Page 57 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

But Jett had clearly worked out the truth. Jett, who was standing on the edge of the cliff, gun to his head, was about to die believing that Nella had never cared. About to die for the Barbaranis, like the soldier her father had trained him to be.

But she was not her father.

And Jett was not her soldier. Not anymore.

‘Sally.’ Think. What does she want? What does she want you to be?

Memories from the trial flowed back. The psychiatrist for the defence had argued that Sally’s delusions stemmed from her own traumatic childhood, and in her sick and twisted way, she’d just wanted Nella to be her best friend.

Follow your instincts, Nella.

‘This isn’t what I want.’ Nella moved towards them, acutely aware that any second now, Sally could pull the trigger. Nella had a finite amount of words before time ran out. The last match in the box to burn her down. ‘I know you’re just trying to help.’

She wanted to scream, she wanted to run at Sally and wrestle the gun from her hand and tell Jett to run, and then she’d put her hands around Sally’s neck and ...

Her hand. Daisy – Sally – was left handed. Nella had worked next to her for long enough, listening to the shhhh of her pastel highlighters and meticulous note-taking to know that.

But she was holding the gun in her right hand.

Nella stepped to the side, slowly enough not to spook Sally that she was closing in on her, but just enough to see her left hand, dangling limply by her side. It was covered in thick white gauze and pink tape that she recognised from Eliza’s clinic. A weakness. Not much. But something.

Nella pulled her lips into a smile. ‘You did all this for me, didn’t you?’

It was like driving a car, wasn’t it? She just had to work out the right gear.

Sally blinked her fake blue eyes. ‘I did. I will always be there for you. I told you that, do you remember? When they took me away from you all those years ago?’

‘I remember.’ She did. Sally’s screams as she’d been dragged from the courtroom were embedded in Nella’s mind like shrapnel. ‘You really care about me, don’t you, Sally?’

‘Of course. We’re going to be best friends forever.’ Her gaze was magnetised to Nella’s, but the gun was still firmly pointed at Jett.

A wave crashed below and salt spray shattered over them. Jett was so close to the edge, it wouldn’t take much – a rogue wave, a strong gust, and he’d lose his balance.

‘You killed Clarkson?’

Sally nodded slowly, her eyes on Jett. Nella’s legs wobbled and she bit back another scream.

‘I told you I followed him to the La Marca Estate,’ Sally said.

‘Yes. He went there to find out what was in the Lake Orta house in Milan.’

‘Yeah.’ Sally brushed a curl from her face. ‘But I didn’t know that at the time. I thought he was working for the La Marcas. And when I confronted him about it, back in the office, he couldn’t give me a straight answer!’

‘Attorney-client privilege, Dai— Sally, you know that.’

She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t take any chances, not this time. I wasn’t going to screw it up again. I needed to find out what he knew about the case. I needed to buy time. But I didn’t mean to.’

Nella was falling. Frozen and falling. Down a black, bottomless pit. ‘You didn’t mean to kill him?’

‘I just wanted to make him sick, like I did with Ariana – just enough to make him go home and leave us alone. But silly old me, I got the dosage wrong! Oopsie daisy ... That was my mama’s favourite saying – that’s why I chose the name Daisy when I got out.

Reminds me of how she used to say that when she walked in on her boyfriend fucking me in the bathroom. Oopsie daisy! ’

‘I’m sorry,’ Nella said. She’d had to listen at length to Sally’s defence team argue that she couldn’t be blamed for her actions because of the abuse she’d suffered as a child.

Sally beamed, as though Nella’s fake pity was praise for her actions, gun still stiff.

‘I was so, so angry at the way Clarkson and your brother had made you feel ... My hands were shaking, Nella! They were shaking so much that I put too much strychnine in the coffee I made for him. And, well, oopsie daisy, Clarkson went thud onto the floor.’

‘Why not call an ambulance if you didn’t mean to kill him?’

‘Everything happens for a reason,’ Sally said.

‘I went away from you for a reason, Nella, I understand that now. We were both so young – we had to grow up, find ourselves, work out what we didn’t want, so that when we found each other again, we’d be stronger.

I knew, in that moment, that it was all happening for a reason.

There was an angel on my shoulder, pushing that extra bit of strychnine in Clarkson’s coffee.

It all fell into place. I knew what I had to do. ’

‘You strangled him,’ Jett said, eyes flicking to Nella and then behind her towards the beach, but she didn’t dare turn around. Keep going.

‘He wouldn’t have felt it.’

‘Oh well, that’s okay then.’ Jett shifted his stance. Tiny rocks crumbled beneath his shoes to the snapping ocean below.

‘The belt.’ Nella willed Sally to focus on her, not Jett. ‘You got that from Ian’s gym bag, didn’t you?’

Sally nodded. ‘Our angel must have made him leave it behind.’

‘And he came back for it, but you’d already left,’ Nella said.

‘Times of death are never specific enough, so the police bought your story that Clarkson was still alive when you left. If Ian went back to work within the hour, as long as there was enough time for Clarkson to allegedly hang himself between you leaving and Ian arriving, they had no reason to question you.’

But she should have questioned it. She should have known.

‘They’ve arrested Ian,’ she continued. ‘Was that all part of the plan?’

Sally nodded slowly. ‘I took Clarkson’s Boogie Board and I hid it in Ian’s house when I picked him up for the funeral. Just in case the police tried to pin the murder on you.’

She was practically panting at Nella, like a dog who’d placed a ball at her feet – ready to fetch or get a congratulatory scratch behind the ears.

‘What about Ariana?’ Nella fought to keep the accusation out of her voice. ‘Was that for me too?’

‘She’s a La Marca – she’s your enemy . I didn’t want her to be strong enough to do anything silly on our trip.

And then, when you slipped her that letter under her door, I was so, so angry that you wanted to be her friend.

I’m not perfect Nella, I will admit that I was a bit jealous.

But I knew you were upset and desperate, and once I thought it through, I realised you didn’t actually want Ariana to be your friend, you just needed her to get that footage.

So I wrote a new letter. I copied your signature, and I told her that we’d keep poisoning her until she had no breath left unless she got it for us. ’

‘Oh, Sally ...’

‘I did it all for you.’ There were real tears clouding Sally Sue’s blue contact lenses. The hand holding the gun was shaking now. ‘Please don’t be mad at me.’ She sounded like a child who’d drawn all over Nella’s white walls in red crayon.

‘I’m not mad,’ Nella said, inching towards her. ‘I’ve always wanted a friend like you. I’ve always wanted someone who would do anything for me, who’d love me even though I’m not always a good person.’ Another dash of spray on her cheek. Then another.

‘Really?’ Sally’s eyes were wide, tears pooling in her hollow cheeks.

‘Yes, Sally.’ Nella was right beside her now; she could smell the marshmallow perfume that she’d bought her as a Christmas present, could see the glint of her gold nose ring.

The water wasn’t sea spray. It was rain.

‘But I have someone just like that. And I can’t let you hurt him.’

‘What?’ It was the distraction she needed, the pull of the rug. Nella wrapped her hand around Sally’s cold fingers and shoved all her weight into the arm holding the gun.

But Sally’s finger was already on the trigger; despite her delusions, the scent of betrayal had been thick enough in the air. As Nella lunged, the gun went off.