Page 33 of Fighting With Light

Liam glances at me and back at his computer. “I don’t think so. We are pretty certain it was our father who called out the hit. But…your father is responsible for my sister-in-law,” he trails off as if he’s trying to say the right words. “Even if it was your father, I would never hold that against you. He is responsible for his actions. You are not.”

“I’m sorry, Liam,” I rasp.

“Thanks.”

I can see the pain of the trauma he experienced flash across his face. Now that I understand where he’s coming from, it replaces my hesitancy to continue this plan with determination. I won’t let him down.

“So, I think my dad is using the guns he gets from Ferreira to continue the gang wars in your father’s district. I’ve heard some things through the grapevine that none of the other gangs, as small as they are, have any legitimate beef with each other.”

“How do you know that?” Liam asks. I shrug and look back out the window.

“I know people in low places.”

“What does that mean?”

“You can take it or leave it, Liam.”

“Fine,” he grunts. “The cocaine comes from Colombia and you said he’s already in the flesh trade, but looking at expanding it.”

“Yeah, only I think he kept running into issues with it and I’m not sure where he’s…” I pause. The thought of shipping people like they are products, nothuman beings,makes me want to vomit. “I don’t know where he’s getting the women and men…and sometimes children,” I rasp.

His eyes widen.

“We need to find that out. I asked as much as I could when I was home so I didn’t rouse suspicion, but I don’t believe my brothers know how he’s handling that part of the business.”

“Do you think that’s another place where my dad comes in?” I nod, nibbling on my lower lip.

“I do because I don’t know how else he would make it happen without it costing him triple. My father isn’t stupid. He’s going to do it as quickly as possible with the best and highest payout. So if that means he has to bribe a congressman, soon-to-be governor, then he will.”

“Do you know if my father has a loan with yours?” I look back at Liam.

“I don’t know. Why?”

He shrugs. “There is no other explanation as to where he’s getting his money, and if I hack into his accounts, they are flagged and I won’t be able to see anything. It’s like a deadman’s switch. If anyone touches his accounts, it lights up like the Fourth of July. So I have no way of confirming anything.”

“So you can’t trace the money. But I thought your family was rich?” I ask because he will have to go about this from a different angle.

“No, my mom’s side is. That’s how Dad had the money to campaign, but my mom pulled it all. Aside from his salary, our only answer is that he got a loan from your dad to foot the bill to do everything.”

“I’d say go through my dad’s, but even I don’t know all the places he stores money, and I don’t know that it will help you much.”

“I already did. The only thing I saw was a consistent cash withdrawal in the same amount, but I have no way of tracking that short of seeing it myself.”

“So then what do you hope to gain by photographing illegal guns you can’t track?” Liam opens his mouth to answer and I hold up my hand. “I wasn’t done. I may not be as smart as you with computers, but I’m pretty sure we have no way of proving illegal guns from the Ferreira mob are tied to our fathers unless we put eyes on the exchange ourselves.” I pause. “Yeah, that sounds right to me.”

“Well, I was hoping you knew more,” he mumbles.

I shrug. “That’s where my knowledge ends. I learned a lot by being a fly on the wall. They didn’t pay attention to me, so I listened.”

Liam’s eyes widen. “That’s hard for me to believe,” he says.

“What is?”

“That they didn’t pay attention to you because you’re hard to ignore.”

“You’re one of the only,” I mumble. He doesn’t answer and goes back to typing. This is all starting to feel insanely impossible. It’s me and Liam. How can we do anything on our own without direct access to information that we need?

“So all we know is that your dad ships guns from here to Boston,coke from Colombia, and humans from…somewhere.We can logically assume he’s funding my dad, so it would make sense that they are working together to get things past border authorities.” He rubs his chin and looks out the same window. “So that means we need to know how the guns get from here to there without anyone knowing and my father’s role in it.” He starts typing again.