Page 32 of Built of Second Chances

Tears slipped down her cheeks and she had to squeeze her lips to keep in the sob.

That’s what family does.

And they considered her one of the family.

Flynn knew Tessa was completely overwhelmed by Tansy’s words. He also knew she didn’t want to cry again. He squeezed her hand and kissed her hair.

“Told you so, Contessa.”

That made her smile and she wiped her cheeks dry. “Thank you, everyone. I don’t really know what to say. And I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Sam rose and walked around the table. He kissed Tessa’s hair and patted her shoulder as he walked by and put a kettle on the stove. “Tansy prefers the peach ginger tea for evening planning. Would you like that or do you have a different preference? It’s all caffeine free so you’ll be able to sleep.”

Tessa snorted. “That might require a miracle.”

Sam grinned. “Then you’ve come to the right place. Miracles are Tansy’s specialty. Flynn, if you want to grab a laptop, there are a few on the desks upstairs.”

Flynn nodded and jogged up to check out the loft office he’d heard about. The setup was efficient and used the space well. Four desks and a table for group conversations. Just seeing the space had him wanting to dive into the company right away.

But he had work to do before that happened. He grabbed a laptop and headed down. He powered it up and looked at the group. “I can’t access the FBI files from here, but I’ve got a lot of the information duplicated in my own files.”

Sam had him hook his laptop up to the projector so they could all see the data on the big screen in the room.

“I’ve collected the data into various files. One for each of the major players. Grigor Pavic, the head of the family. His son Karlo. Martin Blanco, who is Tessa’s father. Karlo and Martin are the two who were presumed dead in the house explosion that sent Tessa into Wit Sec.”

He pulled up more files. “I have lists of crimes in what they consider their territory, which is mostly in the northwest area in and around Houston, along with some port connections down on the Gulf.”

He’d divided the files by type of criminal activity. Gambling, money laundering, prostitution, drugs, human trafficking. Flynn smiled at Tessa. “I even started to like spreadsheets.” She smiled softly at him, probably remembering his aversion to them in high school.

He pulled up his main one. “This isn’t my forte, but I’ve listed as much information per crime as I could find.” Type of crime, date, people involved, dollar value, victims, snitches, area, officers involved.

He scrolled down the sheet, letting them see the extent of crimes he suspected were connected to Pavic.

Tessa sighed. “And this is considered an insignificant organization in the grand scheme of criminal organizations?”

Flynn nodded. “Sadly. There are hundreds of larger groups involved in this kind of thing, dozens in the Houston area alone. I think Pavic knows if he stays small, he can remain off the major radars.”

Sam nodded. “Getting greedier is what takes down a lot of criminals. If Pavic keeps to his status quo, there are always worse people out there for law enforcement to worry about.”

Tansy’s eyes were wide. “Worse than this? What is wrong with people?”

Sam pulled her in for a hug. “Poverty. Greed. Narcissism. Desire for power. Lack of empathy. Horrible childhoods. And some are just pure evil.”

The big man kissed her hair and squeezed her. “But there are more good people in the world. More people who are making things better, fighting the evil, and looking out for each other.”

Flynn saw tears sparkling in Tessa’s eyes again, but she blinked them away.

When she spoke, her eyes stayed on his. “So, we need a plan for our group of good guys to prevent this particular group of assholes from doing any more damage.”

“That’s exactly it.”

She nodded and looked at Sam. “Is there another laptop I can use to start collating my own data?”

While Sam went to grab one from the loft, Tansy looked at Flynn. “Do you have any photos of the people involved? Any photos of groups of them to see body language and connections? Anyone who could possibly be one of the men who were supposedly killed in the explosion?”

“Not many, but I’ll pull up what I have. There are more in the FBI files, but still not many. There are no official photos of Martin or Karlo.”

Tansy tapped her fingers on the table. “If they’re involved in gambling, casino footage should show something. As long as they’re using public casinos, which I assume they would to launder their money. But if we have pictures of who we’re looking for, we might be able to tap into other data.”

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