Fighting With Light (The Coldwell Brothers #2)

15. Liam

15

Liam

The rest of the day I spend hacking and finding back doors into Ferreira’s companies. He’s into importing and exporting, machining, and oddly enough, clothing. The import and export was the obvious place to start. It felt a little too obvious, but I figured it could be a plain sight thing. It was not. So I kept looking and found that the company isn’t entirely owned by Ferreira. Half of it belongs to a shell corporation that of course led me to nowhere.

After that I noticed something quite interesting in the shipping manifests for their containers which isn’t odd, but the exact timing of them was. The weight, the size, and the time the containers were shipped out every two months made alarm bells go off in my head. Sure, it could be a consistent shipment of clothing, but while everything else was being shipped up north to Canada or down south near Texas and Mexico, there was only one container that went to the east coast of America. I think that’s our shipment, and another leaves in two days. We need to get photos of what’s in those containers.

I look out the window and just from the corner, I can see Aelia lying on a beach chair next to the giant pool. I wish I was out there with her right now, but this has to be done. Based on what happened this morning, I feel like we are on the same page, but going further with her feels like it would be more of a distraction at this point and I can’t afford to be distracted. Yet I’m getting up, leaving my office, and walking towards the doors in front of the pool.

I stand there for a moment, pull my shirt off, and dive into the pool. When I pop up for air, she’s sitting up, her sunglasses low on her nose.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asks.

I swim to the side of the pool and rest my arms on the edge. “I did,” I tell her.

She hops out of her chair and sits right next to me dipping her feet into the water.

“And?” she asks with a tinge of excitement in her voice.

“I think there will be a shipment to the east coast in two days. We need to get pictures and the updated ship manifest when they set it, but they only do that the day of.”

“You want to sneak into a shipping yard, break into a shipping container, find the box that has guns in it, take pictures, somehow find the shipping manifest, and not get caught?”

I shrug and run my hand through my wet hair. “Yeah, that’s the plan. Do you have a better idea?” She tilts her head and her eyebrows scrunch together.

“Well, is this a go-in-there, incognito, like a ninja situation, or is it a get-to-that-container, however, and whenever?” she asks. Her feet kick the water, making it move next to me, and I have to force myself not to drag my hand up her shin to her knees and higher. Focus, Liam.

“Well, I would think under cover of night ninja style would be the safest, but did you have something else in mind?” I ask her. This is not a game, there is no doubt in my mind if they are shipping things like guns, that means there are guns that will shoot at us if we get too close or are found looking where we shouldn’t be.

“Well…as much as I’d love to do the ninja shit, if we get caught I don’t have a gun, and neither do you.”

“Nope,” I say, wishing I did. I could call Emerson and they could send them over on the plane, but that might take a while and we don’t have that kind of time. I don’t think Emmy would be thrilled about asking for guns because that means I’m up to no good, according to him, even though this is all for them.

“So…I wonder if we can just walk in .”

I chuckle and shake my head. “Aelia, I don’t think that’s—”

She lifts her hand to stop me and levels me with a sunglasses-covered look. “Just listen.”

Amused, I listen as she continues with her plan. “If they are in the clothing business, then I can pose as someone from the fashion house, if that’s what it is. I’ll have to look at it. You can be my chauffeur and I’ll go in the container, take the pictures, and walk out. But you have to sell the chauffeur thing because you’re way too hot to be one.”

“So I need to make myself look…. ugly ?” She shrugs and tips her head back exposing her neck.

“Should be easier than it sounds,” she sighs. I splash her with water. “Hey!”

“You can’t make this look ugly, princess, it’s just not possible.” She kicks water at me this time and crosses her arms.

“Try me, Tarzan. I don’t have prosthetics, but I can certainly give you a black eye and a suit that’s two sizes too big, and maybe even shave your head. That should bring you down a notch.”

“Eh, I don’t think so, I think that would just make me look more attractive.”

She huffs, gets to her feet, and sets a hand on her hip. “Does that plan work for you and your gigantic head?” she asks.

I push myself off the edge of the pool and kick my feet. “I guess it could, but it would mean we have to do some recon on how they let people in. For all we know, they won’t let people without credentials past the gate which means we will have to go with the ninja option.”

“Can’t you just hack their security or something and see how it works?” Aelia asks, waving her hand. I push myself to stand in the pool and look up at her small figure and golden skin.

“Oh…yeah, I could.”

She gestures towards the doors.

“Well then, by all means.”

“So demanding,” I grumble and walk up the steps.

She tosses me a towel and I wipe myself down before going into the house. The chef isn’t coming in today so we’re on our own, but I’m wondering if Aelia would let me take her out on a date tonight. I have to be up early tomorrow and it feels like it’s the perfect time for us. There’s a foreign desire building in me that nearly demands I give her whatever she wants and I don’t know why. She makes me want to take care of her, protect her, even though I’m sure she could put a bullet in my head without looking, but the want, the need is still there, and I find myself wanting to see just how much I can let her hurt me.

