59. Gwen
Gwen
The safe house lights are already on when we roll through the gate. Wind drags through the trees, rattling bare branches against the roof. No neighbors out here. Just darkness pressing in from every direction.
Easton helps me out of the SUV, his hand firm at my elbow while his gaze sweeps the perimeter—windows, roofline, shadows, then finally to Zoey being pulled from a second vehicle. Every muscle in my body goes rigid in anger at the sight of her, my molars grinding hard enough to hurt.
“Let’s, uh, get you inside,” Easton says.
Once we’re through the front door, he and Dad steer me to the couch in a living room.
“I’ll be back soon, okay?” Easton bends in and kisses my forehead, then shoots Dad one quick look before taking off, nearly bumping into Gideon who’s on his way in.
He nods his hello, then sets Julian’s rig on a nearby table before heading over to the fireplace to start it with a flick of a switch.
Only a few minutes pass before I look up to see Julian in the doorway with his sister. Knowing him, he declined everything except the most basic medical treatment.
Firelight deepens the bruises across his face, and shadows pool in the hollows of his eyes as he quietly studies me like a man in mourning.
Hollis and Gideon box him in on his way to a chair by the fire. Julian lowers himself carefully.
Unable to stop myself, I stand and cross the room, guilt taking me down to a knee by his chair. This is my fault.
He leans back, winces sharply, then pitches forward in agony.
She whipped you, too, didn’t she? The realization hits like a physical blow. Rage burns hot and useless in my chest. How many people did that woman scar before she was put down?
“I’m ready,” Julian says, eyes on his brother. “You can bring her in.”
Gideon nods and disappears from the room, while Hollis stands on the other side of his chair like a drawn blade, silent and lethal.
Julian keys in on me next, like I’m code he can’t decipher. “Get off the floor, will ya?” A faint ghost of a smile accompanies his semi-teasing tone, before pain wipes it away.
I stand just as Carter and Easton return, and Zoey’s caught in the crosshairs between them.
She looks wrecked. Pale, with deep circles under her eyes.
Her hair is disheveled and pulled into a messy knot.
Dark bruises that look an awful lot like fingerprints ring her throat.
Carter’s holding her arm like she might bolt. Or maybe collapse.
I wring my hands together as our eyes meet, and one lone tear slides down her cheek.
Carter urges Zoey down into another armchair—a comfortable distance away from Julian, smart man—and Easton wastes no time in leaving her side to get to me.
He frees my locked palms so he can wrap his fingers protectively around my hand.
“I’m sorry.” Zoey’s voice is flat and scraped raw. The warrior from the island is gone. In her place, an empty shell of her old self. A little pity punches through me before I can stop it. “I was lied to. I believed that you—”
“Killed Preston,” Carter finishes harshly. “You saw a fake video of me taking his life, right? And you fucking believed it?”
She nods hesitantly, twisting her fingers together, then cringes as someone’s boots scuff down the hall outside.
“Molly’s like an older sister to me. My best friend.
After Preston died, she was the only family I had.
” She sinks farther into the chair without letting her back touch the leather.
“I know how this all must look, but this isn’t her fault. ”
I’m sorry, but what?
“Both Molly and I were played from the start.” She raises a shaky hand as if she can stop any accusations before they start. “Let me explain, please.”
We defer to Carter on that, and he extends a quick nod in agreement.
“You weren’t supposed to be taken, let alone hurt.”
I know she’s talking about me—to me—but I find myself focusing more on the dust motes in the air than her. Maybe because it’s too hard to look her in the eyes.
“They were only supposed to take your laptop. I swear, Gwen, I would never have agreed to anything that put you in danger.”
The betrayal that hadn’t quite landed yet makes a dramatic crash, sending me a step forward, and Easton goes right along with me. So does Dad. He’s on his feet in an instant, and I’m sheltered between fatherly love and . . . love love.
“I was kidnapped,” I practically rage. I know I’m stating the obvious here, but it has to be said again. As well as the words no one should ever have to utter. “Almost raped.”
“I know, and I am so, so sorry.” Another tear slides in one long stream down her cheek as her chin wobbles. “I really was shocked to see you on that island. Once we got to the safe house, I called Molly to find out what happened. She said Felicity turned on us both and went rogue.”
“And her connection to Molly?” Carter shifts his weight forward, like he’s about to spring into action.
