Page 39 of Last Shot

The springs were essentially a sauna attached to the Barbarani private pool, which had been painstakingly designed to emulate Japanese hot springs. The tiles were a pale turquoise that had been painted over at least four times until Vittoria had declared they were good enough. Jagged rocks lined the edges, as perilous and slippery as the real thing, and thick coniferous bushes flanked the walls and climbed to the ceiling. Because of the steam, it was impossible to see the roof and you could almost convince yourself you were outside.

Grey still felt claustrophobic.

‘Why is Arnold Schwarzenegger here?’ Luca asked.

Max frowned at the cat as though, rightfully, trying to ascertain how this morbidly obese feline had received its name.

‘He’s here to tell Nella to stop letting him out,’ Grey said.

‘Why, is Arnold’s presence ruining your tough-guy look?’ Frankie asked, pulling her sleeve down over her new tattoo.

‘I don’t have a look,’ Grey said, dropping the cat a little too close to the water. But the stupid idiot landed gracefully, barely touching the pool’s edge. As Arnold sauntered off, Grey hoped no one (Frankie) noticed the feather dangling from his chin. There was officially no room in his schedule for a war between the sisters that had even more potential to ruin the gala than an attempted murder.

‘Is that him?’ Max pointed at the pale, slim figure half submerged in the steaming blue water near where Arnold had unfortunately not drowned. Tomaso’s head was resting on a flat grey rock, maroon headphones over his ears and half a bare chest with thick curls of damp hair visible above the steaming water.

‘It’s him,’ Tomaso said, eyes still closed.

‘How can he hear?’ Max mouthed.

‘He’s a bat,’ Grey said.

‘I don’t like being disturbed during my soaking time, Greyson,’ the eldest Barbarani boy said through a sniff. Even though Grey was just a year younger than Tomaso and proximity and age were generally enough criteria for most male friendships to form, he had always been the coldest towards Grey of the four. Even before the incident with the Porsche, for which he and Giovanni still blamed Grey, even though cars wereJett’sthing on this property.

Nella, Frankie and Luca tended to forget Grey wasn’t technically one of their own, but Tomaso was always reminding them – and Grey – that Grey was an employee. Always pushing him away with an invisible hand, all the while smiling politely. Tomaso had never said a bad word against him. But he was forever redrawing those lines between them in the sand.

‘I wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t important, Tom.’ Grey perched uncomfortably on the flattest rock he could find. It still stuck into him in all the wrong places.

‘Who’s your guest? This is aprivatespring.’ The headphones were still on, though one of Tomaso’s eyes had cracked open.

‘This is Max,’ Grey said as nonchalantly as he could. ‘She’s part of my security team.’

Tomaso sniffed and sunk deeper into the spring. ‘If you’re going to talk so loudly, you can’t be above me – it’s straining. Get in if this is so important.’

‘Tom, I really don’t have—’

‘In.’

Grey rolled his eyes and shucked off his shirt.

Max raised her eyebrows. ‘No tattoos?’

‘You don’t put a bumper sticker on a Ferrari, Conrad.’

She drew her hair away from the serpent wrapped around her shoulder and again, he was struck by the sickening desire to mark that part of her in a different way.

‘Right,’ she said, her eyes roving slowly down his bare chest, ‘but I’m a Lamborghini.’

He swallowed a smile as Frankie and Luca snorted in unison.

Face back to professional neutrality, he glared at Max. ‘Turn around.’

She held her hands up in surrender and faced Luca and Frankie, who were pretending to have their own conversation but were actually just the loudest silent eavesdroppers Grey had ever heard. Quickly, he shoved off his jeans and tucked his thumbs under the band of his underwear. Tomaso kept his hot spring rules as strict as the Japanese did.

The water was striking hot and singed through his skin, but once he’d submerged up to his chest, the burn was almost pleasant.

‘Are you coming in too?’ Tomaso’s eyes were closed again.

Max turned back and when she saw Grey in the pool she said, ‘Turn around.’

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