Page 64 of Ex-SEAL Bad Boy

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ETHAN

“Yes, I understand,” he says into the phone as I approach.

“Yes, I’ll be there. Eight A.M. sharp.”

I sigh and hang up, looking at Sophia.

“Ethan, what is it?”

“That was Homeland Security. My parents have been arrested. They want me to be at their offices at eight o’clock tomorrow as I am a ‘person of interest’,” he makes the air-quotes sign with his fingers.

“Weren’t you just talking with the FBI?”

“Yeah, but then I got a call, and when the caller ID showed Homeland Security, the agent told me to take the call. The guy from Homeland Security said something to the FBI, and he shut it down.”

“Surely they don’t suspect you.”

“From what they were able to tell me over the phone, when they started digging into my folks, they found a lot of stuff they’d tried to bury.”

“But I thought you really didn’t have anything to do with their business deals.”

“I don’t, but I guess they at least think I have some kind of insider knowledge, especially since I stand to inherit the ‘family business’.”

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

“Tell them the truth, obviously. I hate to say it, but I always expected this day to come. It was just a matter of time.”

Homeland Security means it goes all the way to the top. The FBI just concerns themselves with federal laws, while the DHS covers national security, terrorism, and that sort of thing. They can and do tell the FBI what they can and can’t investigate.

The FBI can send you to federal prison, while Homeland Security can send you to Guantamamo or any number of other even more unpleasant places.

That likely meant that Homeland Security doesn’t trust the FBI.

That doesn’t surprise me in the least.

The people and families that comprise the political elite are sort of like organized crime in that they don’t cooperate or collude in their operations, but they each have control of certain key people in the bureaucracy and use them for their own purposes.

They’re everywhere, the FBI, CIA, NSA, even Homeland Security.

This means the shockwaves from what we started are going to propagate way further than I anticipated.

I notice Liam’s car is no longer out front. “Where did your brother go?”

“I don’t know. He probably went somewhere to cool down.”

“Seems reasonable.” I know I hurt him, but it’s not as if any of what happened was planned. It just sort of happened.

I won’t apologize for falling in love with Sophia. As the old saying goes, you don’t choose who you fall in love with.

In fact, most times, it happens mostly by chance.

Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t saved her from drowning that day? Surely none of this.

I would have probably just gone along with whatever my mother and father had planned, not asking any questions, just going through the motions and doing what they requested.

How different life would have been.

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