Chapter 32: Bloody Heart: Chapter 32

I wake up next to the love of my life. The sun is shining in through a gap in the curtains, illuminating her glowing skin. Very gently, so I don’t wake her, I inhale the scent of her hair, which still smells warm and sweet, like sandalwood. She hasn’t changed. Not in any of the ways that matter.

Even though I’m trying not to wake her, her eyes flutter and she nuzzles deeper into my arms, pressing her face against my chest. The feeling of her naked flesh against mine is too much to resist. My cock is already swelling between my legs, pressing against her belly. We only have to rearrange ourselves a little so it slides inside of her.

I fuck her slowly and gently, knowing she might be sore from the night before.

I’ve never experienced sex like that. Raw, primal, animalistic, cathartic. I needed it. I needed it exactly like that. I had to take possession of Simone again. I had to make her mine in every possible way. I had to dominate her to know that she really belonged to me again, and me alone.

Maybe it’s fucked up. But I know she understood it. She wanted it as badly as I did.

We both needed it. We needed to reconnect in a way that no one else could understand or endure. Simone and I are soulmates. Soulmates don’t fuck like normal people. We unleash our darkest and wildest desires, without shame or judgment. We can fuck with violence or tenderness, aggression or care, and it’s never misunderstood. It only brings us closer.

I’ve never felt closer to her than I do at this moment. She’s the other part of me. I’ve been wandering around for nine years with only half my soul. I never thought I’d be whole again.

I kiss her, loving the way she tastes even right now, both of us still messy and sleepy. We haven’t showered, but it doesn’t matter. I love the smell of her sweat and her skin.

I fuck her slowly, my body pressed tight against hers. I can feel her clit rubbing against my lower belly, right above my cock. I spread her thighs and fuck her even deeper and tighter, until she starts to cum. She clings to me, her pussy pulsing and squeezing around my cock.

I don’t have to hold back this time. I can cum whenever I want. So I let go, too, blowing right inside that warm, wet pussy that squeezes me tighter than any glove. Tighter even than a hand wrapped around my shaft. I deposit my load deep inside of her, and then I keep thrusting a few more times, because I love the feel of that extra wetness inside of her.

I don’t pull out. I want to stay connected to her like this for as long as possible.

We lay there in the sunshine and doze a while.

Then, finally, Simone gets up to pee.

I turn the shower on, so we can clean ourselves up.

As soon as Simone steps inside the shower, I start soaping her down, inch by inch. I wash her hair, massaging her scalp with my fingers. She leans against me, still limp from the night before.

“We never actually talked about what Kenwood said,” I say.

“Right . . .” Simone lets out a long sigh, I think from how good the scalp massage feels, not anything to do with Kenwood. “He said he didn’t hire anyone to kill my father.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know . . . He didn’t sound like he was lying.”

“Liars never do.”

“Well . . .” Simone shifts uncomfortably. “He said he made a deal with my father. He said Tata destroyed evidence in return for Kenwood giving him a tip-off on a different sex ring.”

“Hm.” I think that over. “It’s possible. But that doesn’t mean Kenwood has no grudge against your father.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Simone says miserably.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just . . . my father is always so black and white. So rigid in his morals. The idea that he’d make a deal with a man like that . . .”

“Everyone does,” I tell her.

“You said that a long time ago. But I didn’t believe you then.”

“Look,” I say, “everyone wishes they could get things done without compromises or ugliness. But sometimes you have to work with enemies as well as with friends.”

Simone is quiet for a minute, while I rinse the soap out of her hair. Finally she says, “Let’s assume Kenwood was telling the truth. If he didn’t hire the sniper, then who did?”

“I have no fucking clue,” I say. “I stole one of Kenwood’s hard drives, though. Maybe that has something on it.”

After we’ve finished cleaning off, Simone orders breakfast up to the room, and I run downstairs to the hotel gift shop. Simone’s dress is still torn, so she doesn’t have anything to wear.

I buy her one of those “I Heart Chicago” t-shirts, plus a pair of sweat shorts and some flip-flops.

