Page 94 of Last Shot

Max raised an eyebrow but Jett barged through Nella and Grey’s looped arms to offer everyone a glass of sangue. Max took one so she had something for her hands to do. Grey quickly accepted as well but Jett, she noticed, hadn’t poured one for himself.

‘A toast.’ Jett grinned. ‘To—’

‘What are you playing at?’ The roar from Giovanni made Max almost drop her glass. But Giovanni’s murderous eyes were only for Greyson.

‘Signore?’ Grey looked more confused than when they’d first met.

Giovanni snatched the glass from his hand. ‘Drinking on the job, are we, Hawke?’ Giovanni was at least two feet shorter than the Fixer but, dear god, Max swore Grey shrank about that much in the face of Giovanni’s wrath.

‘It was just a toast, G-man,’ Jett started. Why wasJettallowed to get away with talking to Giovanni like that? Why wasn’t Giovanni yelling at Jett?

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Giovanni said, dismissing him as easily as swatting a fly, his gaze never leaving Greyson. ‘You think this is all a joke? This bomb? Think you can just kick back and sip a nice glass of red?’

‘Gio, I—’

‘Donotcall me Giovanni!’ His nostrils were flaring like a bull. ‘It’sSignoreBarbarani. Always has been, Greyson. Do not let me down.’

‘I won’t, signore.’ Grey’s face returned to its usual mask, rigid and emotion-repellent. Every time Max saw it crack, every time she’d made it crack, either with anger or laughter or ... lust, she’d always felt like she’d unscrewed a sealed jar lid that no one else could. Now all she wanted to do was tear the person who’d turned it back to stone limb from limb.

Unfortunately, protecting that person from an untimely death was the only reason her sorry arse was here in the first place.

Grey walked away from the group, turning his head slightly to the side – she almost missed it. ‘Conrad – a moment?’

31

Max

If Grey hadn’t used her name, Max would have sworn he’d been signalling someone else. But there he was – half in her universe, half inside another one: the entrance to a room she’d never been in but knew, from the plans they’d studied this afternoon, was the mud room.

Max had no idea what a mud room was or why a house would need one. But Grey gestured for her to follow him. Although, for all she knew, it was the killer, smelling just like him. She would follow him anywhere.

To her death.

This was a major fucking problem.

A mud room – a Barbarani mud room, at least – turned out to be a narrow space lined with dark oak shelves the colour of red wine. A few coats and scarves hung there, next to a pair of riding boots; who they belonged to, Max didn’t know.

She drew a deep breath to steady her galloping heart as Grey latched the door behind them. Smells of earth and leather washed over her along with something dry and grassy – something she’d smelled in riding stables at farm-stays with her parents, years and lifetimes ago.

Was this about what Giovanni had said? Max had to admire Grey’s composure after Giovanni’s mini-rage at him. It didn’t sit well with her – it had been a total overreaction, hadn’t it? And why was Giovanni so hard on Grey and not Jett or any of the others? Why did he expect so much from him? If this was all Grey had ever experienced when it came to family, other than his dad, then his neurotic personality was somewhat explained. His need to control everything, to fix everything, to be in charge – you got that way from not being able to control anything. Max knew that from experience. But was it also from never feeling like he measured up? From always being told to jump and every time he reached the bar, have it shoved another foot higher above him? How did that mess a person up?

‘That’s enough, Maxella.’

She’d turned to examine the hanging jodhpurs, just for something to do that wasn’t staring directly at him. She hadn’t realised how close he was. It wasn’t leather she was smelling anymore, but Christmas paper and sandalwood and whatever that goddamn cherry cologne was that should be on the Restricted Goods list at airports. ‘What do you—’

‘Start saying what you mean,’ he said, his gaze above her head, ‘and stop trying to communicate it in other ways.’

‘What other ways?’

His eyes snapped to her. Well, to her chest. ‘Nella has ten thousand dresses, and this is the one you chose?’

A weight dropped below her naval; her skin prickled but it wasn’t from cold. She doubted she’d ever feel cold again. ‘There’s a potential killer out there,’ she said, twisting so she didn’t have to look at him, or so he didn’t see her cheeks heat, or her nipples taut through the stupid thin material of Nella’s stupid red dress, ‘and your main concern is my dress?’

‘No.’ His voice was closer than she’d thought. She turned back and her traitorous nipples grazed against the onyx suede of his jacket. ‘My main concern should be the killer.’

He raised an arm and placed it on the wall above her head, her back against the hard, oak wood of the storage cupboard. ‘My focus needs to be the Barbaranis,’ he said.

Her heart was a bruised fist punching her rib cage. It physically hurt to be this close to him.

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