough to offer their condolences to Mr Lieu before awkwardly shuffling off into their cars and swapping their borrowed tissues for shot glasses at the Bindi Bindi Tavern.

Because that’s what people like Nella did when something like this happened.

Jett, who’d been playing the role of bodyguard frustratingly well, had finally conceded Nella to Eliza’s care in his Vittoria-sanctioned three hours off. Bloody Eliza – since when did she stoop low enough to follow orders from Tom and Jett?

‘Where are you going?’ she’d asked him as he pulled into the tavern parking lot, this time parking the car with his usual precision.

He didn’t look at her, but he’d avoided looking at her most of the day. ‘I have a date later, so I’m going home to change. It’s technically my afternoon off – Tom’s aware.’

Translation: it’s not actually my job to babysit you. I have a life too, you know.

‘Don’t wear the white shirt with the blue trim. It makes you look like a sailor.’

Translation: I never asked you to babysit me. I don’t care who you date anyway. You’re the one who got all weird about it and deliberately didn’t tell me.

But she’d carried a pip in her stomach that had gradually grown heavier as she walked away from the car, as she thought about the law ball the next day and having to see Oliver again. The pip became lighter the more alcohol she drank.

‘Steady on,’ Daisy said, flicking her pink hair over her shoulder, her septum piercing catching in the glint of the low bar lights, earning her an approving smirk from the male bartender.

The heritage-listed pub was crowded, even for a Friday night.

The local band, Rascal, which Nella thought would have been too good for the local tavern by now, was testing amps in the corner.

Groups who’d come early to get a good spot up front were shifting through to the ‘dance floor’ (a small, carpeted area with more beer stains than the rest of the floor).

Nella felt like the rest of the room was encased in a bubble – sounds muffled, faces slightly blurred.

Even though she was right in the middle, up on a pleather stool in the busiest part of the bar, she wasn’t part of it.

‘She’s fine,’ Eliza said, pushing one of the two identical fruity cocktails she’d ordered towards Nella. They were almost the same nectarine orange colour as Eliza’s hair. ‘You made much progress?’

‘Not much.’ She kept her voice low, not wanting her staff to think she was insensitive (well, no more than normal) by talking about the lawsuit just hours after saying goodbye to the man they’d found dead in their office.

‘I’m stuck until I know exactly what Clarkson was looking at, and what he found, if anything.

How it connects to the wine – if it does at all. ’

‘You reckon if you find his notes at the ball you’ll put to bed the claim the La Marcas are making over the recipe?’

‘Fairly confident.’ Nella would be bloody lucky if she actually got through the door to the ball.

Oliver had promised he’d get her, Jett and Tom in, but that had been almost a week ago.

And Nella wasn’t exactly going to go out of her way to make contact with Oliver.

Though really, she should just get over it.

The incident had been years ago, and she’d never said anything to him, she hadn’t done anything.

And even if Nella’s name did get them past security into the ball, there was still the small matter of breaking into Clarkson’s office and his safe.

To prove her confidence, or maybe just to shut down any more questions, she drained the cocktail.

As she tipped her head back, she could almost feel the blisteringly sweet alcohol draining into her brain.

Somewhere, in the dredged sewers of her synapses, she remembered she had to be on her game tomorrow.

She wasn’t in Perth anymore, on her self-destructive downward spiral.

But hell, this felt too good. She’d forgotten feeling numb.

She missed feeling numb. Here, there was no little voice telling her she’d never be good enough. Here, her father was truly dead.

Eliza motioned the bartender for another round, but he didn’t see her, so Nella stumbled off her stool and gripped a row of shoulders – Pearl, Ian, Daisy, random stranger – as she shimmied in to get the bartender’s attention.

‘Hey,’ a low voice said to her right. She looked up, everything moving slightly out of time with reality as she was trapped by the crystal blue eyes of Noah Avery.

Fuck, was she a suspect? Here she was, drinking like an eighteen-year-old using their ID for the first time, on the night of Clarkson’s funeral.

She might as well be using his coffin as a trampoline.