When I get back up to the room, Simone is already pouring our coffee, making mine with cream and no sugar, just the way I like. She changes out of her robe into the clothes. The shorts and the oversized t-shirt make her look almost like a teenager again, especially with her face clean of makeup, and her damp hair twisted up in a bun, with little curls escaping all around. She sits like a teenager in her chair, with one knee tucked up by her chest and the other bare foot dangling down.

It makes my heart squeeze in my chest, seeing her just the way she used to look.

I can’t believe how happy I feel, sitting here with her, eating our toast together in the sunshine. It scares me. I’m afraid to get comfortable, to believe in this. I can’t help thinking that something is going to happen to rip it all away again.

“I want you to stay,” I say to Simone.

Her amber-colored eyes flit up to look at me, and I see the flare of excitement in them. But it only lasts a second, and then she’s biting her lip, looking troubled.

“I . . . I have some jobs booked,” she says.

“So what. Come back after.”

“I want to,” she says.

“What’s the problem? Is it your family—”

“NO!” she interrupts. “It’s not them. I would never . . . I wouldn’t let that stop me. I don’t care what they think anymore.”

Her face is dark and almost angry. I’m not sure where that bitterness comes from. Maybe just regret at how they influenced her before.

I don’t care. I don’t blame her for that anymore. She was young. We both were.

“What is it, then?” I ask her.

Simone is looking down at her plate, ripping her toast into fragments.

“I have to talk to you about something,” she says. “Tonight.”

“Why tonight? Why not right now?”

“I have to do something else, first.”

I don’t like the mystery. I feel like Simone and I have no chance if we can’t be completely open with each other. I don’t want to be blindsided like I was before.

“Just promise me something,” I say.

“Anything.”

“Promise you won’t run away again.”

I don’t say it out loud, but if she does . . . I’m just going to put a gun to my head and fucking kill myself. Because I won’t survive it again.

Simone looks me right in the eye. Her face is somber and sad.

“I won’t leave you,” she says.

I think she’s telling the truth. But the enunciation of the sentence is slightly off—like she’s saying, “

won’t leave Like she’s implying I might leave her instead.

That doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to fuck up our conversation this time around.

“Where do you want to meet tonight?” I ask her.

“Come to my hotel,” she says. “Nine o’clock, after Henry goes to bed.”

“Perfect. I’ll be there.”

Nothing could keep me away. Not this time.

I kiss Simone again, tasting the butter and coffee on her lips. Then I walk her down to the front entryway, so she can take a cab back to her hotel. I’m sure she’s anxious to get back to her nephew.

I’ve got my own plans for the day.

First, I’m supposed to meet Cal and Aida for lunch. And after that, I’m going to figure out what the fuck is going on with this shooter. I’ve got some contacts who track hired killers—if a contract was put out on Yafeu Solomon, they may have heard about it.

I’m meeting my sister at a restaurant on Randolph Street, close to City Hall where Cal has his alderman office. Aida’s in there half the time as well, meeting with councilmen and aldermen, teamsters and business owners, helping Cal broker the hundred different deals than benefit our families.

Cal was instrumental in getting the first part of the South Shore Development approved. Today we’re going over the permits for phase two, which should start next year, after our current tower block is finished.

So I spend the morning down at South Shore, making sure nothing’s getting fucked up past fixing then, right before noon, I drive over to the Rose Grille.

It’s a large, busy restaurant, with dozens of white-cloth covered tables, sparkling glassware, and baskets of fresh rolls with whipped honey butter. It’s a favorite spot for political types, since City Hall is right across the street. Almost all the diners have their phones out, tweeting or texting or whatever the fuck they do to try to stay relevant every minute of the day.

Cal and Aida are already seated when I get there. Aida’s punctuality has improved about ten thousand percent since she married Cal. I can see she’s already demolished half the rolls. My sister’s appetite was legendary even before she was pregnant, so I’d hate to see her grocery bill in the third trimester.

We’re sitting next to the large picture window at the front of the restaurant. The sun is glaring in my eyes. I try to lower the blinds.

