Page 53 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

Nella

‘Before we go in, I require a private moment with Signore La Marca,’ Nella said.

The La Marcas’ lawyer was Riccardo Costa, a tanned, silver-haired beanpole who looked like an elf from The Lord of the Rings .

Nella had never had a high-profile enough case to be pitted against him, but Pearl had.

Before she’d hung up her law degree in favour of answering Nella’s phone and filing her paperwork, Pearl had been the defence attorney for every member of WA’s most notorious bikie gang.

Thinking of the older woman shocked Nella back to the voicemail she’d left her after Ian’s arrest.

They’ve got the belt , Pearl had said. The belt around Clarkson’s neck was Ian’s – it’s got his DNA, and he even told the cops it was missing from his bag when he came back to get it.

I was wrong, Pet, he got changed for the gym at work and he left his bag of work clothes behind – he was telling the truth.

But he didn’t mention the missing belt at the time because he felt like it was his fault – like if he hadn’t left the bag .

.. Anyway, I’ll call you when I know anything else.

Don’t worry about us, you focus on your own case.

Pearl was Ian’s best chance. Nella had to let go and focus on this nightmare instead.

Cameras had flashed and microphones had shoved against her as she, Grey and Max pushed their way through the crowd of media locusts into the courthouse.

Grey fed her some story about Tom being trapped near Nannup, where the fire was.

He’d driven as close as he could get to Tom but the road blockade had turned him around.

Nella didn’t have time to digest it as truth or not.

All she knew was that even if he was in Bindi Bindi Cove, her brother wouldn’t have been here by her side.

Now, in the hall outside the courtroom they were waiting to enter, Costa winked, then eyed her up and down like she was in a bikini at Bindi Bindi beach and he was a shirtless twenty-something lifeguard with time to kill.

Clarkson wouldn’t have had to put up with this shit or, if he did, he probably would have had the balls to wink right back at Costa.

Clarkson. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin a little higher. Power burned through her – not enough to be confident, but enough.

‘I must insist you do not speak to him without me,’ Costa replied.

Nella held his gaze. ‘I’m not a cop.’

‘I insist.’

‘Fine. But just so you know, as soon as he realises what it is I want to talk about, he’s going to insist you leave the room.’

‘I’ll take that bet, Miss Barbarani.’

Nella smiled and mentally kicked him in the crotch.

When Matteo La Marca arrived, smug face contorted into an expression so gleeful, Nella could almost see the indent of a reporter’s microphone on his mouth, Costa explained Nella’s request. Matteo didn’t bat an eyelid, following them into an empty attorney-client conference room.

‘I have a proposition,’ Nella said, once they’d all sat uncomfortably on plastic chairs. The room smelt like stale coffee and egg.

‘Can’t wait.’ Matteo smirked, rolling one of his black rings around his slim fingers.

‘I don’t think we will need to go to court.’

Costa laughed. ‘Oh, Miss Barbarani, I know you haven’t been a lawyer for very long, but this big building with all the fancy adults in suits is a court, sweetheart.’

If she launched across the table now and slugged him in the jaw, she was pretty sure she could get three good hits in before Matteo dragged her off him.

Don’t fuck this up. There’s no back-up now. It’s just you.

She’d texted Daisy telling her not to come, to go to the paralegal conference in Perth she’d wanted to attend, saying she deserved the day off (which quite honestly she did after Nella almost slept with her ex-boyfriend the night he’d broken up with her).

But what she really didn’t want was Daisy to be privy to what she was about to offer Matteo.

She thought of Luca, wherever he was. And Tom. She imagined tubes lodged down his throat, brain grey and static after some sort of car crash, or burns crisping across his body, caught in the wildfire spreading south to Bindi Bindi.

She would not think of Jett.

She thought of her father.

Dad would be proud of you, Nel.

Luca had been right. In trying to prove to her father she didn’t need him, she’d become him.

She’d thrown Luca to the La Marcas, not knowing she was playing directly into Matteo’s hands.

She’d put her little brother in danger in pursuit of the truth, but really it had been to save the Barbarani name.

Which was all her father had ever cared about.

She thought of Max and Grey, and how what she was about to do was the knife that would sever any friendship they’d ever had.

Nella Barbarani was not a true friend. She was not a caring sister or a loving daughter.

She was not cut out to be a mother or a loving wife.

She was the opposite of what someone like Jett deserved.

This was the tip of the ice mountain she’d been carving her whole life.

This was how she was going to win. This was what she was made for.

