Page 3 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

Nella

If he threw one more thing into that bin bag ...

One more exasperated sigh and she was going to throw her hairdryer in the bathtub. She’d turned on the spa so he wouldn’t hear her sob. She could still hear him , because Jett had a distinct sigh he’d patented just for her.

This is what that sigh was trying to say: Typical Barbarani brat. So she’s just been partying away the past six months while I’ve been working my arse off trying to salvage the shitshow left behind after the gala and the funeral? So happy for you, Nella, you do you.

Or: She’s still never apologised for what she said.

Or probably: It would have made my life a hell of a lot easier if Raphael had actually shot her six months ago.

She threw the vibrator against the door.

It landed with a satisfying thunk on the white tiles, with the battery compartment shattered open.

Three Triple As rolled to freedom. On the other side of the door: silence.

She stared at the shell-shaped door handle, imagining it twisting and a tall, dark figure bursting in to make sure she was okay.

But he wouldn’t, because there was the chance she’d be naked.

And no matter what evil villain role she’d cast Jett into during her feverish nightmares these past six months, he wasn’t that guy.

She couldn’t imagine the expression on the Barbarani driver’s face if he walked in here and saw her nipples peeking out over the white foam mountain range she was half submerged under.

Jett had never seen her the way men like Victor did. (Was that actually his name?)

Drunk crying was sobering her up. Lavender and hibiscus soap suds glistened in the rainbow swirls of the bathwater, wafting up her nose like a dangerous love potion.

‘I’m turning on the coffee machine,’ he called. Ha , it must be killing him to break the silence first.

‘Double espresso,’ she called back. ‘There should be Tim Tams somewhere.’

‘They’re all gone.’

Nella lay back in the lavender water. Its thick perfume consumed her lovingly, the dizzying heat reminding her again how easily it would embrace her completely ...

‘I’m leaving a clean towel and a bathrobe outside.’

Fucking Jett. She couldn’t even drown herself without him interrupting.

A minute (or twenty) later, robe tied and towel wrapped around her hair like royal headgear, Nella glared at her reflection in the steamy mirror as the rumble of the state-of-the-art espresso machine filtered through the still-closed door.

‘Who should I fire for sending you here?’ she called as she started her evening skincare routine.

She never skipped a night and certainly wasn’t going to let Jett be the downfall of her collagen.

The foam of her mint-scented cleanser soaked disapprovingly into her pores, which had broken out over the past few months from her diet of take-out and wine.

Her eye cream did shit all for the dark half-moons under her eyes; her mother used to say they were bruises from God’s thumbs as he marked Italian girls as beautiful.

But Nella felt far from beautiful as she took in her crater face, where she’d squeezed and gouged her newfound pimples.

Her cheeks were bloated from the booze and salt, and there was a strange cut on her forearm she didn’t remember getting.

‘Jett?’ she called when he still hadn’t replied.

His name sounded like an order; she couldn’t help it.

She was more pissed off at her reflection than him, but she couldn’t tell him that.

Sometimes she was terrified he understood how she worked better than she did.

She twisted the lid back on Tom’s moisturiser (why were male-targeted beauty products always better?) and followed the smell of coffee out of the bathroom.

‘I’ll tell you once we’re in the car.’ He didn’t look up from where he stood in the now-spotless kitchen, espresso machine pouring thick brown shots into the cups he held under the spout.

‘Tell me now or I’m not going.’

He sighed, opening the fridge for the milk. That man had never met a coffee he couldn’t ruin. ‘Here.’ He passed her a cup of espresso, which she gulped down. She felt him watching her as he sipped his own.

‘The kitchen smells weird.’

‘It’s eau de lack of maggots .’

She ran her tongue over her teeth. Furry. Had she brushed them this morning or just popped a mint? ‘Someone dead?’

‘No.’

‘Forrest Valentine’s finally been arrested for killing Poppy Raven?’

‘No.’

‘Then I don’t care. Whatever it is doesn’t override what I said at the funeral. Go home, Jett.’

I never want to see your disgusting face again.

Those words had rattled through her every night since – a snake sick from its own poison.

They were what flicked the extra shots into her drinks, what drove her towards totally unsuitable strangers.

She knew she’d said some other unforgiveable things too, but that was the one she couldn’t forget. Remembering was her penance.

