Chapter 32
32
Grey
‘Vittoria was playing you! How could you not see that?’
It was difficult to argue with Max when all Grey could think about as she bent over in front of him to rearrange her dress was fucking her again.
‘It couldn’t have been because she trusted me after I saved her family?’
‘No, Maxella.’ He narrowly missed a cataclysmic error of judgement as he zipped up his pants. Not quite ready to face the public yet. ‘Vittoria Barbarani does not do gratitude . Which you would know if you’d come to me with this information!’
What was wrong with them? How could they have gone from clawing each other’s clothes off to clawing at each other’s throats within the minute?
Guess it hadn’t been anything more than a casual mud room fuck.
Good. That was ... good. Made things simpler.
‘You’re not my boss!’ Max hissed. ‘This used to be my job, remember? You might not like it, but for all I knew, you could have been the one who wrote the note! I was trying to keep everyone alive, not tiptoe around your feelings!’
‘Don’t pretend this was ever about my feelings,’ he said. ‘I don’t have feelings, remember? Wait.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘You thought there was the possibility I’d written the note when we were waiting for Quinton to help Arnold?’
She raised an eyebrow.
‘When I—’
‘When you what? Thought I was attacking Nella?’
‘When I told you about Sophie? For fuck’s sake, I trusted you, and that whole time you were keeping that from me?’
‘You never told me about Sophie! Vittoria told me I should ask you how she was. You gave some convoluted fake-ass apology without ever really digging any deeper than the surface, because I don’t think you actually know how to. When you’ve got the excuse that your problems are never as big as the Barbaranis, it’s easy to hide everything away, isn’t it?’
‘You’re right, Max. My problems’—he held her gaze—‘are not important. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find Vittoria.’
‘It’s not going to change anything!’ she yelled. ‘What are you going to be able to decipher from the note that I couldn’t? I might not be a billionaire wine heiress or a world-class investigative journalist, but you know I can read, right?’
He pushed the door open with his shoulder, twisting back to look at her. Despite the anger coursing through him, desire still hadn’t completely left his system. Her hair was slightly messy from his hands, her lips plush and red from his mouth. A rush of possession, a primal need to shut the door and push her back up against the wall and do it all over again coiled inside. But he shoved it down. It was the only real thing he’d ever been good at.
‘Did you ever consider, Max,’ he said, arm against the frame, ‘Vittoria did not want me to see the note because she knew I would recognise the handwriting?’
For once Grey was grateful the Barbaranis treated these sort of events like a life-saving surgery they had to execute precisely, lest they succumb to the worst kind of death imaginable to the upper-class: social embarrassment. The inoperable kind.
The bigger the crowd, the better the gossip spread to those unfortunate enough to miss out on an invitation.
The crowd of guests clotting the entirety of the ballroom that would normally make him prickle with anxiety now felt like a comforting blanket. He could get lost in here, he had a purpose in here – eyes training up and down every individual as subtly as he dared – looking for Vittoria, for Skinner, for a murderer.
For all I knew, you could have been the one who wrote the note!
Fuck. He couldn’t think about her. Couldn’t think about that apple and cinnamon smell and those curves in that goddamn dress he knew Nella had given her to fuck with him.
It hadn’t been enough. She wasn’t out of his system.
But if there was one silver lining about the revelation of Vittoria’s note, it was that at least he’d resisted telling Max what he was really feeling. If he hadn’t had his father’s and Giovanni’s voices in his ear, he would have cupped hers in his palm and whispered what he really wanted to do after the gala was over. After they’d stopped a killer, if there even was a killer. Back in his cottage, just the two of them. Hell, if the kitchen bench was what she wanted ...
Enough. He sipped from his water bottle, which Jett had given him as a peace offering after the wine debacle, even though it wasn’t Jett’s fault that Giovanni had lost it.
Were his feelings about the note rational for an employee who hadn’t been given clearance to something like that? Maybe there was another reason Vittoria hadn’t wanted him to see the note.
Feelings? Listen to yourself. He’d never thought this much about thinking in his entire life.
He couldn’t stop, and it was all her fault that these thoughts were ricocheting off the walls of his mind like a pinball machine. He wasn’t just an employee, was he? This wasn’t just work, this was his life, and like he’d admitted to Max, the Barbaranis were the closest thing he had to family. But was there some truth in what she’d said – that family protects each other? Whatever hurt Grey felt about his father, or whatever it was, needed to be disentangled from his duties to the Barbaranis. He needed to stop reacting like this when Giovanni and Vittoria treated him like they treated every other worker.
