Bloody Heart (Brutal Birthright #4) - Sophie Lark Page 0,88

typing,” Nero says, glowering at me. “That’s why I’m doing it and you’re not. If it was just typing, then you could sit right here and Google away.”

“Fine.” I scowl, leaning against the wall with my arms crossed.

“Quit sulking, or I’ll send you to make a sandwich, too,” Nero says.

“Try it, and see what happens,” I growl.

Nero starts clicking away on the keys. It does look like fucking typing, but I get his point. It takes him about twenty minutes to access the military records I asked him to find.

“I want all the top snipers from the last ten years,” I tell him.

Nero finds the data, printing it out on several sheets of paper.

While I scan down the lists of names, deployments, and commendations, Nero starts searching for recent sniper school graduates.

I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for. Some of the names I recognize—guys that I was deployed with in Iraq, or that I knew by reputation. There’s a certain level of competition between snipers in various units. If somebody was setting themselves apart, making a name for themselves, you were sure to hear about it, even if you weren’t fighting in the same area, or even deployed at the same time.

What doesn’t make sense is that none of these people have any connection to Cal.

I feel certain this sniper is American, and that he’s got a beef with me. Call it a hunch, call it projection, but this mother fucker is trying to prove something to me.

I know who you are.

He left me that note, and not because he looked me up after he missed that shot at the rally. He already knew who I was, I’m sure of it. Which means that he heard of “The Devil of Mosul.” That’s what the insurgents called me. And that’s what some of the other soldiers started calling me, too. They thought it was funny—a badass nickname.

I never liked it. I preferred “Deuce”, which is what my own unit called me. Raylan gave me that nickname, after I won a massive pot with pocket twos. I was thinking of my brother Nero back home when I bet—thinking how he would play the hand. I didn’t expect to win. But for once I was lucky.

Maybe this other sniper knew me as The Devil, not Deuce.

Maybe he saw it as a challenge.

But why target Cal? Why not take a shot at me himself, or someone close to me? Cal’s my brother-in-law, but he’s not the most obvious target . . .

That’s when my eyes run over a name I recognize for a different reason.

Christian Du Pont.

And the puzzle piece clicks into place in my brain.

The Du Ponts are one of the wealthiest families in America. Pierre Samuel Du Pont started manufacturing gunpowder in the early 1800s. Their empire expanded into chemicals, automotive, agriculture, and more. They intermarried with the Astors, the Rockefellers, the Roosevelts, and the Vanderbilts. And they had children. So many children. More than four thousand descendants. Which meant that even their vast fortune was divided into too many pieces.

Callum went to a fancy private school with some of those descendants. In fact, his best friend and roommate was Jack Du Pont. Unfortunately for Jack, as a third-cousin twice removed, he inherited the name and nothing else. So he worked for the Griffins, as a driver and a bodyguard.

It was in that capacity that he smashed my little brother Sebastian’s knee and ended his basketball career. So I can’t say I was the biggest fan of the guy. But we put aside our differences when Cal married Aida. Part of the agreement was that we wouldn’t seek revenge for Seb’s knee.

While I never became friendly with Jack, I knew him. I even worked with him on a couple of jobs.

Until last year, when the Polish mafia cut his throat.

Mikolaj Wilk kidnapped Cal’s youngest sister, Nessa. He teamed up with the Bratva to try and shatter the alliance between the Griffins and the Gallos. They lured us to Graceland Cemetery.

Jack was there, helping Callum make the ransom drop. Nero and I scaled the cemetery wall, planning to flank the Russians and the Polacks.

But Miko was too quick for us. He sent the Russians off with the ransom, and he fooled Callum with a decoy girl. When Jack chased after the money, one of Mikolaj’s men crept up behind him and slit his throat. Jack bled out against a tombstone.

Ironically, Mikolaj and Nessa are married now. We’ve made a truce with the