61. Easton
Easton
Carter clicks on the bedside lamp, then steps back.
Molly blinks against the sudden light, startling upright at finding the three of us standing in her bedroom. Finally, the tables are turned.
The woman brushing her brown hair away from her face doesn’t look like an evil, trained killer. More like a fifty-year-old housewife you expect to run a garden club, not a ring of global chaos.
Gwen’s laptop, easily recognizable because of her stickers, sits on the desk by the bay window alongside another sleek black one. The sight of it pisses me off—it’s a violation of not only Gwen’s programs, but her personal thoughts.
“Well, this is unexpected.” Molly tosses the covers to the side and swings her legs around. “You shouldn’t have found me.”
“Guess you shouldn’t have been so cocky and come without backup,” I can’t help but mutter.
“Stay where you are. Don’t come any closer,” Carter warns.
Molly smooths the silk pajama bottoms at her thighs like she’s preparing for a board meeting, not an arrest. “Not afraid of me, are you?”
“I’m afraid of breaking the promise I made to MI6 not to kill you.” Carter casually pockets his hands. “Then there’s the Aussies, they want a piece of you. The Swiss.” He edges closer to the bed. “The Americans are being gracious and plan on letting the others fight over you.”
“What can I say, feels good to be wanted.” The woman has a spine of steel, that’s for damn sure.
Gwen holds up her iPad. “All of your accounts are frozen, drained, and the money has been redistributed. Yes, even the ones you didn’t think would ever be found.” The heavy lifting was done with a few keystrokes on our way to this penthouse.
“Let me guess, to your bank account?” Molly doesn’t look bothered. She’s either a stone-cold sociopath, or she still believes her “backup” plan will save her.
The thing about friends in high places? They fall that much harder. A fact she’s about to find out.
“Nope. To whistleblower funds and anticorruption groups.” Gwen walks forward, and I go along with her. “You know what remains when you try to break the system?” Gwen asks quietly. “The truth.”
“People want outcomes, and you engineer them,” I add.
“You worked for The Collective while at MI6. When we took them down, you stepped in. Took everything you learned from them and ran with it. How they manufacture crises in the world for their own gain—from starting wars to collapsing housing markets and so on.” Gwen lays into her with what we know, and it’s the first time I see Molly flinch.
“Nature abhors a vacuum, and since we didn’t know about you, you filled it. ”
Molly’s breathing never changes. No spike, no tremor. Like this is just another negotiation. “Let’s say you’re right. You can’t prove it.”
Gwen hands me the iPad. “Oh, I already have. And in a matter of minutes, you’re about to make headline news.” She smiles. “Mya, you remember her, right? Your evil group had her attacked in Thailand a few years ago? Well, she wrote an excellent exposé about you and all your clients.”
Molly’s gaze moves between us, one by one—cataloging and calculating—until she finally realizes she’s in FUBAR territory. Although, at this point she may even be past fucked up beyond all repair.
“Nothing has ever been personal. Just business,” she says flatly.
“Even taking advantage of Zoey’s pain and using her?” Carter breaks his silence.
“You call it betrayal, I call it market manipulation. Money is the only thing reliable in this world. Friendships come and go, but you can always count on money.”
“Well, your money is gone. All of your friendships, too,” I grit out.
“You’re smart, I’ll give you that,” Gwen continues when I finish.
“When you found out Julian’s still alive, you cooked up a plan you hoped would both handle him and us, all while giving your clients what they paid you to do.
And to kick all this bullshit off, you had your hacker frame Carter with that fake video of him killing Preston. ”
It was genius, but even the best have a weakness—pride. Gwen used that weakness to dismantle Molly’s whole scheme. She won the war against the enemy without ever having to fire a bullet.
“What you don’t know is that Julian had nothing on you. Well, nothing before you put yourself under a spotlight like this.”
Yup, let that sink in. You brought this on yourself.
