Chapter 39
39
Grey
Grey heard the words, but had no idea what they meant.
Vittoria had vanished into another dark passageway he’d never seen marked on the blueprints. Quinton was wordlessly dragging Nella, then Luca, then Tom and finally Jett through the door after her.
Grey didn’t move.
Maybe Matteo hadn’t just threatened Max. Maybe Matteo had stabbed Grey – gutted him through his suit like a fish and he was now bleeding out in the Barbarani hallway. Maybe he hadn’t told Max those unforgivable things. Maybe Gio hadn’t been shot. Maybe Frankie was holding Grey’s head and crying, not glaring up him with a crooked smile and a gun.
None of this was real.
Greyson’s your brother.
‘That’s a lie,’ his avatar explained to the creators of this reality.
‘Why do you think she’s pointing the gun at you?’ Max asked, her voice shaking and her eyes not moving from the door that had closed behind Vittoria and the others. Quinton stood against it, thick arms folded. There was no chance. It was over. Grey was going to die. But she didn’t have to. He had known as soon as he’d come into the room and seen Nella and Tom and Jett tied up that he wasn’t getting out of here alive. But he could make sure the last thing he did was get Max out of here.
‘She’s right, Greyson,’ Frankie said. ‘You’re my big brother.’
‘I don’t have the same blood as you, Frank. You know my dad.’
‘I do. I had him shot about an hour ago.’
‘Giovanni’s not my—’
‘Your mum didn’t leave you, Greyson,’ she said, almost kindly. ‘She was forced out – surely that’s not a huge leap for you to make. You know what this family’s like.’
‘You’re wrong, she abandoned us, she ... my dad said—’
‘That man was not your dad!’ Frankie screeched. ‘ Giovanni is your dad. But the guy who raised you probably believed you were his.’
‘Vittoria said she knew how to hurt Giovanni,’ Max said. ‘I think she was insinuating it was the same way he’d hurt her – he had an affair.’
Grey swallowed, trying to make sense of it. ‘How do you know this, Frankie?’
‘Because of the money.’ She blinked. ‘Obviously.’
He shook his head. ‘None of this is obvious.’
‘She found the will,’ Max said. Frankie didn’t argue. ‘You needed to know the money was definitely coming to you before you went ahead with the bomb. That was Plan A, right?’
Frankie raised an eyebrow. ‘Libby said we had to have two plans, in case the cellar got screwed up.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ Max said without feeling. ‘But at least I helped you with Plan B.’ Her gaze flickered to Skinner on the bed. ‘You’re not going to kill him, are you?’
‘He’s going to be responsible for the horrific murders of my family,’ Frankie said. ‘His fingerprints are already on the gun.’
Skinner moaned through his ties. Grey felt like he was Skinner – hands, feet, mouth bound, wanting to scream, but not being able to find the words.
‘Libby fed me the story about Skinner,’ Max said. ‘All you had to do was wait for me to show up, pointing everyone in the wrong direction.’
‘You did it brilliantly,’ Frankie said. ‘It helped that Greyson was obviously so obsessed with you, he couldn’t think straight. That was a bonus I wasn’t anticipating – from what Libby told me, you really didn’t seem like his type.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ Max said.
Only silence from behind the door. Were they waiting for Frankie’s signal? Were they injecting the Barbaranis with the same stuff they’d neutralised the guards with?
Giovanni is your dad.
‘Dad’s been paying off your mum for thirty-two years,’ Frankie said. ‘It’s all there, in his financial stuff. I had to let ETR know how much they’ll be getting once this is done. I don’t think I’ll keep those payments going though – not really any point since you’ll be dead.’
‘It might surprise you to know that murder isn’t everyone’s first answer to their problems, Frankie,’ Max said.
Frankie shrugged. ‘It wasn’t supposed to get this messy. Like you said, the bomb in the cellar was meant to take care of everything. I left the note on Dad’s pillow that would make it look like a suicide because of the poisoned wine, and I was going to slip through the passageway and let it off, but you ruined that.’ She glared at Max.
‘Does Vittoria know?’ Grey said. But then he remembered her face as the door slammed. She knew. She’d always known.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one who kicked your mum out.’
My dad is not my dad. Giovanni’s my dad.
Everything he’d been told about his mother ... about ‘women like her’ ... it ... it had all been ...
It was all a fucking lie.
Was that why Gio had always been so much harder on him than Jett? Was this why they’d taken him back after he’d deserted them for the army? Giovanni didn’t give second chances. But maybe he felt some sort of residual guilt at never claiming Grey as his own. Was it out of guilt or love or righteous duty that Gio had given Grey this job?
