Southern Comfort (Southern 2)

They share a look, and then Special Agent Duchene takes the lead. “We have to send her in,” he says. “She has to go see Dominic and try to trick him into spilling his guts.”

“No fucking way,” I say, shaking my head. “No fucking way in hell is she going in there.”

“It’s the only way to get rid of him,” the other guy says. “We have the evidence but having him admit it is something else.”

“If she goes in, I go in with her,” I tell them.

“This has nothing to do with you,” one of them says, and I laugh.

“This has everything to do with me.” I stare at them. “Dominic put me in this fight when he sent people to my motherfucking house and had one point a gun at me. He put me in the middle of this when he tried to blow up my fucking farm.”

“You aren’t trained,” one of them starts to say, and I laugh.

“I trained with the SEALS for six months for fun,” I tell them. “I’m going in.” They don’t say anything when Derek comes barging into the room.

“Holy fuck, you guys,” he says, his eyes big and wide. “I think I found what he’s looking for.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Olivia

I watch the screen with all the green numbers, and I wonder what the hell just made Derek jump out of his chair and run out to get Casey. When I walked into the room, and he opened the computer, I tried not to groan when he made fun of my screensaver. Then he showed me what looked like a little icon on another page that I didn’t even know how to get to. When he clicked on it, all these numbers poured onto the screen.

The door opens, and Casey comes running in first, followed by Derek and the agents behind them. He walks over to the screen and sees the numbers. “They are routing codes.”

“That is what I’m thinking also,” Derek says, sitting down and typing other things.

“This looks like the number of an account,” Casey says, and I’m in awe at how he just looked at it and knew what it was. Making me ask myself why he hides this side of him. “This is a Cayman account number.”

“On it.” Derek types it in, and then I hear him say, “Oh my God.”

“What?” I ask him now, my heart pumping. I don’t know how much more I can handle today.

“Did you ever go to the Cayman Islands?” he asks, and I shake my head. “Are you sure?”

“I think I know where I visited and when,” I say and look at Casey. I point at the computers in front of him. “You have something on there that can track my passport. You can check.”

“Well, according to the documents,” Derek says, “you own twenty offshore accounts.”

Yup, that is the straw that broke the camel’s back for Casey, and he roars out. “I don’t give a shit that you are Special Forces. I don’t give a fuck that what I say can bite me in the ass. If I find this guy, he isn’t coming out alive.” I gasp, walking over to him. Now it’s me taking his face in my hands and having him look at me.

“You cannot let him win,” I say, then I look over at the agents. “He’s from the country. He gets riled up easily.”

Derek laughs. “Yeah, let’s blame the country for him.” He shakes his head. “According to this, you also”—he types more—“have accounts in the Bahamas, Switzerland, and Belize.”

“I have to sit down,” I say to Casey. He brings me to the chair, sits down, and then pulls me onto his lap.

“I’m not letting you go,” he says, and if we didn’t have a room full of people, I’d show him how much I’m not letting him go either.

“How much money are in those accounts?” one of the agents asks, and Casey speaks up.

“You’ll find that out after my lawyer drafts certain documents saying that this doesn’t touch Olivia, and that anything you find is not on her.”

“It’s not on me because I didn’t do it,” I tell the room. “Can you check the signatures?”

“Those can be doctored,” Derek says. “What can’t be doctored is the video surveillance.”

“Those are only kept for ninety days,” one of the agent says. “Some keep them for seven years, but the majority of them don’t.”

“There has to be some way,” I start to say, and I don’t miss the look that everyone gives each other. “What?”

“The only way for that to happen is for you to confront Dominic face-to-face,” Special Agent Duchene says.

“Oh, I would love to do that,” I tell them. “But he’s in jail.”

“We can get you in,” an agent says. “You’d be between the glass, and the chances that he will even admit to anything is slim to none.”