Page 67 of Man Vs. Woman
What the fuck?
“This looks international. He might be a fucking international criminal,” I blurt out.
She looks at me, her eyes widen in shock.
“Why do you say that?” She asks.
I get distracted by what I’m reading and forget to respond. One of the letters outlines a transaction between a shell company that Ashley’s investigators think could be tied to Hiram Hooskins. There’s no direct relationship between Hiram and this company but Interpol raided the company’s Washington D.C. headquarters on suspicion that they were involved in funneling money to Iran in violation of sanctions.
I skip to the end. This can’t be true.
Fuck. It is.
The company sold them fucking poisonous gas—phosgene and mustard gas.
Hiram Hooskins might be a fucking a war criminal.
I glance over at Serena, who looks like she forgot about her question and is now engrossed in another document. Good, she doesn’t need to know this. Yet. This shit is fucking intense and serious.
I flip over to another part of the packet labeled, HSBC. It goes into detail about yet another shell company that has suspicions by the CIA for laundering drug cartel money through Switzerland. There’s no connection that’s been made directly but the company has been involved in contract killings and making payments to known cartel hit men. Documents uncovered by HSBC show that Hiram is a major account holder and has transferred money to and from the shell company accounts.
I swallow a large gulp, feeling the blood drain from my face and pool in my stomach. I feel sick.
Apparently, he also has ties to the Chinese Politburo. The fucking Communist party of China.
What? Are you kidding me?
Support for warlords in Africa.
Political assassinations in Russia.
Sex trafficking in the UK.
Kidnap of pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.
The list goes on and on. Shell companies and NGO’s that maintain a distance from Hiram where no direct connection can be set up. But he’s always there. In the periphery.
Sweat forms at my hairline and I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. This shit is so much more than I ever expected. He’s an international outlaw with ties to organizations that wouldn’t bat an eye if two American’s disappeared.
And now, he’s trying to use this money, his connections, and power here, in my house.
But why?
Fuck. We’re so in over our heads with him, but it’s too late now. We’re already in deep. He knows who we are, what we want, and we have yet to give in to his demands.
Those two guys that came and attacked Serena. I never figured out if they were definitively from Hiram. But if this dossier is true…then they’re just the tip of the motherfucking iceberg.
“Fuck, this guy…this guy is bad. And, he keeps getting shadier,” I say.
“Well, yeah. He’s always been shady. What have you found that’sshadier?” She teases me, throwing the paper she was reading on the table.
Should I tell her?
This shit is too much.
She’s too innocent and pure to know what we’re really up against. How in the hell do you tell the woman you love you’re both fighting against a fucking terrorist mastermind? Yet, we have no idea why. There’s nothing in the imaginary handbook of relationships that describes what to do or I would go and fucking study that shit.
“He has ties to a lot of criminal organizations. And not in like a, ‘I’ll wear some Greek letters on my jacket’ and ‘piss on my frat brothers’ type associations. Like, a money laundering and selling deadly war weapons to bad people,” I describe, albeit loosely and rather vague. But it’s all the truth.