This job.
This life.
A lie. He was a lie.
‘You’ve got the same jawline as Emilio Barbarani.’ Max dropped her head as soon as she said it.
‘It’s so obvious, right?’ Frankie giggled, throwing her head back. ‘God, we were so stupid.’
‘You knew?’ Grey asked her, acid burning through his veins at her laugh. ‘And you said nothing?’
‘What would it have changed?’
I would have left. I would have ... lived my own life. I wouldn’t have felt so tethered to this place out of guilt. That kid wouldn’t have died.
‘We’re running out of time.’ The call came from behind the door. Raphael.
‘Urgh.’ Frankie rolled her eyes like this entre exchange was boring her. ‘Quinton, go do it.’
‘Can’t, Frank.’ Quinton shook his head. ‘No more drugs. We didn’t realise your Fixer was going to put so many guards on. And ...’ Quinton looked sheepish. Well, wolfish, in sheep’s clothing. ‘I can’t find my satchel. I must have left it—’
‘Just say the word, Francesca.’
Fucking Raphael.
The first flash of irritation struck Frankie’s face. Grey caught the moment, pushing down everything rising within him. Everything he wanted to ask, everything he wanted to scream. He was dead already, whether Giovanni was really his dad or not. But they were all dead if he stood here cloaked in his own pain.
Too many guards. One thing Frankie hadn’t counted on.
Quinton’s satchel. Gone. But where?
‘Fine,’ she called, wrinkling her nose. ‘Shoot them then. Whatever. I just don’t want to watch.’
No. No. No.
‘Wait.’ Grey had nothing. ‘Just wait.’
Frankie raised an eyebrow again. Max shuffled in his periphery and his eyes fell to the blonde girl on the floor.
‘What about Ariana?’ he asked.
‘I’m not spilling innocent blood,’ Frankie said. ‘I’m not a monster. She’s been injected with the same combo-thing that was meant for me.’
So this wasn’t part of the plan. Grey catalogued all the things that had gone wrong for Frankie. She hadn’t been anticipating this many people in the room. She hadn’t intended anyone to be a witness to the fact that she was the mastermind behind her family’s murders. Ariana was a mistake – she hadn’t expected the La Marca girl to trust them enough to follow them into the passage. She hadn’t expected Max to find his watch. Vittoria wasn’t supposed to have taken that dart. Frankie was meant to be unconscious or just starting to come around now, while Quinton and Raphael finished the job.
How was Grey meant to use this? Would the gun he’d placed under Ariana when he’d first run to her be too obvious? Would Max even take the hint?
‘Check she’s breathing,’ Grey said to Max.
‘Quinton can do it,’ Frankie said.
‘Funnily enough, I don’t trust Quinton anymore.’
Grey kept his eyes on Frankie and the gun as Max moved slowly in the corner of his eye. He forced himself not to look at her, not to give anything away. Not to give Frankie any reason to shoot her.
‘Stay down,’ Frankie said.
Max froze in her crouch by Ariana, like a child playing musical statues.
Fuck. What now?
‘You can’t kill her,’ Grey said. ‘I understand you have to kill me, if you really believe I’m your brother, but you can’t kill Max. She’s not part of this. She’s not meant to be here. Like you said, Frankie, you don’t want to spill innocent blood. That’s not what you’re here to do.’
‘But she’s not innocent , Greyson.’ Frankie clicked her tongue. ‘She’s going to tell people that it wasn’t Skinner. She loves you – I can see it. She’s not going to let you die without telling people. She’s a criminal. She’s got no future and nothing left to lose.’
Grey fought the horrific desire to laugh. ‘She’s not a criminal. And she doesn’t love me.’ Despite every cell in his body that told him to keep his eye on Frankie and the gun, Grey looked at Max, hunched over Ariana, not facing him or Frankie. ‘Do you?’
‘Now,’ Frankie called. ‘Do it NOW , Raphael!’
‘No!’ Grey screamed as Frankie turned her gun towards Max. But the sound of bullets came from behind the door. He counted the shots like he’d been taught to do. Even though he was dead, he was still counting.
Pop.
Tomaso.
Pop.
Luca.
Pop.
Vittoria.
Pop.
Nella.
Frankie must have shot him then, because the next thing he heard could not have been real.
‘I’m sorry. But I do love him,’ Max said as she pulled Grey’s gun from under the crook of Ariana’s arm.