Bloody Heart (Brutal Birthright #4) - Sophie Lark Page 0,87
until we find this asshole,” he says to Aida.
“No way!” Aida shouts. “I’m not—”
“This isn’t up for debate!” Cal roars. His body is stiff with fury, while his blue eyes are ice cold. “I’m not taking the chance of you getting hurt, or the baby.”
“I’m staying with you,” Aida tells him stubbornly.
“That’s the worst place you could be,” Cal says.
And that’s when I understand the same thing that Callum just realized. The sniper was never shooting at Yafeu Solomon. He was aiming for Cal all along. Cal was right behind Solomon on the stage. That bullet was meant for my brother-in-law.
“Who the fuck is this guy?” I mutter to Cal.
His eyes are narrowed and ferocious. “That’s exactly what I want to know,” he says.
I drive us east along the river, thinking.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that the sniper waited for Cal and me to eat lunch together before he took another shot.
This guy has a grudge against us. Both of us.
But why . . .
I try to run through our list of mutual enemies. We definitely pissed the Russians off. After their last boss took a shot at Cal’s little sister, Fergus Griffin plugged him with a full clip and left him to bleed out on the floor of the ballet.
On top of that, Nero stole a diamond from their safe deposit box at Alliance Bank—though I’m not sure if they know about that yet. The stone was a national treasure, stolen from the Hermitage Museum by the Bratva, before we relieved them of it.
That diamond funded our South Shore project. We traded it to a Greek shipping magnate for cold, hard cash. I like to think that whole deal was done under the table, but the truth is that a 40-carat blue diamond is never going to remain entirely secret. It’s too tempting to brag about, and too easy to trace.
The Bratva are prideful and vicious. If they know what we did, they’ll want revenge.
But a sniper isn’t exactly their style. They like violent, bloody, graphic retribution. Something horrifying. Something that sends a message. Nothing as quick or painless as a 50-caliber bullet to the skull.
This hit was personal.
The bullet was aimed at Cal, but the message was for me. I stopped the first sniper shot because I saw his flags. This time, he didn’t want me to see anything. He wanted my brother-in-law’s head to explode right next to me, without me noticing anything at all. He wanted me to feel the guilt and shame of failure. He wanted to prove that he’s better than me.
But why?
That’s what I’m wondering when I take Cal and Aida over to the Griffin mansion on the Gold Coast. Cal wants to talk to his father, and he thinks Aida will be safer there, surrounded by a full security team.
I want to use their computer.
I call Nero and tell him to meet us there. I’m not bad with research, but Nero’s a fucking genius. He can break into places he has no business being—usually the databases that store blueprints and security schematics.
He pulls into the Griffins’ drive at almost the same time as us, jumping out of his Mustang. His hair looks wind-blown and messy, though he didn’t have the top down, and he’s tucking his t-shirt back into his jeans.
“Did I interrupt something?” I ask him.
“Yes, you did,” Nero says coolly. “So this better be important.”
“It is,” Aida tells him. “Someone’s trying to kill Cal.”
“Someone besides you?” Nero says.
“This isn’t funny!” Aida snaps, fists balled at her sides. I wouldn’t believe unless I saw it myself, but I think there might be tears in the corners of her bright gray eyes.
Nero looks similarly taken aback. If Aida can’t see the humor in a situation, then it really must be serious.
We go into the Griffins’ mansion, which is massive, ultra-modern, and located right on the rim of the lake, with a widespread view of the water.
“What’s going on?” Imogen Griffin says, watching us all pour into her kitchen.
While Cal explains the situation to his mother, Nero and I go upstairs to Callum’s old office. He’s still got a full computer rig up there, but only one office chair.
“You take that one,” Nero says, nodding toward the minuscule armchair on the other side of the desk. It looks like it was made for a twelve-year-old.
“I’m not gonna fit in that one.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to, because I need a decent chair to work.”