‘Avery. Uh, hello.’ She curtseyed.

He raised an eyebrow. Then laughed.

The pip inside her was starting to crack. Screw Jett and whatever it was he’d said about Avery. The detective was kind of cute, six drinks deep.

‘I’m a cop, Nella, not the King. And I’m off duty anyway.’

Well, if that wasn’t an invitation ...

‘Can I help you?’ A lithe blonde woman with a long neck and a nose that looked like it had been squashed against a window grabbed Avery’s bicep and glared at Nella.

‘Depends,’ Nella drawled. ‘Do you work here? ’Cause I really need another drink.’

The blonde dug her nails into Avery’s arm, the giant rock on her left finger angled deliberately to blind anyone looking directly at it.

Nella enjoyed the swooping, claw-sharpening sensation that came with being perceived as a threat.

There was something primordially intoxicating about being hated by older women.

‘Won’t be long now,’ Blondie said. ‘You’re going to fall off your throne sooner or later. I’ve seen all the reports about the civil suit. The La Marcas have got you by the balls. Being a Barbarani isn’t going to be such a great thing soon, Antonella. Stay away from him.’

Okay, who the fuck ...

The bartender was now giving them his full attention. Avery was staring at his partner with an open mouth. Nella was alight on the inside, but on the outside, she was still frozen over.

‘Lots to unpack there,’ she said.

The blonde woman rolled her shoulders back but didn’t speak.

Nella pointed her cocktail umbrella at her.

‘Normally, the opinions of inbred cousin-fuckers like you don’t register on my give-a-shit scale.

But let’s make one thing clear: if you actually think you need to be possessive of him’—she jabbed the umbrella at Avery—‘then I’ll happily give you a business card for the best psychiatrist in Australia.

You’re certifiable if you think I’d even consider fucking your Neanderthal boyfriend. ’

She added the No offence, Avery in her head.

‘Harsh words, Barbarani,’ the cop said cheerfully, eyes narrowing at Blondie.

Everyone thought Nella was fair game. The more they saw of you, in the news, on socials, the less human you became.

Hell, Sally Sue had literally packaged up Nella like a doll.

They wanted her money, her body, her opinions, but they never wanted her .

Then there were the people like the blonde, who thought they were so above her because they were real and tangible.

It was their divine right as mortal beings to strip her of her powers, to remind her she could fall, because that’s what women like her were always destined to do when they climbed too high.

This was why Nella had her challenges.

The darkest parts of her used to wish for trauma.

Like the scales of justice, and the balance that always must be kept between the Barbaranis and the La Marcas, she thought if something bad happened to her, it would cancel out her privilege.

She’d wanted desperately to be someone who’d been dealt a difficult deck of cards, like Jett with his drug-addicted parents and Daisy with her single-parent upbringing, reliant on Centrelink cheques.

Nella was jealous of the depth it gave them.

People like that who’d crawled their way out – they deserved happiness.

People like her didn’t. If they got it, it was almost always stolen, or counterfeit.

Without waiting for Avery’s fiancée to respond – or spit at her – Nella ordered another round, randomly jabbing a finger at the third cocktail on the plastic menu.

All she could feel was the heat of eyes.

Everyone’s – her friends from the office, Eliza, Avery, his troll of a fiancée, the bartender, the band, the entire pub, the entire world. Her dead father. Grey. Max. Jett.

Maybe if she hadn’t been so focused on the gazes of ghosts, she would have seen the bartender’s fingers slipping on the second pint glass.

Avery reached for the beers, but Blondie intercepted. The bartender didn’t react quickly enough to the four hands outstretched in front of her. Avery fumbled with the drink on the right, trying to catch it, but Blondie’s fingers knocked it over.

Nella’s opaque black lace top was as much defence as a fishing net against the onslaught of cold sticky beer.

‘Oh, Ms Barbarani, I’m so sorry!’ The bartender’s ears went red. Avery grabbed a box of napkins and shoved them at Nella, while Blondie made some sort of apology that no one bought. Everyone at the bar was silent.