Chapter 6
6
Max
There were nine exits in total.
The seven glass windows were bulletproof, fortified glass, like she’d assumed from Luca’s bedroom window. She couldn’t smash through them with one of the kitchen stools. There were two doors – the one that the Giant had slammed in her face and one at the back of the house, leading to a small lagoon-shaped pool.
All nine exits were electronically sealed.
Six hours after her release from prison, and she was right back where she started.
Max ripped open every cupboard, searching for weapons, for something she could use to blast out of her air-conditioned, artfully furnished cell. No way had the Giant decked this place out himself. There was a distinct female presence but strangely, no make-up or tampons in the bathroom cupboards. There was a purple can of hairspray through, which she tucked under her arm along with the lime green lighter she’d found in the bottom kitchen drawer. He hadn’t smelled like a smoker.
The kitchen knives were useless – hadn’t been sharpened in a while – but better than nothing. And they certainly looked more frightening than her tiny petrol-station army knife.
Max assembled her weapons on the speckled marble benchtop next to the Rolex Luca had forced upon Grey last night, still curled in its black box. She couldn’t picture it ticking away on the thick wrist of the violent caveman who’d threatened her with his gun and chased her down a trellis. Then flattened her into a frangipani bush.
It had been the first human contact she’d had in six months. Unless you counted that naked woman who’d smashed her head into the basin on her third night in Semperdon.
When she’d imagined the Barbarani security, she’d pictured Disney cut-out villains in ninja masks with knives sheathed in every orifice. She hadn’t expected someone so ...
Young?
Jeans-wearing?
Giant?
Speaking of jeans, she needed to find something to wear.
She’d found no bloodstained room filled with torture devices and partly dismembered enemies. Didn’t mean there wasn’t one, though, its entrance probably hidden in a dark crawl space with a dull lamp and a pinboard filled with red string connecting threats and a To Be Killed list.
There wasn’t one of those either.
But there was a bedroom. A normal bed – queen-sized, navy-blue duvet folded like an official government envelope. She didn’t pay too much attention to anything in that room – didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his human-like traits – even in his absence. But she needed coverage.
The white drawers were filled with clothing sorted like Schedule 8 medicines – this was a place where colour and fun came to die. The shirts were folded like sliced bread in a cupboard that also housed a black tuxedo, a khaki snow jacket and a pair of On Cloud sneakers. Max grabbed a shirt at random and tugged it on. It looked like a dress, but was probably a crop top on him .
Its scent was distinctly devoid of blood and bleach. Perhaps he committed his billionaire-sanctioned crimes in the singlets she’d seen in the bottom drawer.
Back in the kitchen, she stood up on the island bench. Balancing one hand flat against the ceiling, she ran the other over the downlights, feeling for the ridge of a hidden camera. She’d be na?ve to think Mr I-Keep-People-Like-You-Away-From-People-Like-the-Barbaranis didn’t have this place wired or bugged.
The cottage was cool, not as cold as outside, but the sweat patches under her arms and at the nape of her neck were drying. The tiny blue eye of a camera winked back at her from the rim of the middle light. She stuck up her middle finger and jumped down from the bench.
She had to get out.
And go where, Max? the scowling reflection in the microwave asked. Where the fuck do you have to go?
She needed to get to Giovanni. All she could see when she closed her eyes was the wine tycoon’s face. Right before it exploded, brain matter spattering onto the white walls of her mind. But now her grand plan to warn him about this attack was sinking beneath the waves before she’d even worked out how to drive the ship. In her feverish visions of launching herself at the masked shadow of Kaine Skinner as he raised a gun to Giovanni’s face, Max had never imagined she’d have the Barbaranis’ Fixer restraining her arms behind her back as she tried.
The incessant ticking of the Rolex reminded her she was running out of options.
Toilet. She hadn’t checked the—
A key scratched in the front door. Max grabbed the hairspray and flicked the lighter as a tall figure pushed into the kitchen.
It wasn’t Grey. This guy was tall, but his skin was dark with a familiar slash across his face that made her stomach twist uncomfortably. The driver.
Her grip tightened on her makeshift weapons, but she kept her hands below the bench. ‘Who are you?’ she said, going on the offensive. The giant wouldn’t have locked her in here if there was an easy way out the back door.
The intruder’s jaw slacked open – it worked. He seemed unsure whether to chase her out like a rat or apologise for barging in unannounced. He clearly didn’t recognise her. She wasn’t sure if this was going to work in her favour or not.
‘I’m Grey’s best friend. Jett Randall.’ He said it like it was as prestigious as being the King.
‘Right, well, I’m Grey’s hostage, Max.’
