Page 107 of Last Shot

Warning shots.

Fuck. Grey’s military days were throbbing deep in his soul. The shots came from opposite directions. Two shooters – at least. He couldn’t tell if anyone else had been hit. If mass casualties were their aim, the execution didn’t make sense. They sounded like handguns, single shot. A bomb would have been more effective.

Fuck.What if there was another bomb?

Stairs. Two at a time. Three. In the upstairssala da pranzo. Empty.

Luca. Luca. Where was Luca? He’d lost him – too focused on counting shots.

‘Grey!’

His heart stuck in his throat as he saw the curves of her silhouette. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and melt into her, through the floor, through the earth, into that other dimension where everyone was talking and laughing at Giovanni’s surprisingly funny jokes. Where Frankie was arguing with the waiter about serving lamb tortellini. Where Nella was oblivious to the way Jett’s eyes flickered towards her every time he took a sip of his non-alcoholic drink. Another world, where Grey had done his job right.

Where he’d never met Maxella Conrad.

‘Where the fuck were you?’ He grabbed her shoulders. ‘I was looking for you. I shouldn’t have ... I should have been ...’

‘I was with— I was on the ground like you told me to be.’

It was all becoming clear – the timing, the vagueness of Matteo’s words. It was all a distraction. He’d been drawn out of the room like a fucking cat with a piece of string. And then Matteo had gone for the oldest trick in the book. A cliché so obvious Grey had been too blind to even consider it.

I’ve got your girl.

But she wasn’thisgirl. He should have known she could handle herself – that the thought of her being taken out by the La Marcas without a fight, without someone noticing was almost ludicrous. He hadn’t been thinking clearly.

But Matteo’s actions made one thing clear.

The La Marcas were behind this.

More shots rang out. A disembodied voice peeled through the screams. ‘You cannot leave. The exits are sealed. If you’re not who we want, you won’t come to any harm.’

The voice was foreign to Grey but they could be using a scrambler – it was deep and monotone like those ones they use on TV to disguise victims’ voices.

If you’re not who we want.

‘Where’s the rest of the security?’ Max’s voice tethered him back to this spot in the darksala da pranzoas the ballroom beneath them emptied out – guests running to every corner of the mansion they’d previously been forbidden from.

‘I’ve only seen Jett. The others ...’

More shots. They ran in the same direction Luca had gone, but it was too dark – Grey couldn’t see him. ‘Fuck.’

‘Grey ...’

‘Enough.’Cut it out. That’s how you get rid of cancer.

‘Enough of what? We have to—’

‘We?We’re notwe, Max.’

‘What are you—’

‘Where were you?’ he repeated, his voice strained – the final stretch before the fraying rope snapped.

‘I told you I was—’

‘Matteo La Marca told me he’d got you.’

Someone screamed to their right. The body of a security guard was slumped against the wall beneath the portrait of Vittoria. There was no blood, no bullet hole, only a blue feather-like needle sticking out of her neck.

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