“After this, do you want to go out to dinner with me?”

She gasps, clasps her hands together, and kicks one of her feet to the side. “A real date, Tarzan?” she says with a hint of sarcasm.

“If you’ll have me,” I say walking into the office.

She hums like she’s thinking about it. Then she slaps my butt, surprising me, and drops into the chair in front of the desk.

“It’s a date, and it better be someplace fancy. ”

“You don’t want to go to a food truck?” I ask her, not that I was intending to do that, anyway.

“You know what, yeah, that would be fine, but I’ll be severely overdressed.”

I chuckle and pull my computer up, typing in my thirteen letter and number password. “I guess it will be a surprise, but wear something pretty.”

“I think I can manage that,” she says, gripping her bottom lip with her teeth. I stare at her mouth and shake my head, refocusing on the task at hand. The woman is damn distracting in any situation, so maybe her plan will work.

I pull up the shipping yard for the clothing company and hack into the camera that sits at the front gate. It’s quiet, there’s a guy half asleep sitting in his station and stacks on stacks of containers are out in the shipping yard. My concern is the potential for the container to be stacked on the others. There’s no way we’re going to get someone to bring it down for us without valid reason, which makes me think my ninja idea was a better choice because I can climb them.

“What do you see?” Aelia asks, rising from her chair and walking around the desk. She leans over to look at the screen and her warm skin presses against mine. I take a deep breath and keep watching the video feed.

She stood there for a solid ten minutes until I grabbed a chair for her and we sat there together.

I have the video up on one screen while I work on the code I wrote earlier while we were in Bali to see if it found anything. My expectation was that it would find too much to sift through in a timely manner no matter how many sifting codes I write. But my worst fear happened instead. I didn’t find anything helpful.

This is not good, and it means that we really are going to have to acquire all of our information physically. It’s not something I can pull from a computer, and it’s not like the dark web is exactly admissible in court. Dammit.

“Why are you all huffy over there?” she asks, staring at the screen and tossing a nut into her mouth. Her legs drape over the side of the chair and she’s barely left her seat except for a snack or to pee.

“The code I wrote in Bali didn’t do what I had hoped it would.”

“So?”

“Soo, that means I’m—”

“You mean we ,” she says, interrupting me.

“That means we have to find everything, down to going to Colombia and taking pictures of what we uncover.”

“Well shit,” she mutters.

I sigh and lean back into my chair running my hand through my half-dry hair.

“Yeah.” I stare at the screen and nothing has changed, no one has come in or out. I assume it’s busy only when they have shipments come through which is likely a scheduled event. “I’m starting to think that your idea just might work.”

She grins and lifts her chin.

“Don’t get too excited, this is a few hours. We have to wait for two more days for the shipment to get there according to their invoices that I found. But it could be random so we have to be ready. My main concern is that when the special shipment arrives, security will bump up,” I warn her.

“I’m sure we’ll find out,” she says, still looking at the screen.

I watch her watch the video footage and nervousness floods my stomach. My muscles feel tight like I worked out without warming up and I realize…it’s because Aelia is with me and I really don’ t want her to get hurt.

***

After I showered, styled my hair with a little gel, put on a button-up shirt, and tucked it into a pair of slacks. My uniform is shorts and t-shirts, but tonight I want to impress Aelia, I don’t ask myself why. I wait for her in my office while checking the video feed. It’s recording that way when we’re gone I can come back and play it all, but as of now, it’s quiet. It almost feels too quiet, though I’m not sure if that’s paranoia or the reality of the situation.

I might see if I can hack into some other cameras in the surrounding area because it is possible they have security that’s a lot less obvious. If that’s the case, I’m not sure the ninja stuff will work, but I’m not positive playing a part will either. Everything we do will be caught on camera and it could rat Aelia out to her father and that has bad idea written all over it. For now, I’ll keep recording and see what else I can find in the surrounding area, hopefully, nothing.

Heels click on the tile floor drawing my attention from my screen to her feet buckled into red-bottomed sandals. I trail my eyes up her legs to a silky, black dress where a small slit stops above one of her knees. The fabric drapes over her figure like a gentle wave then it nips in at her waist in a fitted bodice that pushes her modest chest up in a small V with thin straps over her shoulders. My eyes finally reach her face with smokey eyes and red lips.

“What do you think? Am I overdressed?” she asks with a smirk.

I stand in my suede loafers and dramatically fall to my knees. She giggles and it’s like that scene out of Dirty Dancing . It’s a good movie. Mom made me watch it. I crawl to her on all fours and she giggles, swiveling her hips.

