Page 29 of Truth is the Ultimate Weapon

“Revenge. My team has been instrumental in dismantling all of the crime families from here to God knows where, and we’ve uncovered some pretty sick shit in the process, including involvement from government, powerful businesspeople, and the list goes on. Any number of them could be at the top of this pyramid. You heard Dev, the offshore accounts, shell companies, and all that other crap was buried so deep it was even hard for my team to unravel. The last time something like that happened, it was because our own resources were being used against us. What if that’s what’s happening here? Again.”

“Then we deal with it.” She said gently. “You can’t keep beating yourself up over the things that you have no control over. You also can’t take responsibility for the decisions really bad people are making. You didn’t do this, Coy. Even if it’s an old adversary at the top, you didn’t bring this here.”

Coy sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping as if he were holding the weight of all the worries in the world. "I just can't shake this feeling, Kenz. The danger is getting closer, and I can feel it breathing down my neck. It's like it's closing in on us, and I don't know how to protect Dev and Nash from it –– or Charlotte, for that matter, since she’s now been dragged into this. I especially don’t know how to protect… you."

Kenzie's heart ached at the vulnerability in Coy's voice. She propped herself up on her elbow, laying her arm across his waist and locking her eyes with his. "Coy, you don't have to protect me alone. We'll figure this out together, like we have been. Your safety is just as vulnerable. We’re a team now. We’re in this together."

Coy held her close, his grip tightening as if afraid to let her go. "I’ve fallen for you all over again," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper. "I'm falling in love with you, Kenz. But I don't know how to love you and keep you safe at the same time. I didn’t think it was possible. You know, to fall in love twice. After Emery, I thought I’d used all my chances, but here, in the middle of… all this chaos… I found you. My heart won’t survive another loss, Kenzie. I barely survived it last time."

Kenzie’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears. "I uh, I love you too, Coy," she confessed, her voice trembling with emotion. "I don’t know how or when, but here we are. In the middle of a war, and my heart… it wants you. And I'm scared, too. This isn’t a typical case. It involves people we love and cherish, and with the ghosts of our past constantly in the background, it only makes it harder. But I have to believe that if after all these years, fate, the universe, the almighty, or whatever it is brought us back together ––two wounded hearts –– it has to end in our favor, right?”

Coy met her gaze, gratitude, and relief flickering in his eyes. "Thank you, Kenz," he whispered, his voice filled with emotion as his thumb stroked her cheek. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Kenzie smiled, her heart swelling with affection for the man lying beside her. "You'll never have to find out," she promised, her voice steady and unwavering. "We'll face whatever comes our way, together. We’ll win this war ––we have too much to lose, not to."

As they lay there in silence for a moment, clinging to each other as if their love was the only thing anchoring them in the storm, Kenzie couldn’t help but wonder how long this would last. If they really could have a future together. It was as if as long as they were right there together, wrapped in each other’s arms at that moment, nothing could hurt them. Like he’d read her thoughts and there was a shared understanding, Coy leaned in, and they pressed their lips together in a tender kiss, pouring all their fears and hopes into the promise of their new love –– their second chance at love.

As they pulled away, Kenzie couldn’t help but sense the uncertainty lingering in the air. She didn't know what the future held or how they would navigate the dangers that lurked ahead. How could Coy? But one thing was certain: as long as they had each other, they could face anything that came their way together.

Coy stood and scooped Kenzie up, cradling her in his arms, and he carried her to his bedroom where they’d spend the night, just the two of them, not a worry in the world, even if just in those moments. They’d ignore the danger closing in and the looming threats and take their time loving each other because the rest of the world would be there, waiting, preying on them… tomorrow.

14

“So, Ellis Steele is on the receiving end of all of these payments?” Coy asked as he scanned the information Devyn was sharing with the group at the kitchen table.

“Yes. He’s also the benefactor on all of these deals he’s done –– hid it under phony corporations. We were finally able to follow the money trail, leaving all of Mama’s various holdings, and they all went to another pile of shell companies, accounts, and so on. When we peeled back the layers there we were able to see multiple accounts are accepting small deposits from more businesses and individuals I care to count. Those receiving accounts tie to Steele. What’s even more interesting, and perhaps where he made his first big mistake, is he then sends larger sums out of those accounts to half a dozen other accounts where the money seems to be accumulating.”

“I don’t understand.” Nash questioned, “If all the money is going to him, why does he then send it back to himself in other accounts?”

“He’s laundering money.” Coy shared. “The first line of deposits he’s accepting are from fake companies or companies who are cooking their books and depositing more than they actually make. The excess money they’re filtering doesn’t come from their business at all. It just appears as such.”

“Then where is that money coming from?”

“Illegal operations. My guess, given the poppy fields and likely connection to the illegal drug trade… he’s cleaning drug money.” Coy went on. “There’s a reason it’s set up that way, several layers of cleaning, many fake companies, and it’s to make it hard to trace.”

“Which is why it took us so long to piece together.” Devyn shared. “There are hundreds of accounts overall. The first layer has the most and where they run the money through in smaller amounts so it isn’t flagged by a financial institution or reported to the IRS. Then, they send money that’s a tad cleaner and harder to trace on to the next layer of fake business accounts, who then turn and send the money in bigger chunks yet to a smaller cluster of businesses where the money is now clean, and even harder to trace unless you know to go looking for it to begin with.”

“You mean like when your mother takes out a large loan, buys land, and needs to hide the profit her new harvest is turning?” Nash asked.

“Exactly.” Devyn nodded. “It’s obviously much more complicated than we’ve laid out, and there are more records to go through, but you get the gist of it. This is… bad.”

“So, the next question we need to answer is why Mama. Why did she do this?” Coy asked.

“The cancer? To pay medical bills?” Nash asked.

“I don’t think it had anything to do with the cancer and medical bills.” Coy started pacing, his hand instinctively moving to stroke his chin as he mulled over their dark and ominous question, searching for a viable answer amidst the uncertainty. “She could have taken out a loan and stopped there if she really needed the money for expenses, which she didn’t, based on all of the financials we’ve unburied. She could afford it.”

“So, she chose to do this?” Nash asked. “She knowingly got into the drug trade? She knows what you and Dillon do for a living, surely she thought twice about it.”

“I think our mother was a victim of a scam. We know Ellis Steele is a dirty son of a bitch, and he targets a very specific group of people. Considering how he tried to appeal to Glen, I’d say he did the same thing to Mama.”

“And what, she thought he was helping her with her investment portfolio?” Nash asked, still not convinced they had the entire story. “The ranch wasn’t enough to leave behind or something?”

“My guess is that’s the angle he took.” Coy went on as he flipped through pages of documents. “I’m trying to nail down a timeline, but it appears she redid the will a few months into treatment. She might have known by then she was terminal and worried about the expenses she was accruing. Maybe… trying to leave us a profitable endeavor?”

“A drug farm is suddenly profitable?” Nash asked with a smirk, “You plowed mine up.”

“I don’t think she knew what the crop was. She’d never go for that.” Coy said. “There were papers in Steele’s office about land leases, crop shares, all sorts of random shit. He is the benefactor on several we’ve uncovered so far and cashed in on them.”

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