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“The Rosewoods.”
I approach him slowly and lower myself onto the couch facing him, setting my drink on the coffee table between us. “From what I can gather, they have some sort of business partnership with the Barkers…”
Devouring more of the journals in the days it took Weston to finally agree to let me come didn’t offer me much more relevant information about the current situation, just confirmation that the two families were thick as thieves for generations. Working in tandem, they established dozens of businesses and enterprises that brought in billions for both families.
Yet, I’ve never even heard the name Rosewood before any of this, which suggests something changed between the years covered in the last volume I examined and today.
And that something is likely important to all of this.
Dad takes a long sip of his drink and nods. “I swear I didn’t know the connection. I thought I understood how everything worked around here. I mean…” He releases a sardonic laugh. “I’ve lived here my whole life, but I never even heard of them before all this.”
At least I’m not alone in that.
“Who are they?”
He offers a shrug, then takes a long sip of his drink. “They own a bunch of trucking companies and warehouses and run the entire Port of Montana facility.”
Which is why I don’t know them.
I’ve spent my entire life in and around Helena.
Though the facility isn’t any more than an hour and a half away, it wasn’t anywhere Dad would have ever taken me for anything.
“So, what happened with them? It’s clear you have some sort of business that I know nothing about. You’ve kept me in the dark about something big my entire life, but I think it’s time you fill me in so I can understand what’s happening.”
The look in his eyes tells me it’s the last thing he wants to do.
“No fighting me on this, Dad.”
He grabs his bourbon and downs half of it, apparently trying to drink his courage. “My import business, it isn’t all completely legal…”
Shit.
I kind of gathered that, given everything that’s happening and some of what Weston said to me, but hearing the words from my own father is something else entirely. But this isn’t the time to chastise him about his life choices and ethics, so I swallow the rebuke sitting on the tip of my tongue in favor of urging him to continue.
“Okay, so?”
“So…” He turns the glass in his hand. “I help people acquire things that they can’t get into the country easily. Things that would spark investigations or sanction from the government.”
“Like what?”
A million possibilities flash through my head.
None of them good.
He stares into his drink rather than look at me. “It could be anything. Drugs, guns, antiquities. Hell, I even have one client who has a thing for ivory.”
“Jesus, Dad, what the hell are you thinking?”
He winces. “It wasn’t always like this. I just…business got bad in the last few years. I had to try something else, offer a service no one else did to bring in new customers so that—”
His gaze cuts to me as he stops himself.
“So that what?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t want you to think this is your fault.”
“How could any of this have anything to do with me?”
