Page 78 of Last Shot

Grey

It was impossible to listen to what Tomaso was saying with a raging hard-on and the sight of Max pulling her red skirt down – as thoughthatwould erase everything.

I imagined you’d fuck girls up against the wall, or the kitchen bench.

He should have been expecting it. Should have been reminding himself between each poisoned kiss that this high was not meant to last. Maxella Conrad was not the type of woman he wanted, and he clearly wasn’t the type of man she’d expected. And to be honest, that wouldn’t have been so bad. He could have been that guy, for a night. The guy who didn’t give a shit. Who took what he wanted and felt nothing, using her body as a release, nothing more. But if that’s what she thought he was ...

Why does it matter?The question splintered through his skull like a rusted rod. Why did it matter what she thought of him? Why couldn’t he just have sex with her and then go back to being mildly annoyed and impressed and aroused by her the next day? It wasn’t like there could be anything more between them – she broke all of his rules, everything his father had warned him against. Everything Sophie and most other women before her had taught him. And there was the (small) fact that she’d kept that piece of information about Libby screaming at the news story on the Barbaranis pretty damn close to her chest – a part of her that he would not think about ever again. Not that he believed a word of it. They were simply the desperate, conspiracy-seeking ravings of a woman who blamed the whole world for the fact that she was a fuck-up.

Buthe’dfucked up. He’d told Max too much about that night. He’d never spoken to anyone about what happened, not even Sophie and she’d been there. And now he couldn’t stop thinking ...

He had to focus. ‘Say it again, Tom?’

The eldest Barbarani growled like Greyson had asked him to walk the three-hour drive to Perth in Nella’s stilettos. ‘Frankie’s tree-humping friends are here. And I think Luca’s been hoarding strippers in the basement since Wednesday night.’

‘Tree-hugging,’ Grey corrected, looking automatically at Max, ready to roll his eyes but snapped them back when he remembered.

‘What the fuck does it matter? And your security team? Did you hire them from Temu? There’s a woman here who comes up to my belly button.’ Tom’s condescension was something Grey could normally tolerate but now, with his defences down, with everything about that night splayed open in front of him, Max’s scent still lingering over him, he wanted to strangle him through the phone.

‘That’s Kelly Aung. She’s ex-CIA and could murder you five different ways without touching you.’ Grey blew out thirty-two years’ worth of frustration into the phone. ‘I know what I’m doing, Tom.’

‘She’s plotting to let the chickens loose!’

‘Kelly is absolutely not doing that.’

‘Not your security! Francesca’s friends! And I know someone’s in the house who shouldn’t be there. Concetta heard thumping against the walls, and there’s food missing from the kitchen. I’m telling you – Luca’s hoarding whores!’

Grey pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d turned away from Max, hoping that, combined with Tomaso’s voice, would fix the situation below his belt. But her scent was still on him. He needed new skin. ‘Let them stay.’

‘The strippers?’ Tomaso’s voice shot back to its pre-puberty pitch.

‘Frankie’s friends. There’s no one hiding in the house, Tom. This is a classic Frankie move. Shewantsyou to kick her out. I need you all together, safe.’

Because Kaine Skinner’s going to try and kill someone. And then Max Conrad is going to kill him.

No. She said she was never actually planning on killing Skinner.

How was Libby Johnston going to react when there was no death notice in the paper? He didn’t know if Libby read the paper or if they even got delivered to prisons – or anywhere for that matter. But Libby had contacts in the outside world. Someone would tell her. Maybe those people who’d visited ... Alexandra might not be able to give him their names, but Grey would get to the bottom of it, of Libby’s game – starting with the names of all of the inmates on Libby’s block, which he’d already passed onto his PI.

It wasn’t for Max’s safety. It was for the Barbaranis. He was not making professional decisions based on his—

‘Where are you anyway?’ Tomaso hissed. ‘What did the coroner say?’

Grey gathered the discarded coroner’s notes he’d dumped on the floor, flicking to a random page. ‘Cause of death was multiple organ failure.’

‘From drinking too much?’ Tom didn’t even try to disguise his hopeful tone. Or was it something else? Was he a little too eager to know official findings on Poppy’s cause of death?

That Barbarani boy killed my son.

‘No.’ Grey scanned the report, which he should have been doing instead of pushing Max up against the glass doors. He could almost feel Tomaso’s eyes on him, like he knew what Grey had been doing. ‘It’s consistent with poisoning. There were traces of rat bait in her system.’

Tomaso was silent for a full five seconds, which meant he’d died or had gone into cardiac arrest from shock. ‘So the winewastampered with.’

‘Is that a tone of relief, Tom? Are you relieved someone is dead?’

‘I ... How dare you!’

But Grey was right, wasn’t he? He’d heard the pressure releasing in Tom’s words – despite his bravado, the thought that the poisoning might have been the first public mistake Tomaso Barbarani had ever made had clearly been weighing on him. But if someone tampered with the wine after Tom’s part in the process was done, then he was clear.

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