Cameras had flashed and microphones had shoved against her as she, Grey and Max pushed their way through the crowd of media locusts into the courthouse. Grey fed her some story about Tom being trapped near Nannup, where the fire was. He’d driven as close as he could get to Tom but the road blockade had turned him around. Nella didn’t have time to digest it as truth or not. All she knew was that even if he was in Bindi Bindi Cove, her brother wouldn’t have been here by her side.
Now, in the hall outside the courtroom they were waiting to enter, Costa winked, then eyed her up and down like she was in a bikini at Bindi Bindi beach and he was a shirtless twenty-something lifeguard with time to kill. Clarkson wouldn’t have had to put up with this shit or, if he did, he probably would have had the balls to wink right back at Costa.
Clarkson.She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin a little higher. Power burned through her – not enough to be confident, but enough.
‘I must insist you do not speak to him without me,’ Costa replied.
Nella held his gaze. ‘I’m not a cop.’
‘I insist.’
‘Fine. But just so you know, as soon as he realises what it is I want to talk about,he’sgoing to insist you leave the room.’
‘I’ll take that bet, Miss Barbarani.’
Nella smiled and mentally kicked him in the crotch.
When Matteo La Marca arrived, smug face contorted into an expression so gleeful, Nella could almost see the indent of a reporter’s microphone on his mouth, Costa explained Nella’s request. Matteo didn’t bat an eyelid, following them into an empty attorney-client conference room.
‘I have a proposition,’ Nella said, once they’d all sat uncomfortably on plastic chairs. The room smelt like stale coffee and egg.
‘Can’t wait.’ Matteo smirked, rolling one of his black rings around his slim fingers.
‘I don’t think we will need to go to court.’
Costa laughed. ‘Oh, Miss Barbarani, I know you haven’t been a lawyer for very long, but this big building with all the fancy adults in suitsisa court, sweetheart.’
If she launched across the table now and slugged him in the jaw, she was pretty sure she could get three good hits in before Matteo dragged her off him.
Don’t fuck this up. There’s no back-up now. It’s just you.
She’d texted Daisy telling her not to come, to go to the paralegal conference in Perth she’d wanted to attend, saying she deserved the day off (which quite honestly she did after Nella almost slept with her ex-boyfriend the night he’d broken up with her). But what she really didn’t want was Daisy to be privy to what she was about to offer Matteo.
She thought of Luca, wherever he was. And Tom. She imagined tubes lodged down his throat, brain grey and static after some sort of car crash, or burns crisping across his body, caught in the wildfire spreading south to Bindi Bindi.
She would not think of Jett.
She thought of her father.
Dad would be proud of you, Nel.
Luca had been right. In trying to prove to her father she didn’t need him, she’d become him. She’d thrown Luca to the La Marcas, not knowing she was playing directly into Matteo’s hands. She’d put her little brother in danger in pursuit of the truth, but really it had been to save the Barbarani name. Which was all her father had ever cared about.
She thought of Max and Grey, and how what she was about to do was the knife that would sever any friendship they’d ever had.
Nella Barbarani was not a true friend. She was not a caring sister or a loving daughter. She was not cut out to be a mother or a loving wife. She was the opposite of what someone like Jett deserved. This was the tip of the ice mountain she’d been carving her whole life. This was how she was going to win. This was what she was made for.
She just had to summit the last gruelling ridge, her fingers going black from frostbite.
‘I want to offer you a deal.’ She heard the words from her lips as some third party might: assured, confident, deadly.
It was the voice of Giovanni Barbarani.
‘You don’t want to go to trial, do you?’ Costa cut in.
It was a stupid question. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of civil law or who had watched the first season ofSuitsknew trials were the last resort. Most matters were settled out of court. Lawyers didn’t want to go to trial if they could help it.
‘My offer will benefit us both,’ Nella continued. ‘It involves evidence that’s come to light involving your future son-in-law, Signore La Marca.’
