Chapter 6: T. Sawyer's Identity

Keira was behind the glass where she could see in real flesh the infamous Lady Consigliere of the De Rossi Family, T. Sawyer. After that successful entrapment, her team delivered the suspect to AMSAF headquarters.

Keira had her arms crossed on her chest while she observed the situation.

T. Sawyer is a petite woman, skinny to be exact. Freckles were all over her body like she was marked a dozen times with a pen marker. Her short bobbed blonde hair was unkempt going all over her face. Her dark circles showed as if she had a rough life all over her face. She seemed strong. Keira couldn't tell if she is a drvg addict or just an average geek trying to mess up with the police by joining a highly dangerous society, the Mafia World.

But right after she reviewed her file, that was when she was bombarded with the truth.

She let out an amused laugh while examining the suspect's expression.

"What do you think?" a voice suddenly asked beside her. "Surprising, huh?" Keira looked over her shoulder and saw Robert's amused face while watching T. Sawyer all over the glass wall.

Keira smirked and couldn't help but nod a little. He was right after all. The most wanted Mafia Family's consigliere, the only connection she has to them was in front of her, in real flesh. But she didn't see this coming. Who would have thought that a powerful family like theirs would trust a lady to be their consigliere? On top of that, Keira was expecting to see a tough T. Sawyer. Someone who can be stern and confident when being interrogated, but instead they got a different one. They got a weakling. Someone who would crawl and plead for help.

"I guessed 45. Hmm... 'guess not," she answered while shrugging nonchalantly. "Who would have thought that a young geek at the same age as mine can be a Lady Consigliere to a powerful family? They must be messing around with us. Most of them never saw her face and are we just so lucky? There's gotta be something to this..." I suspected while thinking.

That was when Robert patted my back and disconnected my deep thoughts. "Or are we just competitive enough...? " he continued, then nodded to me as a signal to start the interrogation.

I opened the door inside the interrogation room where the blondey woman stayed. The first thing I noticed was the air. It was too cold. T. Sawyer's hands were shaking. She would frequently rub them against each other or just rub them onto her lap. When she saw her coming inside, the woman immediately stopped and paid more attention to her moves.

Keira settled on a vacant chair. In front of her was a laptop. She put the folder beside it and smiled at the Lady Consigliere. "So..." she began, "you have two options. Just tell me where do you want to lead all of this, okay? One, you are the only one facing massive charges against the state and take all the blame for the mafia's fault, or... two, you can help me catch every one of them, leave no one behind, and give them what they deserve." Keira smiled grimly. "Which one, Miss Almeida? Which side are you gonna choose?"

T. Sawyer's eyes widened. "H-how did you know that name?" she asked, purely shocked.

Keira narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "So, you're Ms. Princess Sara Almeida?" she asked again.

"I-I'm not gonna talk. I want a lawyer!"

Keira smirked. "Sure, you can. Actually, you're it. You can represent yourself at the trial if you want to."

T. Sawyer's eyes blinked, eyes dilated.

"You're a lawyer, right? You don't know? Didn't your group give you enough information for you to answer our questions correctly?"

T. Sawyer's eyes looked away. "W-what group? I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Nah, I'm not talking about De Rossis here, sissy. I'm talking about T. Sawyer Group," she reiterated which made the woman in front of her flinch in an instant.

Her trembling became evident. She kept on shaking her head. "How did you know that?"

Keira smiled and huffed an air. "You see, Ms. Almeida, no matter how you hide these from us, I will still know most of the things around here, and now we're here! I know things, Almeida. More than you can imagine. You start cooperating now or I'll make sure everyone in the world would know how a 30-year-old single mother of 2 kids ended up being a criminal behind the name of T. Sawyer." Keira shook her head. Her hazel eyes glistened. She pressed down her lower arms and intertwined her fingers across the table. She leaned forward and coldly stared right into the suspect's eyes. "You'll be blamed for everything..."

T. Sawyer shook her head.

Keira slammed her hands against the table. It made the woman jump in fear. Her eyes shoot daggers into T. Sawyer's direction. She was losing patience. She hated it when these so-called criminals test her patience.

After she took a lungful air, she clicked out the recording under the table.  The monitor room lost them for that moment. No one must listen to what they were about to say. She gave a sinister smile toward Almeida.

