Page 7 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

Jett

‘Are you sleeping with my brother, Clarky?’ Nella folded her arms across her ridiculous jumper (glitter on clothing should be outlawed, Jett thought) as she smirked up at the lanky guy.

It was the first time Jett had caught a glimpse of the old Nella since he’d interrupted her and Aldi-Chris last night, and something inside him twinged.

This random stranger was the one who’d been able to coax that spark back out of her?

Jett threw up a little in his mouth.

‘I held the record for most bellybutton shots in second year uni,’ she explained to Jett and Tom.

‘No one asked,’ Tom said.

‘Clarky, surely you have better options than my brother,’ Nella said, ‘and also, gross .’

‘There’s only one Barbarani for me,’ Clarkson replied, winking again. Jett was tempted to ask if he had an eye disease.

‘Enough!’ Tom’s face was red. ‘We need to focus!’

‘Tom, you need to chill, mate. There’s not much we can do now.’

Clearly this Clarkson Lieu hadn’t yet worked out that telling Tomaso Barbarani to ‘chill’ was about as effective as sticky-taping a punctured tyre.

‘I hired you to fix this, Lieu,’ Tom hissed through his teeth. ‘And I intend to get my money’s worth.’

‘Hold on.’ Nella held up a hand. Her nails were half coated in a sugary lavender polish and half gnawed at the edges.

The last time Jett had seen her nails in such a dire state was during the Sally Sue stalker trial.

‘You hired him to represent you in the lawsuit? Then what the hell am I doing here?’

Shit.

Tom turned to Jett. ‘You told her she was coming for legal advice ?’

‘I gave her the facts.’

Nella looked at him. ‘You said they needed me ...’

Now both Barbaranis were advancing on him. His stomach rolled. ‘They do.’

‘I need your signature .’ Tom grabbed the green notebook from Clarkson. ‘Because even though I’m the one who does everything to stop this family, this business, from running into the ground, it’s your signature they need.’ He flapped a thin stack of papers at Nella.

Nella locked her arms around her ribs. ‘I need to know what it is I’m signing.’ She sounded calm. Like the gentle pull-back of the tide before a tsunami.

‘ Gesu Cristo ,’ Tom seethed. ‘ Now you want to know what’s been happening? Now you care about the shit I’ve been sinking in for the past six months?’

‘Tom.’ A voice came from the gold door to the ballroom. ‘Let them breathe.’ A tall, broad man with a buzz cut and dark brown stubble crossed the threshold to the ballroom.

Good old Greyson Hawke, no longer under the Barbaranis’ service but still trying to fix everything for them.

‘ You will stay out of this,’ Tom snarled.

‘Hey, Nel,’ Grey said, his voice soft but firmly ignoring Tom.

Nella gave Grey a weak smile that didn’t reach her eyes. More than Jett had got.

‘Max wants to talk to you,’ Grey said. ‘Can you make it round to the office later?’

Max was an ex-cop turned private investigator and Grey’s business partner. Also his girlfriend. But she’d definitely want to be introduced using the first description. ‘I’m not back for good, I came to ...’ Nella looked at Jett, accusation flashing like lightning.

What had he actually said to her? He’d been so desperate to get her in the car that he couldn’t remember how much he’d given away. But he hadn’t lied, had he?

‘If you have time. It’s important.’ Grey turned back to Tom and Clarkson with a heavy sigh. ‘They’re here.’

Tom swore again. The group followed Grey into the lower-floor ballroom and Jett noticed again how walking through the Barbarani mansion felt like stepping through a portal to another time, another world.

Modern renaissance was how Nella described it, whatever that meant.

Jett’s word for wall-to-floor Da Vinci-esque paintings, gold trimmings on every door and white marble staircases was rich as shit .

He kept his eyes away from the old wine cabinet that hid the secret passageway they’d all been held captive in last July.

The stiffness in the way Nella held herself told him she was doing the same thing.

Her head had been in his arms, her breathing the only thing tethering him to sanity.

The mantra that had battered through his skull, through the adrenaline and hot blood and his body’s attempts to survive in what he’d thought were his last moments sometimes pounded through him even now, like rain lashing against the windows of his mind. All he could do was wait it out.

