Chapter 8
8
Grey
‘You know, when you said you liked my dress, I didn’t think that meant you wanted to wear it.’
Nella’s voice rattled Grey’s bones. He really needed to get a doorbell. He’d been watching the tip of Max’s head as she lay across his Italian leather couch watching reruns of The Bachelor . She said there’d been a debate in prison about which show they were going to watch every night, because The Bachelor conflicted with Farmer Wants a Wife . Farmer always won.
The fact that this tattooed criminal liked to watch reality TV was the least inconceivable thing about The Situation. The Situation being Maxella Conrad, ex-cop, current criminal, skimpy-singlet-wearing fear-monger sitting on his couch. He had not kept his eyes off The Situation since Jett left to do what Grey should have been doing, which was following up the statements about the supposed bad batch of sangue and organising more security for the gala. Instead, Grey had the dream job of a bored fourteen-year-old in the 90s. Babysitting.
Max muted the TV while Grey opened the door. He didn’t want Nella to see Max. He’d rather Nella think he’d taken up cross-dressing in his spare time.
‘I never said I liked your dress,’ he replied, filling the small crack in the door, eclipsing, he hoped, the entire living area. ‘Your style is painfully old-fashioned.’
‘Must have been Jett then,’ Nella said brightly. ‘He’s always staring at my arse when he thinks I’m not looking.’
Grey nodded. ‘He’s probably remembering the time you had explosive diarrhoea.’
‘I’ve missed this charming version of Greyson, where have you been?’ She grabbed his cheek in the way Italian nonnas do, like they’re trying to pry flesh from bone.
‘Is your dad still yelling?’ He tried to steer the conversation as casually as he could away from the clothes. Once they hit that particular cliff edge, there’d be no way to stop his fall.
‘Finished about five minutes ago.’ Frankie rounded the corner of his cottage – she’d changed out of her trackies and was now in what could only be described as a potato sack someone had hacked a few holes into.
There had never been two sisters who looked more different. While Nella was a smooth, dark diamond, all perfect angles a mathematician would have a wet dream over, Frankie was a strange, rough-cut granite rock that sparkled vibrant colours in different lighting.
Frankie bounced onto the doormat. Her round face was free from make-up, unlike her sister’s – Grey didn’t think he’d ever seen Nella without make-up since she turned fourteen – and she had a smattering of freckles across her nose. (Nella may have similar freckles but Grey couldn’t remember on account of the foundation.) And while Nella’s scars were mostly internal, Frankie never tried to hide the long thin marks on her neck from that time Grey never liked to think about.
Whenever he saw Frankie’s scars, Grey remembered how he had let her down, that he never should have left. He knew Frankie didn’t brandish them to punish him, but it felt like a punishment all the same.
‘Why are you here?’ Grey didn’t mean the question to come off as rude, but it did.
Frankie didn’t look remotely fazed. ‘I saw you leaving with that stuff.’ She was glaring at Nella. ‘Is that silk?’ She fingered the material of a rose gold nightgown. Or maybe it was an evening dress. Grey really didn’t understand Nella’s clothes.
‘Only the best.’ Nella nuzzled the material like it was a newborn baby.
Frankie’s frown deepened. ‘Do you know where that silk came from?’
‘China,’ Nella said, flicking her hair back.
‘Silkworms!’ Frankie hissed, trying to pry the dress from Nella’s fingers. ‘Silkworms died to make that dress.’ Her voice cracked and tears threatened to spill.
Grey sighed. ‘Their sacrifice won’t be in vain, Franks. I’m desperate.’
‘What do you need them for?’ Nella asked, one hip cocked. ‘You’re not chopping them up to make your own set of voodoo dolls, are you?’
‘All my voodoo dolls are naked,’ Grey said, reaching for the clothes. ‘Thanks, Nel. Sorry about the worms, Frank, but I gotta ...’
‘Oh, no you don’t.’ Nella clicked her tongue, holding on to her pile of fabric.
Frankie sniffed. Grey opened his mouth to comfort her – he couldn’t have Frankie hitchhiking back to Perth before the gala, not when Giovanni had ordered her to be there – and the momentary distraction was enough for Nella to push past him and into his cottage.
