Page 107 of Last Breath

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 serpente.’

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. Mydaughterwill 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.’