Page 124 of Last Shot

‘The Barbaranis are not the only ones with convenient passageways under their property.’ Raphael ran his fingers down the rough, clay wall, the scrape of his gold rings reverberating through Max’s ribs.

‘Skinner wanted to use the La Marca property to store his product?’

‘Store, make, conceal. Skinner never met an illegal verb he didn’t like. He swore to Matteo he wouldn’t even know what was going on, who was coming onto his property or what to do with the wealth he’d accumulate from agreeing to such hosting duties. But, for all you may have heard about Matteo La Marca from Greyson and the rest of them, he would never do anything to compromise the safety of his family.’

‘I thought you were going to say the integrity of his wine.’ Max found a smirk.

‘They are one and the same.’

‘So, Matteo said no and Skinner didn’t like that?’

‘You saw his chest. He burnt off his cuore – a clear message that his loyalty to the La Marcas was gone. But I did not believe he would ever be truly gone. And he knew too much. It would be naïve to assume Skinner was the mastermind behind his drug enterprises – there had to be someone else, someone bigger, scarier, pulling the strings, breathing down his neck. Sooner or later, Skinner would resort to other means to get what he needed.’

‘So you’re the helicopter parent, calling the cops on the troublemaking teenager you don’t want your kids associating with? The Good Samaritan?’

‘I am notgood, Maxella.’ Raphael blinked. ‘But I am loyal.’

‘And now the balance has tipped between the families.’ Max nodded. This made sense, but there were still pieces missing – some of them she could see floating untethered in her mind. The poisoned wine. Poppy Raven. Libby.

Half of Raphael’s face was cast in darkness by the shadows of the tunnel. His one visible eye sparkled. ‘I knew there was something special about you, Maxella.’

She ignored him, though some part of her knew it wasn’t wise. ‘Where does the poisoned wine come in?’ she asked. ‘It doesn’t make sense that Frankie would go to all that trouble to destroy her family’s reputation with the wine before killing them. If anything, poisoning the wine risked dropping the value of the Barbarani fortune. And like she said, she didn’t want to spill innocent blood ...’ Max looked through to the spot where Ariana had been. Where Grey had hidden the gun for her.

Poppy still didn’t fit. But someone else did.

Alexandra’s chestnut hair and knowing eyes replaced Raphael’s. Her warning had flown swiftly from Max’s mind after everything that had happened at the hotel with Greyson and then the meeting with the Ravens and the trip to Liquor Paradise the next morning.

That Barbarani boy killed my son.

‘Raphael?’ Max could barely hear her own voice. ‘You know that story that Sophie Kingsley wrote about that party where Luca punched Forrest Valentine? Where that boy fell off the balcony?’

‘I know it.’ Raphael gave nothing else away.

Max felt a stitch zip up her chest as she tried to breathe out. ‘What was the boy’s name?’

Raphael observed her like he wasn’t sure if what he was about to say would be a betrayal to the La Marcas. Eventually, his silent calculations seemed to add up to it being within his best interests to answer. ‘Rocky Johnston.’

Rocky ‘Road’ Johnston. Libby’s son.

‘No.’ Max slumped against the wall, her legs unable to keep her upright.

An orphan thing.That was the phrase her therapist had used. Max had lost her parents, then Jackie, and it made her the perfect fucking mark for an older woman packaged up like a mother and best friend. A fucking tourist with an unzipped backpack under the Eiffel Tower.

‘That Barbarani boy killed my son,’ Max said aloud.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘That’s what Libby screamed at the TV in Semperdom. She wasn’t talking about Tomaso or Luca. Frankie must have told her Giovanni’s secret. She thinks Greyson killed her son that night. She blames the Barbaranis for his death, she wants them to pay as well as Skinner. That’s why she poisoned the wine.’

Hadthe wine poisoned. Libby couldn’t have left Semperdom when that CCTV footage at Liquor Paradise was captured, and Frankie and Quinton were both too short to be the figure on the camera. Besides, it didn’t fit ETR’s moral code of only murderingrichpeople in cold blood.

The poisoner had to be the other person who visited Libby in prison.

If Frankie was the woman, that meant they were looking for a man.

‘The things people do for love, yes, Maxella?’

Max fought against the avalanche inside her not to think of Greyson or Jackie. Why did it feel like Raphael could read her mind, like an omniscient narrator of this whole saga?

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