"Savannah does that enough for you," Finn joked.
My lips twitched the barest fraction of an inch. "She might still fangirl over me, but she holds her own."
"She stunned the fuck out of me when she kicked over Anthony's crate," Declan offered, scratching his jaw. "Didn't think she had that in her."
"She's stronger than she looks."
Finn rubbed his head where she’d clocked him that night at the docks. "Tell me about it."
"So, the next couple weeks," Conor remarked, getting us back on track, "we look into law enforcement who fit our bill, correct?"
"Correct. I know someone at Interpol."
"Me too," Conor agreed.
Finn drummed his fingers against the table. "I know someone at the IRS who'd be perfect for this."
"The IRS as in the Internal Revenue Service?" Declan’s eyes bugged.
Finn nodded. "She's got a thing with numbers. Only fitting. She's unusual; I think she'd fit in well."
"We'll meet next week with suggestions, and we'll pin down if we can get them to infiltrate."
"Ain’t the last couple weeks proven that we can’t trust outsiders?" Eoghan muttered.
I rocked back in my chair. "I know we can’t."Talk about stating the fucking obvious.
"Then aren’t we putting all our eggs in one basket?"
"Nope." I smirked at Eoghan. "We ain’t."
Con’s words came slow as he stared at me, his eyes narrowing as he said, "We’re reverse-flipping the Sparrows?"
I shot Con a grin. "That we are."
"Reverse-flipping? What are you talking about?" Brennan demanded.
"They got to our guys by getting them to take the fall for crimes they didn’t commit. They framed them for the job and bribed them into compliance through jail sentences. We do the same. Just with law enforcement."
"And how the hell do we do that? Do we really want dirty cops on our side in this?" Declan grated out with a scowl.
"We use drugs. I reckon I can get Luciu to help us out with that. Red is popular for a reason. It’s exclusive too. Big price tag."
"You want us to get them hooked?" Eoghan asked with a frown.
"For fuck’s sake, do you have no imagination? We plant it on them, Eoghan. We make it look like they’re users. We reverse engineer this so they look like they’re addicts."
"So, get the men more aggressive and reacting badly at shit to work?" Brennan queried.
"Yeah. Doesn’t have to be drugs; they just come with the worse prison sentences. It can be gambling, women, whatever. Debts via a loan shark mean broken bones if they don’t repay them. We spread the net wide, see what we can bring back in the trawl."
"Even when we torture Five Pointers, we can’t trust them to speak the fucking truth. Look at Hal," Eoghan growled. "You mean to tell me you want us to trust in shady law enforcement agents, the ECD, and the Sparrows as well? That’s only going to fuck us over in the long run."
"The end will justify the means," I told him, keeping calm because I knew his trust issues went deeper than mine.
PTSD did that to a man.
"This is a leap of faith," Declan mused. "But if we don’t do something, we won’t get anywhere."