Max was sitting cross-legged on the couch, eyes slanted and assessing the Barbarani sisters like a ...
Well. Like a cop.
‘Ah ha.’ Nella smirked like she’d uncovered a secret passageway by pulling out a book from his shelf. ‘A woman!’
‘I thought you were gay?’ Frankie said absentmindedly, her eyes still clouded with tears.
He ran a hand down his face, stubble he’d forgotten about fighting against his palm.
‘Hi.’ Nella outstretched a long, jewellery-laden arm to Max, who looked at it like it was a loaded gun. ‘I’m Antonella.’
Max shook her hand, then folded her arms across the shirt Grey had made a staunch vow to never look at while it was in its current form – peaking and dipping in shapes it never made against his own body.
Nella blinked, but her plum-coloured lips stretched into what onlookers might take to be a smile. Grey knew better though; it was the same expression a wolf made before it sank its teeth into a rabbit.
‘And you’re Francesca.’ Max’s eyes flickered over Frankie like a laser beam. ‘I saw you on the news. I agree with all the points you made about the logging industry.’
Nella looked a little off balance at a woman in Grey’s home warming to Frankie over her. But if Nella actually looked in the mirror once in a while, surely she’d figure out why most women hated her. Meanwhile, Frankie’s shoulders seemed to unwind at Max’s words. At least she wasn’t mentioning dead silkworms anymore.
‘This is Max,’ Grey said, his voice rough against his throat. ‘She’s part of the extra security team I hired for the gala.’
Nella whipped her head towards him. He braced for her accusation that he’d only asked Giovanni about hiring extra protection this morning. But instead came ‘Is that your shirt , Greyson?’
Grey wondered if there was a chance Emilio Barbarani had built one of his secret passageways into the ground of this old worker’s cottage. The ability to pull a hidden lever and be swallowed by the cool stone floor had never felt more necessary. He cleared his throat. ‘There was an issue with her luggage – her old clothes were ruined.’
‘Ruined?’ Nella purred, her eyes glinting around the cottage as if hoping to spot a scattering of ripped buttons and shredded underwear.
‘Someone puked on her,’ Grey said as Max started to interject. ‘The smell was unbelievable.’
Max glared. Nella didn’t seem to notice.
‘I needed her to start straight away, before I talked to your dad this morning. You guys are the most important thing to Giovanni. He’d never cheap out on your protection.’
‘Ha!’ Frankie barked the word out with her whole body.
Grey watched Max’s eyes narrow. Shut up, Frankie .
‘If there was an attack on the winery, the first thing Dad would do is run to the cellar to save the sangue,’ Frankie said. ‘He’d use us as buffers against the walls – and then yell that we weren’t standing straight enough.’
‘Frankie!’ Nella and Grey said at the same time.
‘What? You know I’m right.’ Frankie ruffled her hair, her shirt sleeve slipping down to reveal a new upper-arm tattoo of the earth with what looked like the Excalibur sword through the centre and a silhouette attempting to pull it out. Hopefully she had a long-sleeved dress to wear to the gala or Giovanni would order Grey to cut off her arm.
‘She’s kidding,’ Nella explained to Max.
‘I was barely listening, sorry – the new bachelor’s doing his shirtless photo.’
‘Oh, I love this episode!’ Nella switched her wolf smile for a humanish one and perched herself on one of the stools she’d chosen for the cottage, her pale pink heels dangling to the floor like a child on a merry-go-round.
Don’t fall into her trap, Nella , Grey wanted to warn. She’s covered it with leaves and forest debris, but she’s gonna snap your pretty little ankles and get you to tell her everything before you know you’ve fallen down her hole.
As though she could hear him, Max turned and gave him the grin of an evil clown.
‘Did you know there’s a study that shows intelligent people love reality TV?’ Nella asked.
Frankie snorted again but flopped down on Grey’s two-seater and started scrolling through her phone, eyes flickering to the screen when she thought no one was looking.
Grey didn’t think he’d ever had this many people in his house before.