“Come here, lover boy,” she says like Sylvia. And I don’t know why I do it, but she makes me do crazy things. I sit up on my knees, grip her hips and kiss her silk-covered stomach. She chucks my chin. “One two cha-cha-cha, eyes up here, lover boy,” she says saucily.

Slowly, I get to my feet and she pushes my chest with two fingers and then takes two steps back. I grab her hand and put my other on her waist, and we cha-cha a little. Giggles erupts out of her beautiful red lips and I grin down at her.

“Baby, oh baby,” I sing to her in a terrible voice .

She tilts her head back and laughs while she dances with me. I spin her out and then back into my arms, taking a step to lean her back over my thigh. She gasps as I set her back on her feet, with her back to my front we cha-cha for a few more beats until I spin her to face me, pulling us closer. I grab behind her knee, lifting it to my hip and feel something attached to her thigh as I lay her back, circling her body before righting her again. “What is that?” I ask, holding her still and rubbing my hand against her thigh.

“A knife.”

I grin and wiggle my eyebrows.

“What? You don’t live this long being a mobster’s daughter without picking up a few things.”

“Always ready.”

She smiles tightly and I place her other foot to the floor, still holding my hand at her lower back.

“Ready for dinner?” I ask her.

“Are you sure we need to eat?” she asks, slightly breathless.

I chuckle, easing her towards the door.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving and we need to find a great food truck to take you and your beautiful dress to.”

She looks at me over her shoulder as she walks down the hallway. “You’re not really going to take me to a food truck, are you?” she asks.

I chuckle and spot the little frown on her face that she’s doing her damnedest to hide.

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see, princess.”

***

We arrive at a five-star restaurant in Lisbon and I glance over at Aelia as I put the car in park. I wish I had a motorcycle right now, but there is no way Aelia would have gotten on the back in that dress. Then again, I don’t think I would have let her. She doesn’t need to flash any men looking at her for too long because then I’d have to find them and gouge their eyes out. I’m just ridiculously insane like that. Even though she’s not actually yours, Liam? Well, for now, she is.

Whatever the case, I look forward to getting back on my bike when we get back to Cali for the final round of the championship.

I round the car and hold my hand out as the valet helps Aelia out of the low-sitting Porsche. Besides the Audi, I decided to rent a Bronco and a little sports car because I thought it would be fun to drive, plus the Bronco carries my surfboard.

With Aelia’s hand in mine, we walk into the warm restaurant with clean white lines, a light wood floor, and white tablecloths. I’ve never been here before, but reviews said it was one of the best in Lisbon. The reservation list was a mile long, but I charmed my way into a table.

Aelia looks around while I tell the hostess we’re here, and then she leads us to our table. I pull out Aelia’s chair and scoot her in before taking mine. The waiter pours our water and walks away.

“Good job. This is no food truck,” she says, reaching for her glass.

The hair on the back of my neck stands at attention and I quickly place my hand over her glass. She frowns as I wave for the waiter and he comes up to us.

“Two fresh glasses and two bottled unopened mineral waters, please.”

“Right away, sir,” he says and takes our untouched glasses with mineral water already poured in them.

I look around the restaurant eyeing every single person. Our table is tucked in the corner as requested and I can see everyone, except there is a blind spot for a table right at the corner of the wall. One of two people are sitting there. I look for glass or a window to catch a reflection, and see a woman in the window.

“What was that for?” Aelia asks.

Forcing a breath into my body, my muscles start to relax and I return my focus to my date. Aelia’s head tilts to the side, with her mouth in an irritated pout and hands clasped together on the table.

“Are you done?” she asks with an eyebrow raised.

“I had a funny feeling,” I mumble. Her irritation drops and she almost imperceptibly sits up a little straighter and looks around the room .

“That’s why you had them get us fresh glasses and new sealed bottles, right?” I nod and unfold my napkin, laying it on my lap.

“I don’t see anything odd, so you can relax.”

She nods and does the same with her napkin. I smile at her, trying to shake the ominous feeling off my shoulders. “I think we can call this our first official date.”

Her lips break open into a wide smile. “I’d like that,” she says. The waiter brings us our water and a bottle of wine that’s opened in front of us.

“You are stunning in that dress, wow.”

Her cheeks go a little pink and I lean back in my wide chair, resting my arm on the side. “Thank you,” she whispers.

After we order our food, we fall into conversation about nothing and yet it’s everything. She asks me about surfing and how I got into it. Then rock climbing and why I seem to like that more than surfing. She makes me feel…grounded. In a way that even my family never has. An ache blooms in my chest as I take her in, watching her lips move as she tells me about her experience in Hawaii learning to surf, but never getting the hang of it.

I haven’t told her I was watching her in Hawaii, and I don’t know how she will feel about that little fact. Maybe another day, just not now. We’re having such a good time. I have a tendency to make shit hit the fan because I’m too reckless or maybe I just get a little bored. Whatever the case, that won’t be tonight. But I’ll tell her everything else…later.