I was torn about what to do. Would my legs hold up the weight of what was to come?
Hollis seemed to think not, because she tipped her head toward the chair in a quiet request for me to sit.
“Fast without all the details?” Gwen offered once I took a seat. “Or slow and—”
“And painful?” I interrupted, because wasn’t there a reason everyone wanted the Band-Aid removed quickly? It hurt a little less.
Hollis sat next to me and suggested, “How about somewhere in between.” And since she knew the truth already, she’d know what was best. “While my brother and Gwen were trying to get a hit on Cipheria’s real name and last possible location before here, I asked Gwen to send me a copy of Beth’s flash drive so I could have a look.”
Gwen’s voice stayed steady through the laptop’s speakers as she switched to screen share. “My program decrypted the flash drive Beth gave us, which had all Will’s files on it. Then it flagged the files by keywords, dates, and name clusters. A few were marked low priority, and Hollis wanted to take a look at those to see if the software may have missed something.”
“Because you doubted Beth was telling us the truth?” Alejandro asked her, and she shook her head.
“Actually, no.” Hollis turned in her seat to face him. “Something told me there was more Beth wanted us to find that’d either convince us she was telling the truthordo the opposite. I didn’t believe for one minute she never took a look at the contents of the flash drive herself.”
“But why tell us one thing, then give us something that would contradict what she said so we’d think she was a ...” I let my words drop as it clicked. “Ohh.”
Hollis nodded, letting me know I was on the same page now. Beth had lied, and she discreetly helped us figure that out for some reason.
“When I opened one of the folders from the flash drive markedMusic, I clicked through all the mp4s to ensure they were really songs and not voice memos or recordings. You know, blackmail. One of thefiles didn’t work when I clicked it. Instead, an access box popped up, warning that it needed to be converted to a read-only note file instead,” Hollis continued. “It was a string of code that made no sense to me. So I had my brother take a look at it.”
“And her brother realized there was buried metadata inside the file. And within that, there was a weird file path,” Gwen picked up for her while sharing the path on the screen.
C:\Users\Will\Photos\September2017\BlackBox\Stratos\Notes\TSloaneInquiry
“When we unlocked that file to see what was in it ...” Hollis let her voice trail off, closing her eyes. “It appeared that Trevor stumbled onto something he shouldn’t have, and he started poking around. And had he kept on the trail, he’d eventually have found out there were dead men running ops for Will Hobbs.”
I blinked, shaking my head like that might help me process it.
“Former Stratos ghost operatives were being sent on side missions by Will Hobbs and led by Rhett,” Hollis continued. “Looks like after President Rydell decommissioned Stratos, Will chose a few of the retired operatives he believed he could turn at the right price. Two of the men he asked said no. He killed them using a slight loophole. You know, since they were already dead.”
“Wait, you’re saying Trevor was close to uncovering this, and that would have led him to Will Hobbs and Stratos, so Will and Rhett came up with a way to have him silenced?” I covered my mouth, my hand trembling.
Alejandro came behind my chair and rested his hands on my shoulders, reminding me that he had my back and we were in this together.
I let my hand fall to my lap at the feel of his comforting touch.
I spied my brother stealing a quick look at us as Hollis continued, “Hobbs kept tabs on every former Stratos operative—including Mitch—up until he wound up in prison in 2018. Probably to ensure no one ever stepped out of line, not just the ones he pulled in for other jobs.”
“According to these files, it looks like Beau and Mitch remained friends even after Beau went off-grid after he was forced into retirement in 2013,” Gwen shared. “My guess is, after Hobbs was in prison, Rhett picked up the baton and continued without him. And he left Trevor alone even though he didn’t die, because his time in captivity resulted in the same outcome Rhett needed. Trevor was now off the trail.”
“And Rhett was probably the one who pitched Stratos 2.0 to Helix—not Mitch, like we thought—after Hobbs died,” Hollis said, speaking plainly about all this. But it still wasn’t sinking in.
I should have asked for the Band-Aid version of this.“So you’re saying Mitch didn’t blackmail anyone? He really didn’t have Trevor sent on that mission so he could marry me?”
Gwen returned to the screen, then focused on my brother as if requesting him to handle this.
Yeah. This was one hell of athis, all right.
Ryder walked over and took a knee in front of me and offered me his hand.
I had a big brother in front of me and the man I was falling in love with behind me. So I was safe. Secure. And nothing could hurt me, but ...
“So Mitch is innocent?” I needed clarification here. For this to be made very black and white. “AndBethhanded us over evidence no one knew she had to help out and reveal she lied.”
“We built our entire theory around Mitch being obsessed with you. Obsessed enough to try and destroy your marriage so he could be with you,” Ryder said in a steady voice, squeezing my hand. “What Rhett said to you when we captured him. The texts with Mitch’s alleged signature. The photos. Appearing jealous. Then Beth’s testimony was the nail in Mitch’s coffin. We believed her, because we wanted to. Because we hated Mitch.” He lifted his shoulder. “I mean I still do, but ...”
“We don’t know why Beth told us it was Mitch pulling the strings, and Mitch blackmailing her, even on that Helix op, but it’s safe to say—”
