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He nodded. “I’m obviously not a cyber expert, but a man I trust has been sending you messages on my behalf. When I learned you were hunting The Collective, I knew you’d eventually figure everything out. It’s what you do. Put the puzzle together. Use the clues you have.” He tipped his head, eyes watery again. “In the meantime, I couldn’t show my hand, especially not to Meryl. No one could know I was behind keeping your entire team alive.”
“You’re why we escaped in Canada,” I whispered in understanding. And the times before. I closed my eyes, trying to wrap my head around it all. I’d convinced myself both he and Meryl were dead to me going forward, but now . . . “Why not a heads-up about the two attacks made against me on my way to Europe a few days ago?”
He scrunched his brow, leaning back in his seat. “I didn’t know about that, which means Alyssa didn’t know.”
Fair point. Sly Soren hadn’t brought Alyssa with him to Zurich, and he’d have no reason to casually mention his plans to her over a call.
“Why’d Sly try and throw your family under the bus? Are you aware of that?” That was our assumption about one reason why Sly had set me up on the pigeon trail in the first place back in Thailand, at least.
“Alyssa said Sylvester believed our family’s role in the organization was unnecessary. He wanted to cut us out, and let the Sorens handle the vault. The only reason he didn’t convince the others was because The Collective values traditions. Sticklers for their rules.” He cursed under his breath, hanging his head. “I’m so sorry. For everything.”
“This is a lot to take in.” Like a lot a lot. “Until I know our teammate is okay, and that your file checks out, I really can’t think beyond that.”
And it wasn’t like POTUS could just go round up powerful people around the world because their name was on a list. We’d need more to go on. The evidence from the vault in Lake Como would help.
I’d also have to stay off-the-grid until this was over, which may mean postponing finding my family. My sister. God, I have a twin.
“Anything else you need to get off your chest while we’re at this?”
He looked up at me. “I think we’ve about covered it, but the man who’s been helping me has more intel that’ll expedite the process of taking down the group. That intel is thanks to Alyssa Soren.”
“How’d you two decide to work together? Know to trust each other?” I couldn’t leave a puzzle unfinished, even if I was short-circuiting from everything I’d already had to absorb. “Don’t tell me you two had an affair, and this was a between-the-sheets kind of conversation that just happened to come up.”
He closed one eye, and I dropped my head back on a long sigh. Yep, guilty-as-charged.
“I can’t even be mad, knowing my mother . . .” I winced. “I mean, Meryl, is a monster.” I was still stunned, too shocked to truly accept what she’d done.
“Who’s the hacker?”
“He’ll come to you, trust me. Well, I believe he usually reaches out to that younger girl on your team. The one with cyber skills as well?” He arched his brow. “Gwen, right?”
I nodded my acceptance, not needing to push for more yet. There was plenty of “more” all around us to still grasp.
“A lot of powerful women in this group of yours,” I shared my thoughts out loud, thinking back to those tied to The Collective we’d taken down previously. “Elected officials, too?”
“A foreign president. Prime minister, yes.”
How in the hell would we take down these people? Even with whatever we recovered from the vault?
The door opened a moment later, and Oliver re-entered the room. “The file was legit,” he confirmed.
He slipped his hand around my waist, securing me against his side. “The list is comprehensive, and there were a few names on there I wasn’t surprised to see. Some a bit more unsettling than others. They’ll be a little tougher to throw in prison.”
What about Mason’s dad? Back in Canada, I had wondered if Meryl had pushed for a marriage with Mason because his parents were in The Collective, and now I was about to find out.
He shook his head no. Always able to read my thoughts.
Thank God. I knew Mason and Connor would be relieved to hear that news.
“How do we take down leaders of other countries, though? I’ll be shocked if the CIA gets back into the business of coups for the sake of our mission. Not that they probably ever got out of it,” I grumbled.
But wait . . . I stepped back as the pieces clicked, and I reached for my lips, finding a slight smile parked there. “That’s it. I know how we take them down. And they’ll be too busy dealing with the fallout to come after us for revenge. Heck, regardless, we’ll be breaking that wheel of theirs, so they won’t be able to operate the way they did in the past.”
I took a second to build the case up in my head first before I shared my thoughts, swiveling back around to peer at the judge, at the man who’d raised me. He’d passed on a few traits to me despite not being my blood. And I was fairly certain he was on the same page with my current thought process as well.
I shared a quote with them, one I’d said to Oliver before. “‘Journalism is the protection between the people and any sort of totalitarian rule.’ We use the media how it was always meant to be used, not the way The Collective weaponized it. We expose them. All of them. I write the story. Tell the world everything. The President outed their existence in his speech last November, but we now have their identities. And soon, we’ll have evidence tying them to everything. Their house of cards will fall when people learn the truth.”
“And they can vote them out on their election days, or stop buying their products and crash their stock,” Tony said as his eyes narrowed on me, his pride evident there. “The will of the people if they unify is a force that not even The Collective can stop. Let the people be The Collective’s judge, jury, and executioner.” He nodded a few times. “That’s brilliant.”