Is it wrong that part of me wishes he would?
The other part?
Well, my damn heart pities her.
“Felicity’s an old friend of Molly’s. An expert cyberhacker who used to work for Interpol, which you already figured out.
” She rubs her thumb over her bruised knuckles.
She didn’t go down without a fight, which does sell her story a little, I suppose.
“Felicity is the one who presented the proof to Molly that Carter killed Preston, and Molly shared that with me.”
A sharp ache blooms in my sternum. “And you assumed I was covering for Carter?” At her nod, I continue. “So, you thought if you could get ahold of my rig, you’d know for certain. But how’d you plan to unlock it without me?” That doesn’t add up.
“Molly said Felicity was smart enough to do it without a passcode.”
Laughable, and more than a little offensive, she would think that.
“I couldn’t just snatch your laptop from the hotel without you all knowing. So, Molly came up with a plan.”
“Which was?” Carter beats me to asking.
She perches at the edge of her seat. “There was a trafficking ring Molly had her eye on taking down. We could expose the traffickers and get justice for Preston at the same time. I just had to go undercover with Easton, and use that cover story—”
“To get me away from The Sapphire so she could get her hands on my rig.” How do I reconcile the woman before me now with the woman I once trusted? “Even if what you’re saying is true, how could you let her torture Easton on that island?”
“At that time, I didn’t know Jezebel was Felicity.
I thought Jezebel was working for the traffickers we were trying to take down.
At least, until I called Molly at the safe house after we escaped.
She told me Felicity went undercover ahead of us, and I put two and two together.
Molly was shocked when I told her you were taken, not just your laptop. ”
“Sure she was,” I mutter.
She holds her side and grimaces. “Molly assumed Felicity not only turned on us but was possibly also behind the trafficking ring.”
Real freaking convenient. “The AI videos, the cyberattacks . . . how could you see all that and not wonder if the video of Carter killing Preston wasn’t also fake?”
“Believe me, the thought crossed my mind when we learned that Dubai hotel bomb was fake.” She lets go of her side and curls her hands on her lap. “I was itching to go track Felicity down and talk to her myself, but you wouldn’t let me leave.”
My pulse drowns out the noise as I remember that entire night like it’s happening now. Easton tightens his hold of my hand, pulling me back to the present.
“Once that surveillance footage dropped of Molly in London, she realized without a doubt Felicity tricked us from the beginning and was now trying to set her up. Molly told me to watch my back and keep the truth from you all until we could figure out what the hell really happened, still unsure if we could trust you.” She glances away.
“Then there was the cyberattack, and everything spiraled even more out of control.”
Carter steps forward. “Even if you’re not lying, you should have come to me the second Molly showed you that video.”
“And said what?” she scoffs. “Ask if you killed the love of my life and expect you to be honest with me if you did?”
I glance at Carter to get a read on him. The muscle in his jaw jumps, his body radiating so much tension, I’m worried if he does let loose, the destruction will be catastrophic.
“My son’s name came out of Jezebel’s mouth,” he seethes. “My wife’s. All of our wives and kids.” Ah, yep. Papa Bear protector mode activated. He pounds a fist onto an open palm. “You can hate and blame me all you want, but you brought our families into this. You—”
“I didn’t tell Molly any of that,” she snaps out, straightening in defense.
“Of course she knows about a few of you. I’ve talked here and there about who I work with.
But I swear, I had no idea anyone knew that much.
Not until Gwen mentioned what was said to her in that room.
” Her hands hover in front of her now, like she’s unsure what to do with them.
“I would never want anything happening to your wife and son, you have to believe me.”
“I can’t believe you,” Carter breathes out. “My wife invited you into our home. She made you feel like family. This is going to hurt her, deeply. And I don’t give out second chances to people who hurt my wife.”
Oh, shit. The last time he used this tone, someone ended up dead.
I peer at Julian and Hollis, patiently observing the scene without interjecting. Julian’s gaze is downcast, but Hollis’s is fiercely pointed at Zoey—as if she’s itching for kill orders. I’m somewhere in between the two.
But I know I need to break up some of the tension so we can get this over with. “If Molly’s truly tied to The Collective, then she would know about us, because they did.”
I can’t help but think back to Singapore, when Julian anonymously reached out to let us know hospital footage was hacked, and they’d acquired most of Falcon’s names.