Page 60 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

Nella turned back to Tom. ‘So in trying to prove Oliver guilty, all you came back with was a live rattlesnake’—she nodded at Sophie—‘and a nice little tale of the prodigal son to guilt me into helping you with our dead father’s business?’

Tom stood. ‘That’s not what this is, Antonella.’

But she didn’t stop. ‘Jett is in there fighting for his life and you’re trying to talk business with me? Didn’t you hear what I did? For us, for you. ’

Her brother’s face was ashen, like she’d actually punched him. She wished he was the type to punch back.

‘Haven’t I done enough?’ she hissed, tears retracing their predecessors’ tracks. ‘Can’t you just leave me alone?’

‘No,’ Tom said, ‘I can’t.’

‘I’m going to go,’ Sophie said. ‘I’m sorry, Nella. If I knew the stuff about Clarkson would have helped you or stopped this from happening to Jett, I would have reached out sooner.’

‘It wouldn’t,’ Nella said, not taking her eyes off Tom. ‘Slither away, Kingsley.’

The journalist left the eldest Barbarani siblings alone in the room.

‘I’m sorry about Randall,’ Tom said.

‘He’s not dead.’ Yet.

‘You saved him.’ Tom put his phone on the plastic chair, a gesture equivalent to an extravagant bow.

‘I couldn’t have done it without everyone else who showed up.’

‘Guess you have more friends than you thought.’

Everything they weren’t saying pressed against them.

‘You saved us too,’ Tom said, blinking slowly. ‘Greyson told me everything.’

‘I’ll pay the price. So will Libby and Poppy.’

‘There’ll be another way,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll get Valentine another way.’

‘We?’ Was it possible Tom was suffering from undiagnosed smoke inhalation from the drive back from Nannup?

‘Of course.’ He coughed. ‘It’s a family matter now. I’ll help you.’

For the second time in as many weeks, words failed Nella. ‘I didn’t ...’

‘I know. Me too.’

They stared at each other, unspoken apologies hanging in the air and lightening Nella’s heart.

‘I assume you found out I knew about Sally Sue’s release. I shouldn’t have kept that from you. But I didn’t think it would help. I was, ah ...’ He looked up as though suddenly fascinated by the off-milk paint of the hospital ceiling. ‘Protecting you.’

She swallowed. ‘Thanks.’ For getting Jett shot. But even she knew that wasn’t on Tom. That was all her fault.

‘It’s what Dad would have done.’

‘Yeah.’

‘He loved you.’

Her sobs broke through the dam. Somehow, her brother, the one who knew their father best, who respected everything about him from his dress sense to his lack of emotional vulnerability, saying those words to her burst whatever tenuous, temporary wall she’d put up after pulling Jett from the water.

Nella couldn’t remember the last time Tom had hugged her.

The last time they’d touched. But his arms were around her, sobs shuddering through his body too, their shared familial pain heaving and groaning like an antique they’d inherited from a well-meaning relative but would never find a place for, forever shifting it around, trying to find the spot where it fit. Here it was.

Tom let her soak his monogrammed Gucci jacket with her face fluids. The linen blend was surprisingly absorbent.

After, they sat side by side in the empty waiting room in silence.

‘Do you think Dad knew the truth about Nonno Emilio and Antonio La Marca? How they created the recipe together?’ Nella asked eventually.

‘I think he suspected something, but whether he knew exactly or not we’ll never be sure.’

‘While we’re getting overdue apologies out of our system .

..’ Nella drew a shaky breath. ‘I am really sorry that I accused you of killing Clarkson. I know you couldn’t have done something like that and’—she drew a breath, unsure if she was actually going to say it—‘I don’t think Dad would have either. ’

‘I behaved like a child. I shouldn’t have stormed off after Luca told you about Isaac.’ Nella could see how much it took for her brother to admit that. ‘Our disagreement in the alley affected my judgement more than I care to admit.’

‘That was why Daisy ... Sally followed you.’ Nella hung her head.

‘Because we fought. She attacked anyone who hurt me or upset me even the slightest amount – like Avery’s girlfriend at the pub.

On the ride here, Avery told me he pulled the security footage from outside the TAB.

Daisy pushed her in front of that car on her way to her date with Jett. ’

‘A devil for a guardian angel.’ Tom sighed. ‘Only you, Antonella.’ He shook his head, but his voice was devoid of accusation.

‘Should we hug again?’ she asked.