‘So what happened to the rest of your clothes, Max?’ Nella asked. Apparently Max’s Bachelor trick was a single-use Nella distraction.
Max glanced sideways at Grey. He nodded, a little surprised she’d checked.
‘My bag got lost at the terminal,’ she said, stretching her legs out. On. His. Coffee. Table. Lord, this woman. Criminal. This criminal.
‘Your whole bag?’ Nella lifted her brows in that lawyer way.
‘The whole thing.’ Max nodded in that cop way.
‘No undies?’ Nella breathed. Grey did not miss the sideways glance she gave him. It would be bad manners to throw the vase Nella bought him at her, wouldn’t it?
‘None.’ Max swallowed.
‘I didn’t bring undies.’ Nella looked at the pile of clothes she’d dumped on the kitchen bench. ‘I didn’t actually think Grey was serious. I felt for sure Jett had got the message wrong. I have some though if you want – I get sent stuff all the time. I haven’t opened them. They’re from some sex shop in Adelaide but—’
‘They’ll be fine! Thanks.’
Grey knew Nella was completely capable of making conversations like this discreet. Her courtroom opponents never had any idea what she was going to pull to make her clients come out on top. But whether she was baiting him or Max was unclear.
‘I’ll send them down later. Unless you need them now?’
‘I’m good,’ Max said, clearly uncomfortable. Which made Grey feel more comfortable. Yes, you should feel weird being here in my home, talking to Nella and Frankie Barbarani like you’ve known them since kindergarten, wearing no underwear and ...
She said she’s good, Greyson. That obviously means she’s wearing under ...
Oh. Shut. Up.
He glared at Max to get the image out of his head that she’d unknowingly put there. Hell, who was he kidding? She probably knew exactly what she was doing.
‘Are the other security guards staying with you, Grey?’ Nella asked in what she probably thought was a sweet voice.
Nice try.
‘Most are arriving tomorrow. Max offered to come earlier to assist with the initial preparations.’
‘Well, don’t let us hold you up,’ Nella said. ‘It looks like you’re run off your feet. Nice to meet you, Max.’ She waved and then snuck Grey a look that suggested she’d just cracked all the nuclear codes.
Frankie gave Max a quick wiggle of her fingers, half-heartedly kissed Grey on the cheek and followed her sister out the door with one last glare at the silk dress.
When the door shut behind them, Grey felt like they’d been air-locked into a pressurised space shuttle. ‘Was that everything you’d ever dreamed it would be?’ he asked. ‘Meeting the Barbarani sisters?’
Max switched off the TV and stuck her hand through the hole in a pair of Nella’s ripped jeans. ‘Oh yes,’ she breathed. ‘I stole a piece of Nella’s hair and Frankie lost a toenail. I’m going to grind them up and make a perfume so I can always remember this moment.’
‘They only talked to you like that because you’re with me.’
‘And you’re their favourite hit man.’
‘I’m not a hit man!’
‘But you are their favourite?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Question is – can you trust them? Any of them?’
‘More than I trust you.’
‘You’re avoiding the question.’
‘Stop interrogating me. You’re not a cop anymore.’
The expression that flashed across her face made him almost regret that. ‘I think I’ll get changed now before we go visit the La Marcas.’ Her hair fell across her face like a black crow’s wing.
He tried, yet again, to think of a good excuse for why he should go alone. Not going at all was not an option. There was no news on Poppy Raven, the alleged poisoned wine victim. Her condition in ICU was the same, which meant so was the internet’s opinion on the Barbaranis’ guilt. The La Marcas needed to be questioned if only to stop Tom from actually poisoning Grey’s water system for not acting with enough urgency. And if he went alone, The Situation would have to stay here, and he couldn’t monitor what she was doing or who she was talking to. He wouldn’t put it past her to find a way to the mansion through the sewerage system.
Someone else might have been worried, when Maxella Conrad extracted herself from his couch and padded down the hallway to his bathroom, that it wouldn’t be clean enough for a guest. Especially an attractive female guest. Instead, Grey prayed that there were shavings crusting in the sink and stray pubic hairs floating in the undrained shower water.
He had never wanted someone gone so much.