“Why don’t you just sit on the other side of the table?” Aida asks me.

“He doesn’t want to sit with his back to the door,” Cal says, without looking up from the stack of permit papers.

Cal knows. It’s a commonality between gangsters and soldiers that you never sit with your back to the doorway.

The blinds are fixed in place and can’t be lowered. I take my seat again, pushing my chair back a little.

“Sparkling or still water?” the waiter asks me.

“Still.”

“Ice or no ice?”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

“He means no ice, thank you,” Aida says to the waiter. To me, she says, “You’re a dick.”

“I don’t like fancy places,” I grumble. “They have to make everything so damned complicated.”

“This is not fancy,” Aida says. “This is normal.”

“Oh yeah?” I raise an eyebrow at her. “Now that you’re a Griffin, a thirty-dollar salad is plebeian to you?”

Aida sets down the butter knife, glaring at me. “First of all, I’m still a Gallo,” she tells me, adding, “No offense,” for Callum’s benefit.

“None taken,” he says, flipping over to the next page of permit applications.

“And if you’re planning on winning back your ex-girlfriend, who probably eats gold-leaf soufflé for a snack because she’s a fucking world-famous supermodel, you better take her somewhere nicer than the Rose Grille.”

I can feel my face flushing. “Who says I’m trying to win her back?”

Aida rolls her eyes. “I know you’re not stupid enough to let her get away again. Not after you spent nine whole years moping.”

The waiter sets down our water glasses. He forgot and filled them all with ice. Not that I give a shit either way.

“Can I take your order?” he says nervously.

“Burger, medium,” I say. “

Same,” Aida says, handing him her menu. “Thanks.”

“Steak sandwich,” Cal says, not looking up from his papers.

Once the waiter leaves, I point to the water glasses. “See? He wasn’t listening to you anyway.”

“That’s probably toilet water in yours,” Aida says sweetly.

Callum’s reading the last page of applications. “What’s this one?” he says.

“Let me see . . .” I lean over for a closer look. Aida leans in, too. But she’s not as coordinated as usual, since her proportions have changed. Her belly bumps the table, knocking Callum’s ice water into his lap.

Cal jumps up from the table, shouting, ice cubes flying in every direction off his crotch. At that exact moment the window shatters, a waterfall of glass raining down. Something whistles through the air, right where Cal’s head had been a millisecond before. A vase of peonies explodes over his shoulder. A hail of pottery shards hit my right arm, while shards of glass from the window cut my left.

Cal and I react almost at the same time. We grab the table, flip it on its side, and pull Aida down behind it, so it forms a barricade between us and the window.

Meanwhile, the rest of the diners have cottoned on that the window is broken and we’ve hunkered down in a makeshift foxhole. After a moment of shocked silence, there’s a stampede for the front doors.

“Go!” I say to Cal.

Taking advantage of the chaos, and staying low to the ground, we run in the opposite direction, toward the kitchens. The shooter is across the street—we need to go out the back.

We shove through the swinging double doors into the kitchen. The cooks are all standing around in confusion, having heard the commotion out in the dining room, but not knowing what the fuck is going on.

“Clear out!” Cal shouts at them.

They spook like deer, dashing out into the alleyway behind the restaurant.

Cal pulls his gun out of his suit jacket, and I do the same with the one I’m wearing on a holster under my shirt. Cal’s in a tactical stance, covering the entrance to the kitchen. I do the same with the exit.

“Do you want to stay in here?” Cal asks me.

“Let’s get the fuck out before the cops come,” I tell him.

There’s a chance that another shooter has the back covered, but I doubt it. I think we’re dealing with the same motherfucker from the rally. A lone wolf.

To be sure, I pull on a white chef’s coat and I go out the back door, quickly scanning the rooftops on both sides of the alley to make sure we’re clear. Then I cover the door from behind the trash bins while Cal and Aida come out.

We hustle down the alley to the restaurant’s catering van. The keys are tucked under the sun visor, so it takes us all of five seconds to steal it. We roar down the alleyway, metal catering trays rattling around in the back.