But was that actually true? Giovanni was always harder on him. The incident with the wine just exemplified that. Was it because of the army, because they figured they were doing him a favour by re-employing him? Was it because Giovanni and Vittoria had never truly forgiven him for leaving? For what happened to Frankie? But then why bring him back at all? Giovanni Barbarani didn’t give second chances.
Unless it was a debt owed.
Grey had always been suspicious of the Barbaranis’ altruism towards him after he’d been discharged but he’d never questioned it until now. Some part of him hadn’t wanted to know, had liked the fairytale ending he’d concocted in his mind – that the Barbaranis wanted him back because they missed him, because this was where he belonged. They’d brought him home. But now – with everything raw and bruised and his father’s voice in his ear about women like Max and Sophie, Giovanni attacking him and ignoring Jett, Vittoria showing Max the note and not him – those doubts were hissing louder. Did Giovanni owe some sort of debt to Grey’s dad?
That would mean Grey was only brought back as a business transaction to the honour of a dead man. And that, he hated to admit, hurt more than what Sophie had done.
Speaking of the she-devil, there she was, right beside Ariana La Marca of all people. Where Ariana was petite and curvy, with spun-gold hair twisted in a knot at the nape of her neck, Sophie was tall – almost Grey’s height – built like an Olympic swimmer with strong shoulders and a long neck. She was as breathtaking as ever.
Some people seemed to be able to ball anger up like thick clay and carry it around with them for years, never forgetting. But for Grey anger had always been translucent and fluid. It slipped through his fingers, burning like liquid fire or compressed sunlight. He kept the burns but they faded over time.
Now, with his mind half on Max, half on finding Vittoria and demanding she show him the note, his stomach and his healed hands barely registered Sophie. He used to just think her name and his saliva would turn to acid. He’d see an article in the West Australian with her by-line and his toes would curl in his shoes. But now, there was barely anything there.
Strange.
He knew she’d seen him but he didn’t want to acknowledge that. She went back to talking to Ariana – what those two had in common was beyond Grey, but it suited him just fine. Where Ariana was, Forrest would be within a ten-metre radius – ah yes, there, sipping sangue and looking smug next to Raphael. Raphael appeared to be waiting for Grey’s eyes to find his – he raised a glass in greeting and Grey glared back politely. He would never trust that man as far as he could throw him. The memory of his slimy hand on Max’s back had nothing to do with it.
Much.
Skinner hadn’t made an appearance, of that much Grey was certain. Now that he’d spotted Ariana and Raphael, he had a clear picture in his mind of where all the La Marcas and their staff were – like pieces on a chessboard. If they made a move, he’d know.
Claudia La Marca (the Queen), turning her nose up at the antipasto by the fountain.
Ariana La Marca (the Pawn), out of her chef whites and into a long-sleeved charcoal dress, laughing with Raphael (the Knight) and Forrest (the Dickhead).
Matteo La Marca (the King), right behind Grey—
‘ Let’s walk, Barbie .’ Matteo’s accent was thicker than Giovanni’s. He had fought hard against the Australianisation of his dialect. Grey somewhat respected him for that, but he couldn’t help wondering if, seeing as he grew up on Australian soil, Matteo’s Northern Italian accent was just a little bit forced.
Matteo nudged him forward. Grey gritted his teeth against the dent in his pride, but no one around them seemed to be paying any attention. The room was swollen now with faces Grey was struggling to recognise, which made the familiar anxiety in him twist horribly – how was he meant to know who could be a killer? What if one of the heads turned away from him was Skinner? He tried to get a glimpse of red before he turned the corner but couldn’t see Max through the crowd of black and white. His stomach twisted tighter.
Relax. She’s a cop. She’s fine. But something felt wrong.
His phone buzzed silently in his pocket. Adrenaline coursed through him when he saw the text ID. Even though she couldn’t break confidentiality and give the details of Libby’s civilian visitors, Alexandra had come through with the names of Libby’s cellmates and women she interacted most with in Semperdom. Grey’s background-checking contact had done the rest.