Molly’s mouth tightens at my words, the first real crack in her composure.
“Let’s start with what you did down under in Australia, shall we?
” Gwen squares her stance, aligning herself next to Carter as I protectively flank her other side.
We can keep our backs to the door, because Wyatt and Falcon are outside the penthouse in case Molly isn’t flying solo like the CCTV led us to believe.
“You chose the island of Vanuatu because of its proximity to the Australian navy. You were hired by a defense contracting company to help them reacquire a contract they lost with their government,” Gwen reveals.
“Everything that happened with the compound made their current security systems look weak. Not even twenty-four hours after that attack, they canceled the existing contract and rehired your client. A thirty-billion-dollar deal.”
It was never about trafficking. It was always about money. Not a shocker.
“As for London,” Gwen goes on, voice smooth and confident, “you tasked your hacker friend to take out air traffic control and create mass chaos with that fake video for a similar reason. Just yesterday, a new cybersecurity contract was signed—a direct result of that attack. And you crashed the stock market for—”
“I get it, you know.” She stands. “Today’s tool is AI. A few years ago, it was something else. You think taking me down will stop this?” She fakes a dry laugh. “I don’t create monsters, I just monetize them. If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else doing this.”
“Can’t beat them, join them, huh?” Sarcasm drips through my tone.
“Precisely,” she snaps back, soulless eyes flying to mine. “You’ve really wasted your talents on the side of righteousness,” she adds, zeroing in on Gwen. “You could have owned the world.”
Gwen glances at me, a faint smile touching her mouth. “I already have the world.”
My chest tightens. Even now, even at a time like this . . .
God, I love you.
Molly approaches Carter, but he doesn’t budge or order her to back down.
“It burns you that Zoey chose to trust me over you, the man she screwed.” She has to lift her chin to look up at him since he has a solid foot on her.
“You don’t actually think she ever truly cared about you, do you?
Her heart died when Preston’s did.” She grins.
“At least you found Diana to keep your bed warm at night. We’ll see how long that lasts. ”
Carter dips in closer, nostrils flaring. “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth, or I’ll forget every promise I made tonight.” He rights his posture, and with a slight shake of the head, he rasps, “You’re trying to get me to kill you, aren’t you?”
“Go ahead,” she baits him. “You’ll feel better for about three seconds.” She keeps her smartass smirk in place. “You won’t do it. Unlike the old you, this you follows the rules. Or so I’ve heard. Feel like proving me wrong?”
Carter stands down, which isn’t too shocking. The man’s a different person since he met Diana, but not by too much.
“Your backup plan to save you—you realize we know about him now, don’t you?” My words strike the final blow. “That’s why you want to provoke Carter into taking you out.”
Molly shifts her attention to me, but she remains quiet.
“Your backup plan wasn’t officially a client,” Gwen shares. “But when you realized your operation in using us could seriously impact the U.S. election, you made them an offer they couldn’t refuse, hoping to land yourself a president in your back pocket one day.”
“By destroying us, you thought you could help take down the two frontrunners in the race,” Carter says. “My mother-in-law.”
“And my grandfather. Which leaves the third main candidate in the primary to take the lead and wind up as the nominee. But your backup plan won’t be elected president.
” Gwen grabs the remote from the dresser and turns on the news.
“He’s resigning from the race, and he’ll be facing charges for election interference as well as accessory to kidnapping, cybercrimes, and a hell of a lot more.
Whatever you’re guilty of, by association, he is now, too. ”
“I’m not letting you take me out of here alive. That won’t be happening.”
When Molly suddenly goes for the nightstand, Carter reaches around to his back and frees the Glock hidden there. He holds it up, practically taunting her. “I would have thought a trained agent would be a light sleeper.”
I tap my earpiece, barely containing my smirk. “We’re ready. You can come and get her now.” I lift the iPad, stopping the recording as she glares at each of us. “We have enough to bury you already, but recorded testimony never hurts.” I wink.