59. Gwen #2
“She’s not. She can’t be.” Zoey comes in for her defense yet again.
I ignore her words and press on. “Molly could have been tracking us since Singapore, and that’s how she learned so much about our families.
” Before anyone can argue with me, I rush out, “I’m not defending Zoey, but the truth is the truth.
Molly could know a lot about us because of that, much more than Zoey shared.
But Molly wouldn’t know about Elaina’s or Camila’s visions.
” I peer at Zoey. “That would have come from you.”
“I, um.” For a woman I’ve never seen fidget, she’s doing a lot of that here. She looks down and starts to pick at her cuticles. Guilty as freaking charged. “I may have mentioned both Elaina and Camila to Molly in casual conversation in the past. Never recently. Certainly never to be used or—”
Yeah, best not to finish that sentence.
“Molly is tied to The Collective.” Carter locks back in as team leader and not as a man betrayed. “She more than likely killed Preston because he found out she was dirty. So congratulations, you were working with the enemy and betrayed, but it wasn’t by me.”
Easton says in a steady tone, “You saw the case we put together against Molly this week. And knowing that, you still covered for her. Why?”
Zoey stares blankly at her lap, and I’m guessing she’s either still shocked or refusing to believe what we’re saying. Maybe both. “That evidence trail was Felicity—er, Jezebel’s doing. She was framing Molly. She wanted you to draw the exact conclusions you did.”
Despite her words, there’s uncertainty in her voice now. Like the truth is finally catching up with her faster than she can outrun it, but her loyalty to Molly is keeping her from making that final leap.
I glance at Julian, remembering something. “Explain why you stole Julian’s rig.”
“Jezebel made contact over text. She said you were under attack at a safe house in Switzerland, and if I wanted you to survive, I had to bring his laptop to her. I—” She stops and looks up at the ceiling, like she can’t bear to look at us as she faces the truth of her actions.
“I knew it was a trap, but I also knew Julian could track me if I took it. I thought that if I sacrificed myself, you would find her and justice would be served.” Her gaze flicks to Julian.
“You weren’t supposed to be taken, but you followed me outside. ”
“That text was a ploy to get to my brother and his laptop,” Hollis bites out. “She knew she couldn’t storm the hotel, not with my family inside, so she needed to draw him out.”
Yeah . . . no one would get past anyone sharing Julian’s last name, that’s for sure.
“And once they had my rig,” Julian picks up for Hollis, “they could blame me for the cyberattack and whatever else was planned instead of Gwen.”
They switched targets because I used myself as bait.
Shit, not the time to feel guilty.
“But wait,” I say, blinking as something dawns on me. “So you didn’t know about the antidote? You didn’t take his rig so you could—”
“I didn’t tell her,” Julian lets me know.
My shoulders cave in from relief. If Molly still has my rig (or even a clone), and she uses the CCTV nuke to cover her tracks thinking she’s safe . . . we can find her. Finally, some good news.
“You do realize Jezebel couldn’t have found us at that hotel unless Molly let her know we were there, right?” Julian raises a good point, and he pushes off the chair and slowly rises, staring Zoey down.
She freezes at his words.
Yup, the woman is guilty. Like we’ve been saying.
“When did you first tell Molly about me? Before or after London?” Julian grates out, his arms tight at his sides as he steps closer to her, and Hollis stays right alongside him.
“Molly and I had dinner back in the fall. I told her about the accident, and I wound up mentioning to her how it all happened. The only way for the story to make sense was by telling her about you. And how it seemed you also had feelings for Gwen.”
Son of a—
“Did you tell her about the CCTV nuke, too?” Julian’s question cuts through my thoughts, and holy shit.
“Yes, and that Gwen had access to it on her rig.” She buries her face in her palms, finally understanding she was manipulated by Molly.
“There’s something else, too, isn’t there? What is it? What are you afraid to tell us?” Hollis presses, her voice icy, a serious touch of don’t F with me laced in her tone.
Zoey lifts her head, dropping her hands. Tears streak down her cheeks as she whispers, “I told her Julian was the mystery hacker who helped take down The Collective.”
My lungs seize up as the truth sinks in.
Molly was probably shocked to learn he was alive and working with us and had to be worried Julian might have evidence that could tie her to The Collective.
He doesn’t, or we would have known about her already, but Molly definitely seems like a take-no-chances kind of person.
Julian turns, bracing a hand on his outer thigh as he locks eyes with me.
“That’s what this is about.” He exhales harshly.
“Molly wasn’t after you. She was after me.
She used your team to flush me out into the open.
” He walks back over to the chair and drops down as the weight of what he’s saying grabs hold of the room and sends us all into silence.
“What better way to draw a man back from the dead,” I say after a few quiet seconds pass, “than to endanger the one woman he died for in the first place.”
“Because of course I would come for you,” Julian rasps, drawing a hand through his dark hair. “I would never let you go to London when the bait was dropped for you. I would go myself.”
The truth was in front of us all this time, but we had a veil over our eyes and couldn’t see it.
“What do we do now?” My words are nothing more than a whisper as Easton squeezes my hand in support.
“What we won’t be doing is forgiving you,” Dad says flatly to Zoey.
“You handed my daughter over to these people. Everything that’s happened since you told my wife to take Gwen out of the hotel is on you.
” He stabs the air, his tone escalating from dry to ready to kill in the blink of an eye.
“You let your desire for revenge cloud your judgment. You picked revenge for a dead man over those still alive and here—over people who cared about you—and placed them in danger.”
A quiver cuts across the line of Zoey’s mouth as she visibly trembles.
I hate her, but I also feel sorry for her.
She lost the love of her life, and that hurled her into the deep end, where nothing remained but the ghost of him and their memories.
She clung to her desire for retribution like a life raft, the only thing she had to hold on to to keep her going.
But none of this changes the fact that Dad’s right.
“We need to find Molly as soon as possible so we can put all this behind us,” Easton says in an even-toned voice, pulling us all back to the task at hand.
“What do we do with Zoey in the meantime?” Hollis asks, eyes sharp on Zoey.
Now I know why Gideon and Tristan aren’t here.
I don’t think they would have held back on unleashing their wrath on Zoey the way Julian and Hollis are able to.
And thank goodness Zoey doesn’t even know Tristan exists, or we would have even more problems on our hands considering she ran her mouth to Molly about Julian.
“Zoey stays under guard for now,” Carter decides, jaw flexing. “We’ll deal with her later.” He turns toward me. “Molly can’t stay off grid forever. She’ll use the CCTV nuke to cover her tracks.”
“And when she does,” I murmur, “we’ll find her.”