‘The salt content in those things will kill you quicker than bullets.’
She stared into the dregs of her espresso like a psychic trying to decipher them.
‘Sorry.’ Jett’s voice was quiet. She didn’t want to see the look in his eyes. The sound of Raphael’s gunshots she’d thought were meant for her and her siblings was the dark lullaby she fell asleep to every night. But Jett couldn’t know that. Jett thought, like everyone else did, that Nella Barbarani was an unmeltable ice tower, her foundations frozen solid against what would make normal humans splinter and shatter.
‘What does Tom need me for?’ she asked. ‘Hurry up and tell me, then I can turn you down and you can go home and say you did your best. I know he’ll give you a pat and a conciliatory head scratch like the good boy you are.’
He didn’t take the bait. ‘And what will you do? Stay here for another six months, eating, fucking and partying yourself into a coma?’ He put his cup on the coffee table, which was likely relieved to be finally called to its official duty rather than its stand-in as a convenient flat surface for coke lines.
She stretched her legs out along the couch. ‘And tanning.’
He glared at her exposed skin, then blew out his frustration. He took his phone from his pocket and started typing.
Nella picked at a loose thread on her dressing gown, pretending not to watch him. Aside from his cheeks being a bit more gaunt, Jett looked the same. His dark skin and all his features like a map of home, a familiarity she’d ached for these past six months, even though it was home she’d fled from in the first place. His left bicep flexed slightly under his pale blue T-shirt – the bicep she’d bitten like a wild animal as he’d dragged her away from her dad’s funeral. The lettersDCTwere inked across that muscle and despite her pleas and bargains and threats, he’d always refused to tell her what they stood for. In the armchair, his long legs were spaced a polite distance apart, unlike most man-spreaders she’d become accustomed to over her months on city transport.
She’d learnt to drive watching those legs. He’d agreed to teach her after Dad, Mum, Tom and Greyson had all given up on that particular mission impossible. Nella had always been clumsy when it came to practical, rhythmic things, like driving or dancing or walking. But Jett had been patient, or maybe just desperate to prove to her dad that he was useful enough to keep around. Watching the rhythm of Jett’s legs pushing and releasing the pedals was how she’d finally found her own. Which she’d lost now, of course. What was the point of learning to drive when you had someone who was paid to do it for you? Obama wore the same suit every day so he could free up his mind to make more important decisions, and Nella let Jett drive her so she could focus her talents elsewhere.
She shifted her gaze back up to his face where his deep brown eyes were illuminated by the glow of his phone screen – eyes that she’d stared into in what she’d thought were her last moments on Earth. And then, of course, the thick scar cutting diagonally across his face, which told the story of a secret past he’d never revealed to her. His face pissed her off because it was a constant reminder that he didn’t trust her with the truth.
‘Check your phone,’ he said now, glancing up. ‘I’ve sent you an email.’
She quickly averted her eyes. ‘Too scared to take me on face-to-face, so you’re resorting to cyberbullying?’ She recrossed her legs; he shifted in his seat. ‘My phone’s dead.’
He passed over his iPhone.
‘Still no case?’ she asked.
‘I like to live on the edge,’ he replied flatly. That much was true – he drove like a cat, recklessly taunting his nine lives and getting pissed off when someone sat in his seat.
She took the phone, sinking into the couch to read, then launched right back up. Her vision blurred. ‘Jett.’ Her hands shook. She re-read the tiny text, blinking to make sure it wasn’t her half-drunk state muddling the words. ‘Tell me I’m reading this wrong.’
He crossed his arms, back stiff.
She stared at the headline.La Marcas sue Barbaranis for profits made from stolen wine patent.‘This is a prank, right? You can’t sue for rights to a recipe in Australia. Are we on one of those reality shows where they—’
‘The lawsuit’s real,’ Jett cut in. ‘And you know Matteo La Marca’s always been convinced your grandfather didn’t make the famous sangue recipe on his own. He’s found a loophole.’ Both their eyes tracked to the framed recipe Victor had got his sticky fingers all over. ‘He’s always claimed it was suspiciously close to the onehisfather was allegedly working on.’
‘What’s suspicious is the death ofmygrandfather and how Antonio La Marca was never questioned about that, even though he—’
‘Iknow, Nella.’
Jett did know. Which was even more frustrating. Why wasn’t he raging and spitting flames and storming the La Marca property right now?
‘The initial hearing’s in three weeks,’ he continued. ‘I take it you haven’t been following the news. I found your phone in the microwave, so when you say it’sdead, I assume you mean you tried to murder it. When’s the last time you charged it?’
‘I’m invoking my right to silence as outlined in Section 8 of the Evidence Act, 1906.’ She closed her eyes.
‘And there you go.’
‘What?’
‘That’s why Tom needs you.’
She opened her eyes and stared at him. ‘Everyone’s entitled to Section 8, not just me.’
‘But he needs a lawyer.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not that type of lawyer.’
