your best american girl ✓

16 | guerrilla tactics

"They want something in exchange? Are they talking about nudes? Because if they are, then I can—"

"Tara, I don't think that's what they meant at all. And I'm a little concerned why that's the first thing that came to mind," Faye says, tucking a lock of hair behind her hair and furiously tapping out a message.

"What are you gonna reply with?" I ask Faye, peering over her shoulder. Even while squinting, my bad eyesight can't focus on the letters. Knowing Faye, it'll probably take her a while to come up with something professional to say instead of the usual aggressive texts she sends me.

Even in her frenzied state, Faye manages to look intimidating. Brows pinched together, my best friend rests her forehead on the dip between her thumb and forefinger, the band of her diamond ring catching in the bright LED lights. Visibly frustrated, she sighs and stops typing to lay her phone flat against the table's beige surface.

"What do you want me to say? Are we going to agree with this?" Faye wrinkles her nose. "What if they ask us to kill someone? No offense, but I'm too much of a baby to go to jail."

"How about we get the information and dip?" Tara suggests as if it's the most obvious decision in the world.

At a loss for words, I simply gaped at her. Faye, on the other hand, scoffs, playfully slapping Tara's arm.

"No! What if they work for the FBI or CIA or the mafia or some shit? Then we're royally fucked."

"Why would anyone from the FBI be contacting our dumbasses? That sounds like a waste of time. C'mon, you fucking idiot."

She's got a point there, but we still need to act very, very carefully. Unlike them, we don't have a safety net to catch us if we fall. There is so much at risk. So much more we could possibly lose.

Before we can type out anything in response, her phone pings again, indicating that this account has messaged us once more.

I want you to do me a favor eventually. For now, I have something you might wanna see.

Then, 3 attachments are sent, all of them are pictures compacted into one PDF. The first one looks like it's a bank statement from an app. Thousands of dollars from a random account have been deposited in spurts. The second document is one from a company. It's their month-end report with all their expenses. The last is a picture of an employee profile. Wait...does Wes work for that company?

Upon a second glance, I realize that the transactions from the expenses are also being spent in spurts, and the amount of money is the same as the amount being deposited into his account... Not only that, but the timestamps line up perfectly...

"Is he...embezzling money?" I say, drawing my brows together as I examine the pictures closely. If he is, then he must be really good at it, because the usual signs of fraud aren't visible: his card has never declined, there is no record of tax evasion, and the company has never noticed any shrinking funds.

"Holy shit, you're right," Faye exclaims, zooming in on the first page, "that's a ridiculous amount of money too. 500 thousand within a month? Jeez, no wonder they're so rich."

"But even without stealing, he still has millions in his account," I add, pointing to the balance, "I literally don't understand people sometimes."

"To be fair, he does donate a chunk of it," Tara defends, shrugging.

Is she serious?

Next to me, Faye snickers. "Yeah, like 1% of it to bogus organizations."

One of them being Tara's dad's charity, yes.

Tara frowns. "It's better than nothing."

"I'd rather him do nothing if he isn't going to be genuine about it. He can do so much more and still be rich as hell, yet he chooses not to."