He opened his phone as discreetly as possible, catching the majority of the message before Matteo said, ‘Let’s not be rude, now, Hawke.’
Grey put the phone back in his pocket, heart pounding at the words he’d managed to glimpse. What had Max said about the conversation Libby was having with the visitor in the hoodie? Something about school ... no, not school ... A name with the first letter of the surname ...
Edie R.
The message on his phone burned through to his thigh as Matteo led him into the hallway with the guest bathrooms and the glass doors to the balcony. One of Frankie’s studded friends was leaning against the door smoking a joint; she gave Grey a lazy wave that he ignored, Matteo’s hand pushing him deeper into the corridor.
‘This private enough for you?’ He’d let Matteo lead him away because he knew from past experiences that Matteo would ask once and then knock him out and drag him if he didn’t comply.
Matteo examined the enclave and folded his arms, stepping closer. He was the exact opposite of Giovanni in terms of height and stature, but the angry, murderous Italian-ness was the same. Where Gio was short and round like a bowling ball, Matteo was the pin – as tall as Grey. Almost. He had a thin silver goatee, trimmed with excruciating precision to a knife point, whereas anything that required more than a rough scrape with a blunt razor was considered an effeminate make-up routine by Gio. And Matteo normally had a lighter, Northern Italian complexion compared with the Barbaranis’ dark, southerner roots, but it was either fake tan or raw red rage that made his face this dark as he spat at Grey’s feet.
‘The food not agree with you, Signore La Marca?’ Grey forced out, resisting the urge to grab the man by his thin neck and shove his enormous Roman nose into the wet patch of saliva on the floor.
‘You’ve got some nerve speaking first.’ Matteo’s growl was primal and chilling.
Grey leant back into the wall, quite literally cornered.
Matteo stepped forward – there was no more space between them. The man smelled like tobacco and Strega. ‘You brought a pig to my house, Greyson?’ Matteo’s voice was quiet but the deadliness of his words rippled through the space between them.
‘I would never do such a cruel thing to an innocent animal.’
‘My barman said you brought a cop.’
Fucking Raphael. How had he known? ‘Yeah, well, I always thought Raphael was losing his touch. You know, if he was a horse I’d ...’ Grey pressed his fingers to his temple like a gun.
Matteo didn’t let up. ‘You were asking about Skinner. Police. On La Marca property. You know what this means, Hawke – you’re done. She’s done. She’s dead.’ Matteo licked his lips like he was already tasting Max’s blood.
Fuck. Fuck . Grey was going to be sick. Why hadn’t he told Max to use a fake name? Bringing police onto the La Marcas’ property was as good as signing both of their death warrants.
But would even a fake name have worked? It was impossible to believe Max was anything but a cop. A hot cop. The kind guys fantasise about pulling them over and handcuffing them and ...
Max.
As Matteo’s smile cut across his face like a wound, Grey caught a glimpse of his gold back teeth. The glint dropped something from the shelf of his memory – Edie R. What he’d read in the text wasn’t quite right – something at the gala – something he should remember ... What was it?
‘If you’ve done anything to her,’ Grey snarled, ‘if you’ve so much as looked at her—’
‘Oh, Greyson. You’ve been in the middle of this war for so long, surely you’re not so na?ve. Gio will be disappointed in you.’
Grey shoved Matteo aside – his adrenaline fuelled his escape, but Matteo didn’t try to stop him. Which could only mean one thing.
He was already too late.
Again.
‘Max!’ He stumbled down the hallway, pushing through the dignified guests, their faces blurring, their complaints raining against his back.
Think. But he couldn’t think. He couldn’t ... he had to ... he was too ...
No ...
No ...
He was going underwater, deeper, deeper. He couldn’t swim back up for air.
No. He couldn’t go back. Not now. No. He had to save her.
He pushed through doors. Matteo would have taken her somewhere private, somewhere quiet.
‘Max!’
The memories of his darkest moment were wrapping around him, trying to tug him down deeper, press him under.
No. He couldn’t go back. He had to stay here. He had to stay with her.
Fight it off. Fight it off.
I’m here , she’d said to him. I’m here .
Where? Where are you now?
I’m here.
But she wasn’t. All he had was her voice and the memory of her hands on his chest, bringing him back.
He had to stay here. For her. He had to remember her.
‘Max!’
That was when he tripped over the first body.