Page 82 of Crowned In Blood
We fell silent, and I basked in this, her presence, her closeness. The way her body felt against mine, how she smelled and breathed.
"Marco?" she called in a sleepy voice.
My lips curled into her neck. "Yes, my vicious little queen?"
"I'm happy you came."
"Me too, Lina, me too."
18
Catalina
The drive-by had been a wake-up call. Felipe's brazen attack meant I needed to take precautions with my familia.
I canceled any unnecessary events, worked from home, promoted Joseph as my right-hand man, and took my guards with me wherever I went.
It irritated the fuck out of me to play it safe, but I had to. I needed Felipe to believe I was scared, that he'd gotten to me. It was the only way he'd let his guard down while I put my plans in place—one of which was scheduled to come in any second now.
My email pinged just as my phone buzzed and I smirked. The group of hackers I'd hired off the dark web had finally come through with the data I needed.
Marco could find out a lot of information on his own, but this was somethingIneeded to do. Felipe wasn't the only one I was hunting.
I'd left my father alone because of all the legalities that came with attacking him when he was a senator. I'd had bigger issues to resolve, and handling him needed tact. But now? He seemed to be at the center of everything, which meant he was involved in far more than I knew.
I was tired of operating blindly, and I knew Simon best. I knew his weaknesses, how and where he liked to hide, and if I could follow his money, I'd find all the answers I was looking for.
The encrypted file was a treasure trove. Everything from Simon and Felipe's schedules, travel plans, bank account information, the works.
I opened their banking information to see if there were any transactions between them. As far as I was aware, Felipe wasn't a known member of a mafia family outside of The Underground. He wasn't on any watchlists, so any transactions between the two wouldn't have been flagged.
My eyes widened, and I drew back into my chair. Simon had sent more than $200,000 to Felipe. Some was sent the day before Felipe had shown up at my office. But what was the rest for?
As I reviewed the information, several of the transactions began to look familiar. I'd seen similar, odd amounts withdrawn from Fernando's accounts.
I pulled up Fernando's accounts. The withdraws were for the same amounts, on the same days.
But I thought these were the transactions that coincided with human trafficking.
No.
Please no.
I opened the files I'd put together for my investigation into the trafficking and checked. Six of the transactions coincided with accounts of Fernando's kidnappings and were far too large to just be a shipping fee.
That was it.
That was the proof I needed.
My father, the man who had built his entire career off of protecting children and their families, had willingly taken part in human trafficking, and I held the evidence of his cut in my hands.
It hit me like a ton of bricks, and I collapsed into my chair. Beads of sweat covered my forehead, making my palms clammy, and I trembled.
This isn't enough.
Proof wouldn't do anything to my father. He could laugh it off, pay someone to doctor the transactions from his banking institutions. This wouldn't get him investigated by the FBI. And it wasn't even enough to blackmail him.
He could easily say he didn't know what or who was in the shipping containers, and I had nothing to prove the contrary.