‘ Hostage? ’ The guy’s eyes bulged. Despite the scar, he was seriously good-looking. In fact, once you got past the initial shock, it actually made him more endearing. ‘I thought you were his ...?’
‘Does he normally keep one-night-stands locked up in his cottage?’
Max could have sworn the corners of Jett’s mouth twitched. But his face remained stone as he assessed her. She felt the need to defend her dishevelled appearance. Exactly how many women had the Barbarani driver dropped off at the mansion last night?
‘You’re the girl who bid on Luca,’ he said finally. ‘I confess, I’m disappointed. It’s been a while since Grey – well, that’s none of my business.’ It was clear that he thought it was.
‘His lack of romantic intimacy doesn’t seem like such a puzzle to me,’ Max said. ‘He’s a dick.’
Jett smirked, helping himself to a protein bar from an unopened box next to the fruit bowl. ‘How long have you known him?’ His eyes trailed over the stupid T-shirt she wished she’d burned with the lighter instead of throwing on.
She shrugged. ‘Five minutes.’ No point lying to this guy who knew Grey well enough to have his own key to his house and permission to eat his protein bars without asking.
Jett took a big bite of the bar and said, ‘Yeah, that’ll do it.’
She dug her gaze deeper into Jett’s uncomfortable face.
‘What are you to him?’
‘I told you. I’m his hostage.’
‘If this is some weird sex game thing between you, Luca and Grey, I don’t wanna hear any more—’
‘I am not sleeping with him! Or Luca.’
Jett crunched down on the bar, his face thoughtful. ‘All right, I believe you. You’re not exactly Grey’s type anyway. Or Luca’s, for that matter.’
So I’ve heard. ‘Thanks.’
‘It was a compliment.’
Max looked away as he squinted at her again. It had been a long time since someone had assessed her this closely. ‘You one of Nella’s friends?’
Antonella Barbarani, the eldest. Lawyer. Distressingly beautiful.
‘Not exactly.’
‘Frankie’s?’
Francesca Barbarani. Youngest. Outcast. Environmental activist.
Jett’s line of questioning was problematic with the threat of murder metallic in the air.
‘Does Grey often let their friends stay in his house?’ How many people came in and out of the Barbarani mansion un-vetted? Look how easy it had been for her to get in last night. If she was going to figure out who was working with Kaine Skinner to take out the hit on Giovanni, she’d need a list.
‘Grey doesn’t really let anyone stay in his house.’ Jett frowned. ‘So I’m running out of options as to why you’re the exception.’
‘It can’t just be because I’m exceptional?’
His frown deepened. ‘No one’s exceptional. Not to Grey.’
‘You’re really talking him up.’
‘Not my job.’ He shrugged.
‘Right, you’re the clean-up crew?’ It had been half an hour since Grey had locked her in here. Something sharp wedged into her spine. What if she was too late? What if Skinner was already here? She had to get out.
‘I’m the Taxi,’ Jett said, scrunching up the empty protein bar wrapper and unpeeling a mandarin.
Had Jett locked the door? Could she distract him in time to wrench it open and bolt?
‘You’ll find out exactly what that entails once you’ve served whatever your purpose is here and he needs you gone.’
Max wasn’t going anywhere until she got that meeting with Giovanni. But she wasn’t going to tell Jett that. ‘Is Grey a “Taxi” too?’ She hoped the ditzy, clueless look could buy her some time.
‘Ha.’ Jett’s lips enclosed around a wedge of mandarin. ‘He’s far too valuable to be a Taxi.’
‘Valuable? What is he – an antique vase?’ The door looked locked. But she wouldn’t know unless she tried it. Should she risk letting Jett in on the murder plot too?
No. Too many people knew already.
‘He knows the family,’ Jett elaborated. ‘He grew up here.’
‘Don’t see how that makes him any more important than the emus that also grew up here.’
‘He worked on the property with his dad, before the army.’
She rubbed her upper arms at the phantom memory of the lock he’d tried to contort her into. Should have known. Just from the chest and arms alone. Which she was not thinking about. At all. ‘He’s military?’
‘Was. Don’t ask him about it. I shouldn’t have said anything.’ Jett looked at her accusingly, like she’d tricked him into saying it.
She’d been right. Her hands were clammy and her throat bone dry. A loyal, muscular servant of the Barbaranis who’d basically grown up with them, learnt the family ways, and probably all the family secrets. Military trained. Job description vaguely undetermined.
Grey was their hitman. The Barbaranis’ version of Kaine Skinner – the very person she was determined to thwart.
And he was currently glaring at her through the window of his cottage.