She just had to summit the last gruelling ridge, her fingers going black from frostbite.

‘I want to offer you a deal.’ She heard the words from her lips as some third party might: assured, confident, deadly.

It was the voice of Giovanni Barbarani.

‘You don’t want to go to trial, do you?’ Costa cut in.

It was a stupid question. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of civil law or who had watched the first season of Suits knew trials were the last resort. Most matters were settled out of court. Lawyers didn’t want to go to trial if they could help it.

‘My offer will benefit us both,’ Nella continued. ‘It involves evidence that’s come to light involving your future son-in-law, Signore La Marca.’

At her mention of Forrest, Matteo’s eyes cut to Costa, who had settled back on his chair, convinced Nella was simply trying to stall the inevitable demise of her family by fabricating some desperate offer.

‘Riccardo,’ Matteo said, straightening his back. ‘ Lasciaci .’

‘That won’t be necessary, I ...’

‘Leave.’

It was a small victory. Costa shut the door behind him and they were alone.

‘You have two minutes to convince me you’re not a lying fucking s erpente .’

She told him in one. Just the facts, as Max and Grey had presented them. She put the plastic bag of memory cards on the desk between them. It throbbed in the silence that followed like a third heart in the room.

‘Daddy taught you how to play dirty, I see.’ Matteo’s eyes had gone cold.

‘Getting fucked over by people like you taught me how to play dirty.’

‘How do I know you don’t have another copy of the footage? How do I know you won’t find another way to give it to the cops?’

She’d done it. She’d rattled Matteo La Marca, the lion cowering under the mouse. If things were different, she’d compress this moment down into a diamond and wear it round her neck for the rest of her life.

‘I’ll sign whatever you want,’ she said calmly. ‘We can come to an agreement on the non-disclosure. Once I destroy the footage, any connection of Forrest to the wine poisoning and Libby Johnston won’t hold up in court. The cops will have no evidence. He’ll walk free.’

‘If he’s convicted, my family will be ruined. My daughter will be ruined. But what if I choose the wine? What if I decline your offer and let him rot in jail?’

‘If Forrest is officially connected to the murders, the whole world will know you harboured him and kept his secret. If you try to deny it, it’ll only pull the rope tighter around your neck.’

‘What a nice little trap you’ve set for me. But a video of my daughter’s fiancé stepping out of his legally parked, licensed car outside a bottle shop proves nothing.’

‘It proves as much as a recipe signed by your father and my grandfather proves.’

And there it was: the other shoe, dropping like a grenade.

‘You are proposing a mutual destruction of the evidence that would ruin both our lives.’

Nella folded her arms. The tip of her sword was on his heart, and his on hers. Now, it was about who lowered first. And she was damned if it would be her. Because she was losing far more than Matteo with this deal.

‘Do you know, Antonella, the extent a father would go to save his daughter?’

‘I think we both know I don’t.’

‘Then you never knew your father at all.’

‘And you did?’

‘You can’t spend that much time in the ring with someone and not get to know them as intimately as you do your closest friends. To understand a man’s weaknesses, you must understand his strengths, his vices, what he cannot live without.’

‘And you believe you knew my father better than me?’

‘I understood him.’ Matteo tilted his chin. ‘We both have daughters who have betrayed us.’

Did he know Ariana was the one who’d given Nella the footage? Or was Matteo referring to something else – the scars on Ariana’s abdomen, maybe? The strange connection to the nun, her zia Rosetta?

‘Did you ever read his will?’ he asked.

Nella frowned. ‘No.’

‘Maybe you should.’

‘I don’t want his money. I’ve never wanted it.’

‘Yes, Little Miss Independent – you always were a spoiled brat who had the option to decline his offerings.’

The comment cut far too close to the open wound of Jett’s and Tomaso’s words.

‘If Tomaso read your father’s will, then going to Clarkson Lieu over you was a direct betrayal of Giovanni’s wishes.’

‘What are you saying?’

Matteo smacked his palms against the table but she refused to flinch. ‘I am tired of saying anything. Take my words as they are or do not take them at all. But despite what you thought of your father, we were alike in one regard – we would burn the whole world down to save our families.’

She didn’t believe him. But somehow she also knew he was right. ‘So we have a deal?’

As Matteo shook his head, Nella went cold. ‘You are truly your father’s daughter, Antonella Barbarani.’ He closed his eyes, as though unable to bear witness to what he was about to do. Which was hold out his hand to her. ‘We have a deal.’