“What the fuck was that!” Aida shouts, as we turn onto Franklin street.

“That was a fucking sniper,” Cal says through gritted teeth. I can tell he’s furious—and not because someone just tried to kill him. I think it’s because this is the second time that shooting has happened within ten feet of his pregnant wife.

“You’re going out of town 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.”

“You need the right chair to type?”

“It’s not just 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.

He left me that note, and not because he looked me up after he missed that shot at the rally. He 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 Polish mafia and killed the head of the Bratva.

But that doesn’t mean our feud had no casualties—there’s no bringing poor Jack back from the dead.

I scan the entry for Christian Du Pont—graduated from the US Army Sniper Course in Fort Benning, one year after me. Deployed to Iraq almost the exact same time that I was there.

He’s got a decent record—a couple of commendations, three bronze stars awarded.

I never heard of him, though.

“Hey,” I say to Nero, interrupting his search of the sniper school records. “See if you can find anything else on Christian Du Pont.”

Nero starts searching that name.

“I see his sniper school records,” he says. “He beat your score on the Advanced Range test.”

“He did?”

I go over behind Nero so I can look over his shoulder at the screen. Sure enough, Christian beat me by just one point. He scored lower on Land Navigation, though.

“Is there a picture of him?” I say.

Nero pulls up a couple shots of Christian in training, though he’s hard to differentiate from the other soldiers in their helmets and gear. But then Nero finds his headshot, the one they use for military IDs.

“Holy shit,” Nero says.

We stare silently. It’s a bit like seeing a ghost. Christian and Jack Du Pont could be brothers—same strawberry blond hair and narrow blue eyes. The only difference is that Christian is younger in his photo, and his hair is buzzed.

“What’s their relation?” I ask Nero.

“Doesn’t say here, obviously,” Nero says. “But it lists his parents as Claire and Alexander Du Pont. And there’s a picture of Alexander with his brother Horace on this Yale alumni site. So looks like Jack and Christian were cousins.”

“So he blames us for getting his cousin killed. Why didn’t he do anything about it until now?”

“He only just came home,” Nero tells me. “Look at his discharge records—he was in Iraq until the start of the summer.”

“Why’d he leave?”

“It says ‘Chapter 5-13’ dismissal.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Nero types, then reads. “Separation because of personality disorder. A ‘pre-existing maladaptive pattern of behavior of long duration that interferes with a soldier’s ability to perform his duties.’ ”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“No, it does not. Especially because he was just about to break your one-day record in Mosul.”

“You think he’s in competition with me?”

“Yeah,” Nero says, leaning back in his computer chair and folding his arms across his chest. “I do.”

“Show me his service record again,” I say.

Nero pulls it up, and I check the list of assignments, looking to see if Du Pont and I were ever in the same place at the same time. If we ever met without me remembering.

“We never served together,” I mutter. “But look at this . . .”

I point to his last deployment.

“He was in the forty-eighth two years ago.”

“So?” Nero says.

“That’s the same unit as Raylan.”

“Good,” Nero grunts. “Call him up. See what he knows.”

I do it right there and then, dialing my most recent contact number for my old friend, hoping it’s still the right one.

The phone rings and rings, then switches to voicemail, without any confirmation that it’s Raylan’s number.

Taking a chance, I say, “Long Shot, it’s me. I need your help. Call me as soon as you can.”

I hang up the phone. Nero’s still leaning back in his chair, thinking. He says, “If this Christian guy knows what actually happened in the cemetery, he’s not gonna be happy with Miko either.”

“That’s true. I’ll call Mikolaj to warn him,” I say.

I pull Kenwood’s hard drive out of my bag.

“I have another job for you,” I say. “Can you crack into this?”

“Probably,” Nero says, coolly.

“Let me know what you find.’

“And what about Du Pont?” he says.

I look at Christian Du Pont’s picture on the screen—cool blue eyes. Intense stare.

“We can’t wait for him to set up his next perch,” I say. “We gotta find this fucker and flush him out.”