Page 17 of Last Shot

Death threats were a standard part of any Barbarani family meeting. Normally Gio directed them at people outside the family, though.

‘Grey’s got it under control,’ Nella said. ‘Don’t you?’ She shot him a look.

‘Absolutely.’After I deal with the ex-prisoner who’s locked in my house screaming about a murder, I’ll get right on stopping the current PR nightmare. Just an ordinary Friday.

‘One last thing.’ Grey hated himself for this, but he had to be one hundred per cent sure that if there was any truth to Max’s words, he was prepared. ‘I want to increase security at the gala tomorrow night. Don’t want any media that we haven’t invited or don’t trust getting in.’

Nella threw him a sympathetic look.Shut up, Nella! I’m not talking about Sophie.

‘If you’re just gonna talk about the gala, can I go?’ Frankie sucked on an escaping black curl. ‘Seeing as I’m not coming?’

Gio stood suddenly. Everyone looked up. Even Luca. Even Frankie.

He was by no means a tall man. But he was radioactive, with power that was destined to breed cancerous cells within everyone who stayed within his inner circle for too long. His face didn’t smile. It had never been taught how. He was terrifying when he was happy, and positively murderous when angry. ‘Every last one of you will be there,’ Giovanni said, his voice like smooth wine laced with razorblades. ‘There is no discussion, Francesca.’

‘I don’t want anything to do with this family’s barbarian, capitalist bullshit,’ Frankie said. ‘I’m changing my name!’

Frankie threatened to change her name every few months. But the Barbarani name came in useful when you needed to talk yourself out of an arrest when a peaceful protest became not so peaceful.

‘Billionaires account for a million times more greenhouse gases than the average person!’ she said. ‘If you put the money you’re spending on this stupid gala or your hotel towards investments into a low-carbon economy, you could literally save the world!’

They’d heard this all before. Giovanni sneered. ‘Unlike other global crusades,’ he said, ‘the climate change movement, much like you, Francesca, has historically been a failure. I do not invest in failure.’

‘So why did you pay for Tom’s business degree then, if it’s just resulting in the entire sangue line being pulled from the shelves?’ Luca lay down on the train tracks in place of his sister. Grey groaned inwardly. ‘Should have invested in La Marca Pinot Noir instead.’

‘THAT’S IT!’ Giovanni whipped off the tablecloth. Plates and Vittoria’s Venetian espresso cups shattered. Vittoria screamed. Frankie cowered. Luca laughed. Tomaso and Nella looked sideways at each other:which of us has to pack up the broken dolls today?

Grey knew when he was excused. He could fix almost anything for the Barbaranis. But their relationship with each other was not one of them.

‘Not yet, Hawke.’

An entire life of servitude and he still wasn’t on a first-name basis with his boss.

Grey remained standing while the others filed out, Nella and Luca grimacing at him like this was the last time they’d see him before he walked to the gallows. Tomaso was already on his phone, business as usual. Frankie dug her knuckles into her eyes, blinking back frustrated tears.

When the door closed behind Vittoria, the room seemed to take in a deep breath, waiting for Giovanni to speak. He stood at the window, hands clasped behind his back – a monarch surveying his kingdom. ‘The fields are not right,’ he said eventually, when the walls of the sala da pranzo were screaming for air.

Grey knew better than to try to answer.

‘When your father worked here, my grounds were the perfect verde colour, no matter what the season. I have never seen grass like that since he passed.’

‘He’d be honoured to hear you say so, signore.’

‘I could trust him,’ Gio said, ‘with my grass, my land. A man’s surroundings matter. We are all products of our environments, aren’t we, Hawke?’

Grey gave a nod. ‘Signore.’

‘You are not like him,’ Gio said. ‘Do you suppose you are more like your mother?’

He allowed the familiar feeling to pass through him at the mention of her – like missing a step going down the stairs.

‘I doubt it, signore. Though I don’t know much about her.’

Except that she was beautiful. And she cut out his father’s heart when she left in the dead of night, when Grey wasn’t even a year old.

Gio nodded. ‘I am not like my father either. He wanted our dynasty to be vino, only vino. He saw five steps ahead, but I see ten.’

‘Signore, about the gala—’

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