Page 24 of Fighting With Light

He purses his lips like he’s trying to decide if he can trust me and starts walking to the shore.

Unsure if I should jump to follow him, I take my time and leave my cover-up at his villa. I call the front desk, and they bring me some beach towels, the water I ordered, and an umbrella to shield me from the hot rays. My hands are full and I carefully make my way to the beach and set up.

Liam is already out on the water. He’s so far out, he looks small in the distance. After I get the umbrella angled right and my towel down, I sit down to watch the show.

He paddles quickly as he catches with the almost eight-foot swell. As the wave breaks, Liam drops into it and surfs down the length. He turns back and forth on his board. I don’t understand what the technicality of it is, but I’m enamored. It’s like he’s flying across the water as he rides it until it froths at the top and crashes into the shore. He drops onto his stomach on the board andturns around, paddling back out. I watch him dip below a cresting wave and then pop back up.

Over and over again, he looks so graceful and smooth as he and the board surf the water. I tried to take a picture, but he was moving too fast. Eventually, he makes his way back to shore and jogs up to me. I hand him a bottle of water and he nods his thanks as he chugs it. His chest moves up and down, trying to catch his breath, and I can’t yank my eyes away from him.

It doesn’t matter that I’m wearing my sunglasses. He knows I’m staring. Yet I don’t care if he knows. Butterflies swarm my stomach and I do my best to ignore the flutter. He makes everythingflutter.He wiggles his board up right into the sand and then sits next to me under the umbrella, leaning back onto his elbows. Water droplets hit my skin, cooling with the touch, and I take a drink of water, needing to do something else.

“Have you ever surfed before?” he asks.

“I tried to learn when I was in Hawaii, but I couldn’t quite get the hang of it.” Something passes his eyes and then it’s gone. “Have you been to Hawaii?”

“Yep, surfed there not too long ago.”

I hum and look back out at the beautiful azure ocean. The waves are soothing and make my eyes drop. I barely slept, and I don’t think Liam got any.

“So I’ve been thinking,” Liam starts.

“This should be good.”

He angles his head at me and then back at the water. “You were going to say something earlier, but you changed the subject. So the whole time I was out on the water I was trying to figure out what you were trying to say, then I realized you probably want to lay out some level of ground rules between us since we will be working together. Which is fair, but we will need a plan. Are you okay traveling with me?” he asks.

My belly does that nervous flutter again.

“Yeah, yes,” I tell him.

“Don’t sound so excited, princess,” Liam says. His glistening face grins widely at me and he tosses me a wink.

The butterfly wings brush my belly and I find it hard to breathe. I force a smile and tuck my hair behind my ear. “Oh, I’m just riddled with excitement.”

***

When we get back to Liam’s villa, we wash the sand off ourselves in the outdoor shower and order food. He grabs his laptop and sits across from me. “Tell me everything,” he commands.

So we sit there in the shade and I tell him all my family’s secrets. “I told you Dad gets guns from Portugal. His supplier is the father of a friend of mine. Once the Ferreira’s have them, they ship them directly to a port in Boston where we pick them up. The cocaine comes from the Marín cartel in Colombia and I don’t know much, but I know it can’t come to the States by boat because it crosses into territory in Miami.”

Liam’s fingers fly against the laptop. “Who is in Miami?” he asks.

“First, it’s not just Miami. It’s the whole Gulf Coast area. But, uh, a man named Bobby Buford runs Texas, Louisiana belongs to Malachi Dumas, and Miami belongs to Arturo Jimenez. Jimenez hates my father more than anyone else in the world, so if he catches wind that one of the Costa shipments is inhiswater, he will sink the boat or take the product. So Dad has to go up and around or by a private jet. It’s inconsistent on purpose.”

“Are the drugs on a semi-truck or in a car?” he asks.

“He does a few different things. I’ve seen it come in semis with shipments of fish on ice, but I think he has border patrol in Mexico paid off. I’ve also heard it’s put in with other things, like fresh flowers, cocoa, or I’ve even seen him pack it in cars that just got off the assembly lines.”

“Creative,” he mumbles.

“What are you typing?” I ask him.

He doesn’t answer right away until he finishes. “I’m taking notes and I’m cross-checking what you tell me with what I already know.”

I frown at that. “There’s no way you can cross-check that, Liam. It’s not tracked on computers.”

He rolls his eyes and reaches for his mineral water. “I know you don’t know a lot about me, buteverythingis on a computer these days. Even the mafia and drug shipments. Someone, somewhere, said or saw something. I just have to find it.”

Impressed, I ask him, “How in the world do you do that?”