Page 38 of Between Passion and Revenge, Part One (The Griot Chronicles #1)

STORM

I ’m distracted from the annoying as fuck fact that Shae’s ignoring me—again—when my father calls me to announce he’s retiring at the end of next year. Not in five years, but approximately twelve months from now.

There isn’t any discussion, nor does he acknowledge our earlier argument at our last family dinner. He simply says, “Let it go, Storm.”

I can’t let it go, especially with not knowing the truth about him.

Especially with not knowing if I can stop this train barreling down toward all of us.

“Axel, please tell me you’ve got something. Anything.” I run a palm over my rare, bristly five o’clock shadow.

I need to shave, but there’s no time for that right now. In fact, there’s no time for anything except sorting out how deep this shit goes and how to get Lakeland Sandoval out of the picture.

Axel leans back in his gaming chair and pauses mid-shot on the first-person shooter game he built.

He swears Doom of the Zombie Galaxy will be the hot new game, and knowing Axel, I’m sure it will.

“Listen, Storm,” he says, picking up one Monster Energy can, shaking it, and putting it down in search of a full one among the array of open drinks.

“You and your dad are clean as far as the Feds go. That agent who picked you up has been demoted and sent to Mississippi to work in a field office there.”

Well shit.

“Who put that in motion?” I ask him, but Axel shrugs.

“Does it matter?” he replies.

No. I guess not.

“Anyway, I’ve looked into Stratos and Lakeland.”

He doesn’t add more to the sentence, and I have to take three deep breaths before grating out, “And?”

He casts a look in my direction before returning to his screen.

“I don’t think you wanna fuck with the shit happening in Stratos. It’s cooked.”

I rub the skin between my eyebrows.

“I don’t give a fuck about Stratos at this point,” I grind out, looking up at him. “I’m just trying to make sure my dad is good. Riale made some wild accusations, and I just can’t?—”

I stop talking at Axel’s hard look. He knows more than he’s letting on, and the way he’s staring at me has my heart dropping to my stomach.

“He’s being blackmailed or something. There’s no way he’d decide to do all this twisted shit.”

My dad may be many things, but he’s not one to want to hurt people. So him being in the flesh trade?

No fucking way.

Riale’s wrong.

Axel gives me a look and then spins back in his chair to face the 100-inch screen.

“Your dad’s a big boy,” Axel says when the game starts up again.

My brows drop. “What do you mean by that?”

Axel shrugs.

“I mean your dad is a grown-up making grown-up decisions. He’ll have to face whatever shit he’s in like a man.”

I feel like my head is about to explode.

“Nah, that’s not him. Someone is trying to frame him,” I say, clenching my jaw so hard it hurts.

Axel doesn’t respond, he just keeps staring at the screen as he shoots at a pack of zombies.

“Someone is trying to frame him,” I repeat, moving closer to him, crowding over his chair.

At that, Axel sighs and slams his controller down, standing to face me.

“Come with me,” he says, pushing me back a step with a straight arm.

With those three words, it’s like ice hitting my face. Whatever he’s about to show me, I know I won’t like.

Axel plops into his computer chair after we enter an adjoining room, and I’m taken back by the sheer size of his set-up. There has to be at least twelve screens stacked in four columns, all showing different things.

On the wall near the ceiling is a stock ticker.

What the fuck is Axel really into?

“Your father is as guilty as the FBI thinks he is, not that they’re looking anywhere close to you anymore.

The problem is they never had any evidence.

It somehow ended up vanishing into thin air.

” He pulls closer to his keyboard, his fingers flying over the keys.

“I guess it helps to know people on the inside.”

“Anyone who thinks my father is a human trafficker is out of their mind. He’s being framed.”

Axel nods and moves a window from the bottom right screen to the center.

“Yeah, no. I’m sorry to tell you, but your father is participating in trafficking. Look.”

One by one, pictures fill the screen.

The images look like drone footage, framed from high above what looks like a tropical shoreline.

I take a step closer to the screen, and it takes a moment for my brain to understand what I’m seeing.

But when it registers, I wish I’d never looked.

“Are those?—”

“People being carted out of shipping containers? Men being forced to fight to the death? A child with a?—”

“Enough!” I shout, my voice sharp like lightning. “Enough.”

Axel leans back in his chair, swiveling from side to side with his hands folded over his stomach.

I pinch the skin between my eyebrows.

“That’s terrible. But how do you know my father is involved?”

Even though it’s fucking unlikely, I am holding on to the idea that maybe he has a paper-thin thread connecting my father to all of this.

These…this fucked up shit.

Axel sighs again and I’m quickly beginning to hate the sound.

He turns again and clicks on the keyboard a few more times.

Another picture pops up.

