Page 103 of What Remains
His jaw flexes, then he nods. “Does this mean you believe me now?” he asks once I return to the desk.
“If I ever believed you could be capable of betraying me, you wouldn’t be on this team in the first place,” Carter speaks up first, then tips his head toward my dad. “But don’t be mad at him for doubting you. She’s his daughter, and—”
“I’m not.” Nash lifts his hands. “I get it.”
“But the second you realized you might have accidentally been the leak, you should have come to me,” Carter adds, his voice dropping a few octaves. Something tells me the two of them will be having a private conversation about that another time.
“I’m sorry.” Nash looks at me next, and I can tell he’s about to apologize directly, but I hold up my hand.
“I’m just glad you’re innocent and your wife is safe,” I say before he can speak.
Carter rises. “We need to put security on Allie.”
“They might consider using her as bait,” Dad adds. “Take her for real to try to split us up. Distract us with a rescue mission.”
“If they wanted leverage, wouldn’t they have already taken her before we were clued in?” I ask.
“They’re looking to plant seeds of doubt,” Carter guesses. “Create chaos amongst us.”
And they achieved that. “And like Dad said, divide us.”
“I should protect Allie myself.” Nash stands. “She’s still my wife.”
Easton circles the couch, eyes on Nash. “We made a mistake by jumping the gun on your guilt, and I apologize for that.” He winces. “We won’t do that again, but we need to stay together. Send someone who’s not already here. We already split up and—”
“Went to London,” I whisper, meeting Easton’s eyes as a thought strikes me. “What if that footage of Molly was also planted to split us up?” I white-knuckle the armrests. “The hotel bombing didn’t really happen. The Aussies thought they were under attack and took out the compound on the island. And now this footage of Allie . . .”
“I should call Zoey and the others.” Carter removes his mobile from his pocket and goes into the hall.
“Do they need a hacker for this, or . . .?” Constantine asks once the door shuts behind Carter.
“An engineer and skilled hacker. Someone who builds systems, and can also break them apart,” I answer, and Natasha nods, on the same page. “I can do both, so it’s possible they have someone like me who can as well.”
“There’ll never be anyone like you.” Easton’s deep voice and sweet words catch me—and probably the rest of the room—by surprise.
He looks away, and Constantine helps deflect the attention off him. “My brother has a place in Nashville, and he’s there now. That’s where your wife is, right?”
“Yeah, in Franklin,” Nash confirms. “The suburbs.”
“Good. I’ll send him over to pick her up. She can stay with his family until we can get a team out there. Trust me when I say no one is getting past him,” Constantine says steadily, and Nash redirects to Easton, probably wanting an OK from him on that.
“You can trust him,” Easton promises.
Nash swings back to Constantine. “Yeah, okay, then,” he agrees. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” He nods, gesturing to the hall. “Why don’t you come with me to my room? Once my brother picks her up, I’ll connect you to him, and he can put Allie on the phone,” he offers. “Not safe for you to speak to her over your phone or hers.”
It’s Nash’s turn to nod. And while he might be separated from his wife, it’s clear as day he’s still in love with her.
Once the two of them leave, it’s now just Dad, Natasha, Easton, and me here. “I want to study the code used on the fake security footage, and have Julian send me the video from London. I need to see if there’s a match in digital signatures.”
“I assume you want to use your own rig.” Natasha lifts hers, already on the move to forward me the footage before I have a chance to answer.
While she does that, Carter rejoins the suite. A notification on my mobile pops up as Dad explains to Carter where Constantine and Nash took off to.
Julian: I just heard about Nash from Carter. Sucks, I’m sorry. Glad he’s not technically guilty, though.
Yeah :(
