“Actually, Beth never mentioned Helix to me,” Alejandro said, cutting off Hollis. “I asked for the security company name, and she told me she didn’t have to share because I already knew. But maybe she didn’t know. And if it wasn’t Mitch blackmailing her and Hobbs in 2017, then it was more than likely also not him on that other mission two years ago, which means it had to have been Rhett.”
“Because Rhett didn’t want us to know about Helix. He was hoping we wouldn’t find out about Helix,” I said in understanding. “But how in the world would Rhett know you’d go to Beth and talk to her?”
Ryder let go of my hand and stood. “Because you were being followed. The second they spotted Alex with you, they found a way to turn what would’ve been a problem into a solution. They knew Trevor would lead us to Chandler and to the fact Mitch came to him last year, and that’d eventually connect Trevor to Will Hobbs, and Will to—”
“To my ex-wife and to the truth,” Alejandro finished for him. “Someone got to Beth somehow in that prison, and they forced her to lie. Had her pointing us the wrong way so we’d be distracted and chasing ghosts. It was all an illusion, and we bought the lie. That way, we wouldn’t know the real threats were right in front of us the whole time.”
“One tied to a chair in Trevor’s office,” Ryder bit out in a firm voice. “The other? Sleeping with his sister.”
A chill blanketed my body in head-to-toe shivers. “Everything we thought we knew really is backward.” I looked back at Alejandro, my heart cracking open for him all over again. So many lies. So much deception. What was real and what wasn’t? “We’re not here to take out Mitch’s enemies for him like we thought so he can get away with me and cash. So then why are we here?”
“Containment,” my brother said under his breath. “Rhett needed the evidence from the vault before it could be made public to the world and out him.”
“What exactly are you saying?” I asked.
Alejandro hung his head, hands going to his hips. “We’ve been chasing a dead man. That Mitch really did die that day on the way tothe safe house.” He slowly lifted his eyes to meet mine as he rasped, “They silenced him the way they did his best friend.”
Silenced.
Killed.
Dead.
Never coming back, for real dead.
Is that what we’re saying?
In a somber tone, my brother revealed, “They probably didn’t know until it was too late that Mitch had evidence that could bring their entire operation down, whether he was dead or alive.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Audrey
While Gwen and Hollis’s brother worked in the background to figure out how Rhett had gotten to Beth in that prison, Ryder shared over speakerphone what we’d learned with Trevor and Echo Team.
“Clearly Rhett and Beau had been working on their crazy plan to get hold of the evidence even before Christmas, because Beau was planted into our lives prior to that,” I added when Ryder finished talking, taking a seat next to him. I wrapped myself up in a blanket before continuing, “Thewhy’s and thehow’s don’t matter right now, though. Or the timeline. All I know is, we were manipulated from every side.”
“But are we really believing Beth is good here?” Trevor asked in a steady voice, though he had to be shocked. “Did she truly give you the file so that you’d eventually figure out the truth?”
“Goodis a stretch of the imagination,” Alejandro said bitterly, standing by the couch on Ryder’s end. He rubbed his stubbled jawline, gaze lowered. A world of hurt and blame clung to him for believing Beth.
We’d trusted the wrong people.
And Trevor’s own actions in trying to do the right thing had unknowingly placed a target on his head in 2017, not because Mitch was some psycho obsessed with me.
“Maybe Beth didn’t have a choice. Or maybe he promised something I couldn’t give her—a way out of prison. Or, more than likely, Beth was playing both sides,” Alejandro explained, grit in his voice as he closed his eyes. “She did what she agreed to do, but she didn’t tell them she had evidence on them. That was her securing our favor in case we won at the end of this.”
“Maybe,” Hollis began in a hesitant tone. “Ormaybe she had no choice but to do what Rhett said.”
“No way Rhett overheard the secure call I had with Beth that Chandler set up. Plus, she told me about the flash drive. She wouldn’t take that risk if she thought someone was eavesdropping,” Alejandro remarked, now sounding a little like he believed Beth again. The poor guy had to be feeling so many emotions right now.
“Then why not just tell us the truth to begin with? Why the games?” I asked, speaking my thoughts out loud.
“This is still Beth we’re talking about.” Alejandro opened his eyes. “She did what she was told to do, knowing if we didn’t follow the leads Rhett wanted us to, he’d know she didn’t hold up her end of the deal and it’d come back to bite her somehow.”
“By not outright telling us the truth, knowing we’d have to go get the flash drive and decrypt it, she bought herself a cushion,” Hollis answered. “Beth earned herself a window of time so it looked to Rhett like she did what he wanted her to. And by the time we figured out the truth, thanks to the flash drive, Rhett wouldn’t connect the trail back to her.”
“And she’d know we wouldn’t tell Rhett how we figured it out anyway. This is a lead we wouldn’t want him to know about,” Alejandro said. “But I still think we’re giving this woman a lot of credit in choosing to do the right thing.” He shook his head, dragging his thumb along the underside of his lip. “I’m biased, though, so I don’t know.”
