Page 104 of Last Shot

Vittoria ascended the stairs, her black hair slipping down her shoulders like spilled oil. Grey said the only reason Vittoria hadn’t wanted him to see the note was because he’d recognise the handwriting. So Max had been right the first time – Vittoria knew who wrote it.

I know how to hurt my husband.

Max had guessed at the time that Vittoria had been talking about an affair, or at least a potential affair, in revenge for one that had maybe happened before. Something that would hurt Giovanni more than death.

That’s why Max shouldn’t have pulled that trigger the second time. She wasn’t Evan’s wife, she didn’t know how to hurt him. Not properly.

Wives knew how to hurt their husbands. All wives, not just women like Vittoria, with all the floor to ceiling wine cabinets, ski-jump noses and crystal chandeliers that her fortune brought her. Women like Libby Johnston knew too. It was a knowledge that ran deeper than any surface differences like social class. Deeper than blood. It was primal. Eve had known it too. An apple and a snake to bring a man’s entire empire down.

It didn’t make sense for Libby to want Skinner dead. The people Max hated the most in the world, because they’d taken everything from her – Evan, and the drunk driver whose name she never spoke – death would have been the worst fate for them. Because death was peaceful. Final. These people didn’t deserve an end.

What if Libby wanted him to suffer like she had? Medieval. Eye for an eye. A cage for a cage?

Libby said she wanted Skinner underground. What if she didn’t mean dead? What if she knew from the start that Max would never have been able to pull the trigger?

Max looked back up at the portrait of Emilio as Giovanni raised his glass in the air. She ran through what Grey had said about Emilio’s underground thief traps, his secret passageways running under the property to hide his wine and all his other secrets.

Libby’s voice again.Skinner is a rat.

A rat who didn’t know he was playing a part in a deadly game. A rat in a trap.

What had Raphael said to them, at the La Marca winery?

If I see Skinner, I will deliver him to you myself.

Raphael with the plate of food, disappearing near the wine cabinet.

She was almost there, both in her head and at the stairs – to warn Giovanni that ... what? That there was no Skinner? That the rumour about Skinner had been a Plan B in case the bomb didn’t work? That Max had walked onto his property as an unwitting magician’s assistant tied to invisible ropes?

But she was almost there, she could almost see through the thicket of trees Libby had deliberately placed in her way ...

The crowd applauded something Giovanni said. Max tried to use the shifting momentum to pull towards the wine tycoon. Four rows from the front. Three. Two.

Giovanni’s voice pounded through her like a deep bass. ‘My father used to say “the secret is in the wine”, but I know the secret is also in hard work, passion and dedication. And it is because of the hard work, passion and dedication of many people here tonight that I am able to finally make this announcement.’ He paused for effect. ‘It is my great pleasure to announce that we will be starting developments on Hotel Barbarani in ...’

Pow. Pow. Pow.

Three shots.

Chest. Shoulder. Head.

The white stairs of the grand staircase behind him were already splattered with his blood and sangue wine by the time Giovanni Barbarani’s body fell.

34

Grey

Someone was yelling ‘Get down!’ It sounded like Jett but it could have been anyone.

Who’d been shot?

Please not her ... please not ...

It was all his fault ...

Two more shots.

A scream – a woman. Vittoria?

---