She hadn’t meant his scar, but how the hell else was he meant to take it?

‘Tom sent me,’ Jett said, avoiding all eye contact.

‘Oh, Tom sent you. Why didn’t you say so?

Let’s go then!’ She threw herself down on the (also now-clean) couch, rearranging the fabric of her robe as it dragged up her thighs – she was still butt-naked underneath.

‘At 3.30 a.m.?’ She wasn’t exactly shocked at the time stamp; Tom didn’t view the human need for sleep as an excuse for slacking off at work.

Jett took the armchair opposite her (it was from the set of Friends – Tom had bought it at an auction in New York), cradling his milky coffee in both palms. ‘Was only twelve when I left. He needs you back. Something’s happened.’

‘If my darling brother needs me so badly, why couldn’t he be bothered driving here himself? Or is any form of human interaction now so impossible for my family that it’s easier to send the taxi driver to do it?’

Jett sipped his coffee, his little finger tapping the base of the cup. ‘Guess he’s under the delusion that I can convince you to come home.’

‘Admirable effort so far. I think you’ve earnt your thirty silver coins, Judas.’ She looked pointedly at the yellow couch he’d found her and Victor on. ‘Where are my Doritos?’

‘What?’

‘My packet of Doritos – they were down here somewhere.’ She snatched at the air between the couch and the floor.

‘You must be referring to the packet of mould I tossed down your rubbish chute.’

‘Mould has gut health benefits.’

‘The salt content in those things will kill you quicker than bullets.’

She stared into the dregs of her espresso like a psychic trying to decipher them.

‘Sorry.’ Jett’s voice was quiet. She didn’t want to see the look in his eyes.

The sound of Raphael’s gunshots she’d thought were meant for her and her siblings was the dark lullaby she fell asleep to every night.

But Jett couldn’t know that. Jett thought, like everyone else did, that Nella Barbarani was an unmeltable ice tower, her foundations frozen solid against what would make normal humans splinter and shatter.

‘What does Tom need me for?’ she asked. ‘Hurry up and tell me, then I can turn you down and you can go home and say you did your best. I know he’ll give you a pat and a conciliatory head scratch like the good boy you are.’

He didn’t take the bait. ‘And what will you do? Stay here for another six months, eating, fucking and partying yourself into a coma?’ He put his cup on the coffee table, which was likely relieved to be finally called to its official duty rather than its stand-in as a convenient flat surface for coke lines.

She stretched her legs out along the couch. ‘And tanning.’

He glared at her exposed skin, then blew out his frustration. He took his phone from his pocket and started typing.

Nella picked at a loose thread on her dressing gown, pretending not to watch him.

Aside from his cheeks being a bit more gaunt, Jett looked the same.

His dark skin and all his features like a map of home, a familiarity she’d ached for these past six months, even though it was home she’d fled from in the first place.

His left bicep flexed slightly under his pale blue T-shirt – the bicep she’d bitten like a wild animal as he’d dragged her away from her dad’s funeral.

The letters DCT were inked across that muscle and despite her pleas and bargains and threats, he’d always refused to tell her what they stood for.

In the armchair, his long legs were spaced a polite distance apart, unlike most man-spreaders she’d become accustomed to over her months on city transport.

She’d learnt to drive watching those legs.

He’d agreed to teach her after Dad, Mum, Tom and Greyson had all given up on that particular mission impossible.

Nella had always been clumsy when it came to practical, rhythmic things, like driving or dancing or walking.

But Jett had been patient, or maybe just desperate to prove to her dad that he was useful enough to keep around.

Watching the rhythm of Jett’s legs pushing and releasing the pedals was how she’d finally found her own.

Which she’d lost now, of course. What was the point of learning to drive when you had someone who was paid to do it for you?

Obama wore the same suit every day so he could free up his mind to make more important decisions, and Nella let Jett drive her so she could focus her talents elsewhere.

She shifted her gaze back up to his face where his deep brown eyes were illuminated by the glow of his phone screen – eyes that she’d stared into in what she’d thought were her last moments on Earth.

And then, of course, the thick scar cutting diagonally across his face, which told the story of a secret past he’d never revealed to her.

His face pissed her off because it was a constant reminder that he didn’t trust her with the truth.

‘Check your phone,’ he said now, glancing up. ‘I’ve sent you an email.’