Page 40 of Last Breath

‘You want out, and I’m your ticket. I get it, there’s nothing left to say.’

‘There’s plenty to say.’ He’d caught up to her. Not hard in her Louis Vuittons. ‘I would have stayed until this is over anyway, now that ...’

‘Now that someone else is dead?’

‘I don’t need a contract to want to look out for you, Nella.’

She stopped, her heel wobbling on the uneven ground, but she wasn’t going to let him see. ‘What if it’s never over?’

Jett crossed his arms. ‘I have it on good authority that the best lawyer in WA’s on the case.’

She started walking again. The tang of eucalyptus and lavender tousled with the dying scent of leather but then it grew stronger until it was overpowering the natural bushland as he jogged to catch up.

‘So what were you and my private investigator up to so early on a Sunday morning?’

‘You mean Max – your friend?’

‘Not anymore.’

‘Have I been cast out of the Coven of Antonella too?’

‘You were never in.’ Gravel crunched and rolled under her heels.

‘We went to church.’ He was walking beside her now.

‘They only took the sangue bottles, so there’s still wine on our property. You didn’t have to steal it from a church.’

He gave a low chuckle, which infuriated her, because this wasn’t something to chuckle at. And also, she deserved more than a chuckle. Multiple organ-engagement laughter or nothing at all, thank you very much.

‘Raphael goes to church every Sunday,’ she said. ‘Is that who you were harassing?’

‘I didn’t want to upset you.’

‘I’m not upset.’

‘Clearly.’

Raphael. Fuck. She couldn’t hear that name without remembering that moment. Her last breath. Well, what she’d thought was her last before he pulled the trigger. She still didn’t believe he’d chosen to spare her life out of the goodness of his heart. There was no goodness in Raphael. There was no heart. Working for the La Marcas meant he’d sold his heart along with his soul years ago.

‘You think he had something to do with Clarkson?’ she asked.

‘No.’ They’d made it to the door of Jett’s garage. His home wasn’t a rammed earth cottage like Greyson’s but a more modern, more severe-looking garage where all the Barbarani cars were stored. He lived in the loft, accessed via a metal spiral staircase. When Nella was younger she used to think the chauffeur’s residence was incredibly romantic, like something out of a fairytale, because of that staircase and the wide windows looking out onto the vineyards and karri forest.

She studied Jett’s face for signs that he was lying to her. The morning sun made his scar shimmer slightly, like the path cut through the night sky by a falling star.

He realised she was staring and turned to release the garage door. There was a minor interlude in their feuding while Razor bowled them over with his deliriously happy paws, claws and tongue. He was a Maremma Sheepdog that Eliza couldn’t rehome after his previous owners abandoned him, so Nella had brought him to the garage to help Jett guard the cars. She had sympathised with Razor at first sight. For some reason, she understood him: a crocodile in a gorgeous, pale retriever coat. Jett liked him because he was loud and he bit hard.

‘I don’t think it was Raphael,’ Jett said finally, opening a can of dog food and plonking it in Razor’s pink diamante bowl; Luca had got it for his third birthday.

He wasn’t telling her everything. She waited until he’d discarded the empty tin before she tried a new tactic. ‘My cousin thinks you’re hot.’

Jett knelt down besides the yellow Lamborghini (Irene), pressing his thumb against her front tyre. ‘Which cousin is that – the one who shoved two crostoli up his nose and then proceeded to eat them?’

‘Sirena, the brunette.’

‘All your cousins are brunette.’

‘Stop. You know exactly who I’m talking about.’