She’s still alive. Still breathing. Keep her alive. All that matters is that she’s alive. She’s all that matters. She will not take her last breath in your arms. She’s all that matters.

She will not take her last ...

‘Jett?’ Somehow they were at the staff entrance to the winery. Grey stepped back to let everyone else through first. ‘You good?’

Jett nodded. Grey frowned but let him pass without further interrogation.

Jett didn’t think about it too much because he wasn’t an eleven-year-old girl, but Grey was probably his best friend.

Since Jett had arrived there, age twenty-four, they’d commiserated as outsiders turned insiders of the Barbarani family.

But the secret that had come to light about Grey’s true parentage at the Barbarani gala last July hadn’t changed anything between them.

What would Grey say once he found out about the messages on Jett’s phone, about Kevin’s job offer? Jett’s invisible debt to his old social worker was finally being called in. Or at least that’s what he told himself.

Jett owed Kevin, even though Kevin had never said anything of the sort.

This was not about the dream he’d had.

Except that of course it was.

Grey would buy Jett’s reasoning. Jett had never stayed in one job too long before coming here.

Jumping from foster home to foster home had stirred an insatiable restlessness in him, and he’d never worked at one job for longer than a year.

He always knew when it was time to leave; he could feel it, like the sun when you’ve been sitting in one spot too long and you need to find shade.

Working for the Barbaranis had dulled that feeling, though, enough that he’d stayed fifteen years.

He closed his eyes, mentally calculating.

Shit, had it really been that long? It was like he’d been in a coma and was only just coming to now.

Unlike most of the employees, Jett hadn’t owed Giovanni Barbarani anything.

He’d seen the ad for a ‘personal driver’ in a newspaper someone had left at the bar he’d been working at and figured the starting salary had been a typo.

At the interview – at Perth Motorplex, not the mansion – there’d been ten other guys and one woman also waiting, but by the time Giovanni had explained how the interview process was going to work, five had left.

Two crashed cars, one ambulance and a very-nearly-missed hairpin turn later, Jett emerged the clear victor.

He’d proudly signed a stack of confidentiality agreements as thick as an encyclopedia and started the next day.

Jett hadn’t exactly liked Giovanni on their first meeting, but he’d respected him. And he’d never had money like this before.

But now Gio was dead. He was free to go – to follow that motor inside him that was always revving, always wanting to push forward, to explore, to leave and not look back. A getaway-car heart, an old foster parent had called it.

His normal sun-prickling instinct had been tethered somehow, in a way he couldn’t explain.

But two mornings after the funeral, that tethering had snapped.

He’d let his guard down, gone to bed thinking about her, like he’d sworn to never do, but she had left, and no one knew where to at that point, so of course his mind was on her and the last thing she’d yelled at him.

It was a risk, and he took it, like always.

He couldn’t control his dreams; logically, he knew that.

But he could control what he’d done as a result of them.

He’d already be gone if it wasn’t for the little clause in the new agreement Nella’s mother, Vittoria, had made him sign three days ago. Once that was taken care of, Bindi Bindi Cove and the mansion would be flecks in his rearview mirror.

The winery was closed for the first time since the COVID lockdowns, but it was completely full of people.

‘Don’t touch that!’ Tom lunged at one of the police officers behind the counter who’d grabbed three bottles of red wine in one hand. ‘It needs to lie flat! Put it back!’

The officer, Constable Gabby Cole, raised her eyebrows and continued to stack the wine upright onto a metal trolley, one of many that were holding the now illegal wine. The cops hadn’t wasted any time.

‘I will personally sue you for everything you own,’ Tom spat.

‘Mr Barbarani, if you cannot contain yourself, I will have to ask you to leave.’ The voice belonged to a tall, red-bearded cop – Avery. He’d been at the mansion on the night of the gala, taking statements, holding Nella upright when they ripped her away from Jett.

‘This is my winery. That is my father’s wine, my grandfather’s recipe.’

‘And these are my officers that you are harassing,’ Avery said.

‘C’mon, Tommy.’ Nella’s uncle, Vince, who was in charge of the Barbarani brand in the States, grabbed him by the arm.