Even when Meloni opened the door to her apartment and saw the familiar furnishings in the living room, it still felt that everything was not real.

She swapped out of her high heels and walked to Tommy Hawk's half-open bedroom, looking inside, the true owner of the sharp and meticulous brain that Andy Nelson had praised him, Tommy Hawk was hunched over his desk, greedily flipping through books, taking notes fluently, apparently not paying attention to the sound of his own door.

"How did you do that?" Melonie leaned against the doorframe and watched Tommy's back for a long time, only when he straightened up and picked up his cigarette to relax, then she opened her mouth to wake him.

Tommy Hawk turned his head and looked at Meloni, his aunt's expression seemed to be richer than before, and he said with a smile: "That guy Dennis, I already told me the results first, I didn't expect you to come back so late, so I ate dinner first." ”

"I came into contact with ninety pills of prescription drugs, which would not trigger the Controlled Substances Act, Dennis bought one hundred and fifty pills, but only gave away twenty-five, plus as a minor, there was no mechanism triggered, three people handled those drugs, but only one person was responsible, these are all carefully calculated by you? Even the Holy Cross High School Parent Committee is your calculation? Melonie asked Tommy Hawke straight to the point.

"Dennis said he knew a student from Holy Cross High School, so I simply asked him to help, I trust him, pretending to be a bad student, I'm not very good at it, but Dennis was born to look like a bad student." Tommy Hawke thought for a moment, then pondered his words and said, "If Dennis hadn't said he knew a student from Holy Cross High School, I'd borrow his seventeen-year-old girlfriend and start by accosting Hugh Spader, but that's another story, just with more or less the same ending." ”

Melonie said with a somewhat embarrassed tone: "You know, I have never seen Hugh Spade have the side of a weak and powerless vagabond, I have the impression of him, smart, strong, passionate, fierce...... Has he changed, or is he not as powerful as I think he is? Seeing his dejected and embarrassed appearance, the first thought that came to me was that I would like such an embarrassed man back then. ”

When Melonie saw the police take Hugh Spade to the police station again, when the police searched the apartment with a search warrant, searched all the negatives and photos and promised to deposit them in the evidence room for testimony in court and would never leak them, when the lawyer contemptuously told Hugh Spade that he was ready to take on everything, when the guy couldn't even take out the bail money, and had to rely on the single mother who had broken up with him to lend him the down payment of the bail money for the sake of the child, the image of the powerful and evil Hugh Spade in her impression completely collapsed.

"You know what? The book given to me by my instructor happened to say that money and violence are the most primitive root of human beings, and no matter how the world progresses and how science and technology develop, these two most primitive human desires will not change. It's simple to deal with those opponents, skillfully using these two most primitive desires, Hugh Spade uses violence to awaken the cowardice in your heart, so you give in to him because of fear, I am the opposite, I use money to awaken the greed in his heart, so he will eventually die of money. He is indeed a powerful man, but only in a certain range, when he is picked by a stronger opponent and stands in the octagon cage of money, he is vulnerable. Tommy Hawk stood up, took the coffee cup and walked past Melonie to the living room, went to make coffee, and said in his mouth:

"The reason for his vulnerability has nothing to do with being strong or smart, but because of his poverty."

"So, you want to know...... Why am I coming back so late? Melonie turned to Tommy Hawk, who was putting in the ground coffee and hot water, and smiled and changed the subject.

The words that the big boy had just said were so mature that she couldn't accept them and didn't know how to respond, but the feeling of her loved ones being there to protect her at all times made her feel very warm.

Tommy Hawk looked at Melonie with some confusion and asked uncertainly, "Do I need to know?" ”

"Of course." Meloni said affirmatively, and then took out a bank appointment slip from her handbag: "I went to the bank and made an appointment to go through the mortgage process tomorrow." ”

"But I haven't told you what business I'm going to do, you...... Whew~~~" Tommy Hawk looked at the appointment sheet with a surprised face, then looked at Meloni, and then exhaled: "Thank you for your trust, Aunt Meloni." ”

"So, what kind of business?" Melonie walked over to Tommy Hawke's side, picked up the coffee cup and stirred it with the spoon.

"In the cigarette business, at this moment, two hundred nautical miles away from us, there is a tobacco processing ship that is working day and night." Tommy glanced at the coffee that Melonie had taken away, and could only turn around and make another cup for himself, telling Melonie the truth about what he had heard from Will Kendrick.

Hearing that Tommy was going to use the money to buy cigarettes, Meloni's originally relieved face tensed again: "I remember you told me that you would not do anything that violates any American law, since when did it become legal to smuggle cigarettes in the United States?" ”

"That's a big deal." Tommy Hawke took a sip of coffee and said to Melanie: "As long as we don't sell these cigarettes in the United States, we won't break the law, just like that tobacco processing ship, as long as we stop on the high seas to sell these goods, we're legal, at least not breaking American law." ”

Melonie took her coffee and looked at Tommy Hawk fixedly: "So you think those cigarette dealers will come to buy your mark-up while the processing ship is anchored on the high seas?" ”

"No, without the strength of the tobacco company, it is best not to anger the US government, although the US government does not admit that the high seas transaction is illegal, but we are not a tobacco company with strong confidence, the right choice should be to put the transaction in a soft egg country that does not dare to complain to the United States, the best choice, of course, is Canada, so the correct thing to do is to buy the goods, go north to Canada, and complete the transaction with the buyer on the high seas near Canada, I have inquired in the past few days, because the United States has not completely abolished the death penalty, There's a problem with Canada's extradition regulations with the U.S., which means that even if we deal with a buyer under our real name, of course that can't happen, it's just a hypothesis, assuming that the buyer knows who we are, and the Canadian dealer later finds out that we live in Warwick, Rhode Island, and they can't do anything about it, because the U.S. government doesn't heed their complaints. ”

"But...... Canadian Legal ...... In fact, strictly speaking, you may be breaking Canadian law. Melonie opened her mouth, but found that there was nothing to say, and indeed as Tommy said, he had found out everything, and that the American tobacco ship could do smuggling business to the United States, and that he, as an American, could follow suit, and replaced the other party with Canada, which would never dare to anger the United States.

"Tell the U.S. government maybe, the U.S. government may have violated the laws of many countries, and no country dares to go to war against the United States, this is the world of the jungle, I am a citizen of the United States at the moment, and I have not violated American laws, and the U.S. government will provide me with the protection it deserves, you know, Aunt Meloni, what I should worry about is not Canada, but another problem, the money earned from smuggling, I also have to pay taxes to the U.S. government." Tommy Hawke walked into his bedroom with his coffee:

"How do we pay our taxes and avoid the tax department looking for trouble, that's the most powerful institution in the United States and the world."