Page 127 of Last Shot

‘Don’t say you’re sorry.’ He repeated the words she’d said to him at the Perth hotel. ‘I hate that.’

She folded her arms. ‘I wasn’t going to. I was going to ask you who you punched.’ She pointed at his fist.

He held it up to the light of the porch. The skin of his knuckles was raw and scaled with tiny pieces of Venice.

‘Come on,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll clean it up before I go.’

He had nothing left to argue. The phantom bullet had taken that too. No ability to tell her all the things he’d rehearsed in his mind these past few days. She pulled him with that light that seemed to glow around her, like the last edges of a sunset just before it sank beneath the horizon. He had no choice but to let it guide him – he was a wrecked ship, riddled with holes from cannons and bullets, water flooding through his tattered boards, sinking towards the flicker of a lighthouse too far away. He’d never make it. But it was still a beautiful thing to watch before he sank.

He let her lead him up the steps to his own front door, let her take the key from his non-mangled hand and force it through the protesting, rusted lock. The woman he’d tried to make disappear was now leading him to his own couch and rustling around in his pantry for a first aid kit.

When the scent of apples and cinnamon returned he screwed up his face into the palm of his good hand so she wouldn’t see the emotion burning in him as he let himself wonder what could have been between them if he hadn’t fucked everything up. He clenched his jaw as she wiped antiseptic over his knuckles, the pain a welcome distraction.

‘Were you talking to Vittoria?’ she asked.

‘How did you know?’

‘You smell like cigarettes, and Nella texted saying she heard you storm out of your dad’s office.’

‘Don’t call him that.’ He wrenched his hand away.

‘What?’ She dragged it back.

‘Giovanni. He’s not my dad. I might have his blood in my veins and his will says I’ll inherit a fifth of his blood money when Vittoria dies. But I don’twantthat money, I don’t want to belong to him ...’ He couldn’t hide it now. She had his hand in her vice grip and he had nothing left to shield himself from her. His father, the man who’d raised him in this cottage, who’d given Grey his surname, had always told him crying was a sign of weakness. But his father had told him a lot of things.

‘You don’t have to belong to him, or his memory. A surname is nothing but letters –youget to decide who you belong to.’

‘Everything I knew about my dad, my mum, it was all a lie.’

‘It wasn’t.’ She cleaned out the wound, her fingers gentle. ‘It wasn’talla lie.’

He didn’t reply, wishing she’d turn away.

‘Nella and the rest of them, they’ve always seen you as family, even when they didn’t know who you really were,’ Max said, slowly winding white gauze around his knuckles. ‘You’rethe one that’s always made the distinction between them and you. But I’m an outsider and I see it for what it is. How Giovanni treated you so differently from Jett – he expected more from you, because you were family. You think you’re alone, and I think you actually like it, like thinking of yourself as an outsider, as someone incapable of belonging. I think it makes it easier for you to push people away, so you can’t get hurt again.’

What do you know about hearts, Greyson Hawke?

Her eyes sparkled with the pain of his lie about the boy on the balcony, all the lies he’d told her to keep her safe. To keep her away. To extinguish her light from his horizon.

‘I can’t do this job the same now.’ He blinked through his tears. ‘How can they trust me when I let them all die?’

‘Greyson.’ Max’s voice was stern as she grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘You didn’tletanyone die. Frankie deliberately, meticulously plotted everyone’s murders, including yours. She organised the bomb. She gave Libby the idea to plant the distraction of Skinner with her soon-to-be released ex-cop cellmate with a chip on her shoulder and something to prove, in case the bomb didn’t work. Giovanni didn’t see it coming, I didn’t see it coming. And ifyoudidn’t see it coming, then no one else in the entire world could have. And they all know that, Grey, each and every one of them. And they didn’t die – because Raphael knew that yours was the right side, not Frankie’s. Even Raphael knew.’

‘Yousaved us.’ He looked her in the eyes for the first time since the gala and the kindling inside him caught alight. ‘You saved me. No one’s ever tried to save me before.’

‘You saved me too. You trusted me,’ she breathed. ‘You chose me.’

‘I’ll always choose you,’ he said. ‘I know that now.’

She pulled away, her eyes back on his hand. ‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t say shit like that.’

‘But it’s the truth.’

‘How can it be the truth when you told me that lie? You honestly think that after everything we’ve been through together, after everything I told you about the night I shot Evan, you really think I don’t see you? I know you’re hurting right now and I’m selfish for making this about me and evensayingthis right now. But I have to. You thinking I’d believe you deliberately killed an innocent boy to protect the Barbaranis’ reputation says a whole lot more about what you think of yourself than what you think of me.’

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