Bloody Heart (Brutal Birthright #4) - Sophie Lark Page 0,95
South Works Steel Plant Rezoned for Commercial and Residential Real Estate . . .
Anti-Trafficking Rally Hosted by Freedom Foundation to Be Held At Grant Park. Speakers will include . . .
I scan the headlines, the clipped articles, and the screenshots printed off social media. It forms a timeline of the Griffins and the Gallos over the last two years. A few things are missing—for instance, Christian apparently didn’t link our families to the break-in at the Alliance vault, which was written about in the papers, but only briefly, since the bank manager was careful to keep secret the more interesting details of the theft. And of course, nobody in the press knew who the thieves had been.
The clippings mention the shooting of Bratva boss Kolya Kristoff at the ballet, but not the kidnapping of Nessa Griffin that preceded it. The Griffins never made that information public. They always knew they’d have to get their daughter back on their own.
I’m sure Christian knows more than what he has here. To prove that point, the final paper in the pile includes a list of names:
Mikolaj Wilk
Marcel Jankowski
Andrei Wozniak
Kolya Kristoff (Russian boss)
Ilya Yahontov
Callum Griffin
Dante Gallo
Nero Gallo
All people who were present in the cemetery the night Jack died.
I don’t know where Christian got that information. So I don’t know if he’s aware who actually killed Jack. It was Marcel Jankowski who cut his throat, on Mikolaj’s orders. But unless one of the people on that list has talked to Du Pont, he probably doesn’t know if it was the Polish Mafia, the Bratva, myself, or my brother who struck the killing blow. I assume he knows that Cal wouldn’t do it, but he obviously blames him anyway.
I’m so absorbed in the papers that I almost forget I’m in Du Pont’s cabin and he could come back any second. I almost jump out of my skin when the door abruptly opens.
“It’s just me!” Seb says impatiently, shaking his shaggy hair out of his eyes. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“What are you doing?”
“I drove the car around so you wouldn’t have to walk back.”
“Oh,” I say. “Thanks.”
“What’s all that?” he nods his head at the papers.
“Stalker clippings,” I tell him. “Du Pont has been researching all of us.”
“Oh yeah?” Seb says. “Did he get my game against Duke where I scored forty-two points?”
“No,” I shake my head. “You’re not in here at all.”
“Well that’s some bullshit,” Seb scowls.
I know he’s joking, but only sort of.
“Isn’t he supposed to pin those all over the walls, connected by red string?” Seb says.
“Nah, he’s the tidy type,” I say, shuffling the papers together again so I can put them back where I found them.
“You can say that again,” Seb says, eyeing the tightly-made bed. “Nothing laying around except that old bear.”
He goes over to the shelf to pick it up.
“Don’t touch anything!” I bark.
Too late—Seb has already taken it down off the shelf. Most people wouldn’t be able to reach up there without a step ladder, but Seb doesn’t even have to tip-toe.
“It’s heavy,” he says, frowning. “Dante . . . I think it’s a whattayacallit . . .”
I already realize even before he says it.
It’s a nanny cam.
Seb points the bear at me. A little red light flickers on behind the glassy left eye.
The camera is live. Someone’s watching us right now.
“Put that back,” I say, quietly.
“He already saw us—”
“Shh!”
I hear a soft, near-silent hissing noise. The sound of an aerosol releasing as chemical components mix.
“RUN!” I shout to Seb.
We race for the door, reaching the splintered frame at the same moment. I shove him out ahead of me. Right as my hands meet his back, a force like a thunderclap hits me from behind. It throws me out of the cabin. Like a log caught in a flash flood, I slam into Seb, and we both go flying. We tumble down into dry grass while the cabin becomes a raging fireball behind us.
“FUCK!” Seb grimaces, clutching his leg. He came down hard on his bad knee.
“You okay?” I say, rolling over.
He groans something in reply, but I can’t hear it, because my ears are ringing. I’m gonna be deaf by forty if I keep this up.
“What?” I yell.
“I said are you okay?” Seb shouts back, staring at me wide-eyed.
I look down at myself. I’ve got a shard of wood the size of a pencil sticking out of my right bicep. As I move, I can feel more pieces of wood and metal embedded in my back.