“Who is that?” I mutter, staring at the image and trying to piece together who the man standing next to my father and my uncle Lakeland might be.

“That’s Benjamin Brigham.” He points to the screen with a pen-sized laser pointer that somehow materializes in his hand.

“He owns the island you just saw pictures of. There are rumors on the dark web about the shit that goes on there. No electronics, no rules. Well, except one. What happens on Isla Cara stays on Isla Cara.”

I stare at the screen. I remember Brigham’s name coming up back when I’d just started digging into this business.

“Okay, so my father knows someone in some sick shit. So? Please get to the proof , Axel,” I snap.

“You can’t possibly be that naive. Your father’s deep into the funding for this. He’s washing money for Brigham and all the other fuckers who like to play over there. Forget the Black Market, they’ve created the Green Market—and only these people are allowed in.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head.

“Yes,” Axel presses. “Your father has been tied up with Brigham for the last decade, but it wasn’t until two years ago that he got into the trade himself—brokering deals with the Saudis and the Yakuza over in Japan and washing them through any one of his shell companies.”

Window after window appears on the various screens, and I’m only barely able to understand what I’m looking at.

Shipping manifests with my father’s signature.

Decrypted chat transcripts from what I can only assume is the dark web.

Crypto wallets, millions in Bitcoin, transaction after transaction after transaction.

The words and images blur on the screen, and like I’ve been hit on the head, my brain starts to spin.

“Stop,” I say, but I can barely hear my words over the roaring between my ears.

Axel turns to me, and he finally drops the bored, slightly annoyed expression he’s been wearing for the last half hour I’ve been here.

His lips move and he stands, taking a step toward me, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.

I can’t hear.

I can’t think.

I can’t fucking process this.

“Stop,” I try to say again, this time feeling the words vibrate against my vocal cords. “I get it.”

I look away from Axel and back to the screen, focusing on the slightly blurry picture of people congregating on the island’s shore. Framed to the side, I see my father’s silver-streaked hair, his head thrown back in laughter.

As if he were having the time of his life.

“When were these taken?” I ask.

Axel doesn’t respond, and I can feel his hesitation in the air like a physical thing.

“When were these taken?” I repeat, adding more steel to my tone.

Another pause, but then he says, “Right after the shit with Samuels.”

His words are flat, and I blink at his admitting to knowing about my sin…but then again, why wouldn’t he know? Even though I never told him what I did, he still managed to figure everything out.

“By the way, the FBI is, or I guess, was , only looking into the racketeering charges. I think they’re purposefully looking the other way on this stuff,” he says.

Axel tilts his head toward the gruesome pictures, and I follow the direction until my gaze lands on an image that makes my stomach turn.

I tilt my chin down, closing my eyes.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with all of this? If Axel is correct, then that means not only is he using Stratos to launder the dirtiest of money, my father has also committed himself to harming the most vulnerable.

That image—that man who stands on the island—isn’t the Chuck Sandoval I know.

That’s not my father.

Something isn’t right.

“What am I to do with this information?” I ask, finally tearing my eyes away from the screens and turning to face Axel.

He leans over the back of his computer chair, his forearms resting on dark leather.

“Well, you have two options, really. Option one: you continue about your life. You leave Stratos and all that’s connected to it alone.

You go work somewhere else in finance or go a completely different direction.

At some point, either the Feds or the Grim Reaper will catch up to your dad and he’ll have nowhere to run. ”

I blink, a slow slide of my eyelids closed and open again.

“Okay. And option number two?”

Axel shifts, looking at the floor with a lost look, as if he doesn’t want to say his next phrase.

After blowing out a breath, he stands up tall and looks at me directly.

“Option number two is you talk to your dad. You try to get him to see the light and come out of this. You live with the fact you know what he’s done, but you’re going to ride with him if he decides to do the right thing and stop this shit from happening.

You’re also going to know that as soon as he bails, there will be a target on your head forever.

You’ll be running. You’ll be hiding. So will he.

But at least he’ll have something to say when he looks the Lord in the face on his judgment day. ”

Axel rocks from side to side, still keeping his forearms on the chair back.

“And if he doesn’t come clean—if he continues on despite you asking him not to, well, you have a choice to make. Stay blind or walk the fuck away from everything you’ve known. Because it’s all tainted. Your entire legacy is rotten from the core out.”

After that bomb lands, we both stay silent—Axel watching for my reaction to his proposed scenarios, all of which have consequences I’m not sure I can live with.

So what the fuck am I going to do?

“Let me know if you find anything more,” I say, mumbling the words, but it’s clear Axel hears me, nonetheless.

“Let me know what you decide. I’ll help you either way,” he says.

With a final nod of acknowledgment, I say nothing more and walk out the door.