‘We should not. You’re sopping wet and smell like the corpse of a drowned fisherman. I will be invoicing you for my jacket’s dry-cleaning.’

Nella smiled. Back to their version of normal. ‘We should start acting more like brother and sister,’ she said.

‘Agreed.’ Tom leaned back in his chair. ‘I’ve already ripped the heads off your Barbie dolls and cleaned the cobwebs out of Father’s shotgun to murder Randall for not protecting you like he swore he would. When do they think he’ll be out of surgery, by the way?’

As Nella tried to speak, her throat closed up. She was saved by a voice coming through the automatic sliding doors.

‘Mum says to tell you she’s gone home to rest her nerves.’ Luca leant against the wall by the red hand-sanitiser dispenser, arms crossed, but his whole body tightened when he saw Nella. ‘Sorry.’ He turned to go. ‘I didn’t realise ...’

‘Luca ...’ Nella’s voice cracked; she didn’t know how to say it. How to say I’m sorry. I love you. I didn’t mean it. How much had their father screwed them up that she couldn’t utter those words to her little brother – the one person in her life who probably needed to hear them the most?

Luca was looking at her through his long black hair.

His mouth was a firm line, which she deserved, just like she deserved Max’s anger.

But she wouldn’t take his anger and use it against him later on, like they were used to.

She’d made her decision. It filled her cold, icy veins with something warm and liquid.

Was this how Clarkson felt when he decided to give up his legal career to come home and help his father run the family business?

This time, Nella knew the right thing to say. ‘I’m sorry I said those things. I know you would have made a good dad.’

Luca drew a shaky breath. ‘I dodged a bullet, and if my calculations are correct, that was my ninth life.’

She didn’t believe him, but she hugged him, and while he didn’t exactly embrace her, he didn’t resist.

‘You gave us another life too, sorella ,’ Luca said. ‘They told me everything you did with La Marca – and everyone’s been demanding to know how you did it. There are all sorts of wild, unruly rumours circulating. But don’t worry, I’ve told them exactly how.’

‘You told them I slept with him, didn’t you?’

‘In explicit detail. There were costumes involved.’

‘Luca,’ Tom said, ‘Antonella sacrificed a great deal to save our necks. You need to pull your head in.’

Luca gaped, then turned to Nella and whispered, loud enough for Tom to hear, ‘Did they use him as a brain surgery test dummy for medical students?’

Nella fought a laugh. She couldn’t remember a single time Tom had defended her in their whole lives.

‘Can I ask something?’ Luca looked uncharacteristically hesitant.

‘As long as it’s not about Matteo La Marca’s anatomy, you can.’

He grimaced. ‘It’s about Ariana.’

‘I don’t know much about her anatomy. Oh, well, actually—’ An image flashed in Nella’s mind of Ariana’s stomach, serrated and sliced with thin pink lines.

But this probably wasn’t the moment to air that particular anecdote.

After everything she’d found out since that moment on Isola San Giulio, Nella was perfectly fine not knowing the answer to at least one question.

‘Why did she give you the footage of Forrest Valentine?’

‘I wrote to her in Italy, telling her the truth about Forrest, how he poisoned the wine. I asked her to come over to the right side. I told her we could protect her.’

I insinuated she might have once seen you as more than the youngest son of her father’s greatest enemy.

Her daring made her shudder – of course there wasn’t anything between them, she’d been projecting her own star-crossed love affair onto her little brother. It was almost enough for Nella to be a little relieved Daisy had burned the original letter.

‘But,’ Nella continued, ‘Daisy got angry because she thought I was asking Ariana to be my friend. She wrote a new letter, saying I’d kill Ariana if she didn’t find a way to get the footage to us.

Daisy had been poisoning her on the trip – not enough to do serious damage, but enough to convince her the Barbaranis would make good on their word if she didn’t comply. ’

Her youngest brother blinked, his top row of teeth biting his bottom lip like he used to do when he was much younger. ‘You better tell her it wasn’t you,’ he said eventually.

‘Antonella has other priorities right now,’ Tom said.

‘I never said now —’

As she listened to her brothers bicker, Nella curled up across three lime-green waiting chairs.

The heavy feeling that there was still no word about Jett made it impossible to get comfortable, but somehow, she fell asleep.

And when Grey shook her awake hours later, a ridiculous, crazed grin on his exhausted face, she knew she must have a different sort of guardian angel somewhere.