She could see her cries right through her eyes. Her fear for her life. The fear of a mother that wanted to protect her children.

"Tell me what you wanted, and I can give it to you, Almeida. Anything..." she offered.

Almeida burst into tears. She sobbed, having difficulty in breathing. "I-I can't. Please, Ma'am! If I talk, they will kill my two sons!" She shook her head. "I can't lose them. I just can't..."

Keira just shrugged and grabbed her phone from her pocket. She dialed a number and hit the loudspeaker. "Gei, how're the boys?" she asked through the phone.

"They're already in good hands. The team already rescued them from their home," Seregei replied.

"How can I trust you?" Almeida asked after Keira looked at her meaningfully.

Keira rolled her eyes and kept her cool. "Gei. Get them talking..."

After a moment of silence, suddenly a small voice enveloped the silence. "Mommy?"

Almeida's facial expression changed from cautious to fragile. She began sobbing with a painful smile upon hearing her son's voice. "Baby. C-Cody, is that you? Is your brother okay? God, please tell me you're all okay..." she asked breathlessly. Her voice became hoarse and painful.

"We're fine, mom. We're just watching TV in a big house with a nice man. His name is Mr. Galgotta. He said that you asked him to pick us up to enjoy our free time since we can't go to school. He said that you're working..." the boy named Cody replied over the phone. His voice was calm but to his tone, Keira could feel his longing for his mother.

Almeida cried. She opened her mouth to say something but Keira quickly slid the phone back into her pocket after hitting the end button.

"No, no, no, please! Please let me talk to him one more time, please!"

Keira shook her head. "The next time you're talking to him, that'll be after you answer my questions," she determined.

"What do you want? Please, just don't hurt my sons!" she begged.

"Almeida, I'm not the bad guy here. I'm here to help you. If you just cooperate then everything will be smooth. You can go see your sons and see what we can do if you can be acquitted of your charges."

Silence reigned between them.

"Tell me about T. Sawyer Group and your connection with De Rossis. I want an answer now, Almeida..." Keira asked grimly.

Almeida frustratingly sighed. Her breath was still shaky. She closed her eyes and looked up at her. "No one in De Rossis knows about T. Sawyer Group. We were careful enough to hide it. Not even the police can trace us. T. Sawyer Group is actually a group of ghost lawyers that helps syndicates get away from their criminal charges. It's a careful op by random lawyers. We don't have names. We just do our jobs randomly. And I happened to be the front for the group. But I'm not the boss. I swear!" she admitted.

Keira smirked because of that confession.

*****

It was a frustrating interrogation but Keira still got the winning prize. Almeida's information.

She was in a meeting with other AMSAF members. They studied the information they got. All of their faces showed frustration.

"You know what the problem is?" Roque asked them while holding a bunch of papers, "Ghost lawyering in some states is a legal practice," he shook his head and threw the paper back on the table while he was standing near the whiteboard. "This isn't going anywhere. It's a dead-end! Even if we find the acting lawyers for the De Rossis, this doesn't mean anything. They're just doing their job!"

"Can't we find another key to this? We're running out of time here. We can't hold Almeida for long," Seregei commented.

Keira shook her head. "I don't think we have to analyze how they work with them. I mean, come to think of it. They're ghost lawyers. Even De Rossis do not know them because of one reason..." Everyone looked at her. "It's their safety net. They are careful not to get caught. No connections that will lead to them, just a third-party lawyer who can pose as their consigliere. I mean, who knows? T. Sawyer might have lied about having the same ghost lawyer. They just wanted them to think that the lawyer is a she, just like how Almeida got the identity of T. Sawyer," she explained.

Everyone in the room thought about her logic. And when they remained silent, Keira already knew that they got the message.

"What we need to do is to fool the De Rossis..." she continued.

"What do you propose, Vince?" Robert asked.

Keira smirked and typed something on her laptop. After that, she turned the gadget to face her colleagues. There, everyone saw the interface of T. Sawyer's system.

"I pulled up the account where Almeida told me she once contacted someone inside the mafia family. Turns out, what she was telling me earlier was true. No one inside knew her, not even her identity," she explained.

"So, what now?"

Keira smiled cryptically at everyone. "Decoy. We fool them that a bitch is coming on the surface..."