Nash and Thura leave Temple to watch the hotel and go into Bhamo to gather supplies for Nash’s plan. In a rented kitchen, Nash uses stump remover (for its potassium nitrate), sugar, and shoelaces to create a long, stiff fuse and four incendiary/smoke devices housed in old battery casings. Later that night, Thura reports that Zeya’s body has not been identified, but he knows it is only a matter of time before authorities connect them to the soldier’s death. Temple promises to pay for Thura’s relocation to any country if he helps them escape Myanmar. The team continues their surveillance of the hotel. The younger woman from the Pakistani group goes to a pharmacy, and Nash follows. He overhears her getting a prescription for digoxin, a heart medication, presumably for the elderly woman. Nash and Thura solidify their plan to escape together, and Nash explains his strategy to Temple.

On the third day, the two Pakistani men and the elderly woman leave the hotel. Nash, Temple, and Thura follow them out of Bhamo. Thura tells them what he knows about the nearby prison: It is a privately owned facility used to house foreign prisoners who arrive and depart via a private airstrip. They observe the Pakistani men rendezvous with another vehicle carrying four more heavily armed men. The group places a spike strip on the road and hides their vehicles. Nash explains his plan: The ambush team intends to stop an ambulance, free a woman, and escape. Nash’s team will allow the ambush to proceed to a certain point, then intervene to take the woman themselves, leaving the other team behind.

An ambulance hits the spike strip, and automatic gunfire from the ambush team kills the emerging prison guards. Then the inside guard climbs out of the ambulance, shoots the driver, and opens the ambulance door. Two members of the ambush team enter the rear and carry out a shackled Masuyo. The team’s elderly woman, who has received plastic surgery to make her look like Masuyo’s doppelgänger, appears and swaps clothes with Masuyo before being placed in the ambulance. To create a diversion, Nash ignites his homemade incendiary devices, producing smoke that draws the armed men toward it. He then lights a fuse connected to a gas can, which explodes violently, killing or incapacitating most of the ambush team. As Nash eliminates the survivors, Thura shoots the final attacker. Temple helps Masuyo into their vehicle while Nash gives the corrupt guard a cover story, framing the dead men as rival kidnappers. He gives the guard cash and tells him to drive the substitute prisoner to the hospital, where he will be hailed as a hero for seemingly preventing Masuyo’s escape. Nash’s team then escapes with the real Masuyo.

Nash, Temple, Thura, and Masuyo escape via helicopter to Lashio and are driven toward Mandalay, Steers’s jet awaits them on a private airstrip. Nash realizes they were intended to be the patsies in Steers’s original plan and she intended for them to die at the ambush site. He texts FBI Agent Reed Morris the jet’s tail number so the Bureau can track it to Hong Kong and informs Morris they are delivering Masuyo to Steers. An attendant on the jet arranges for Thura to receive legal entry documents upon their arrival in Hong Kong. During the flight, Nash, Temple, and Thura finalize their cover story to explain the mission’s unexpected outcome to Steers.

Upon landing in Hong Kong, the group is met by a driver holding a sign with Masuyo’s real name, Dai Lu, and taken to Steers’s penthouse. Steers greets her mother respectfully before turning to Nash’s team for an explanation. Surrounded by guards, Nash presents their fabricated story: They were ambushed in the mountains and betrayed by Amrita, forcing them to travel to Bhamo by ferry instead of the plane. There, they discovered the Pakistani team planned to kidnap Masuyo for a $100 million ransom. Nash’s team intervened, killed the kidnappers, saved the inside guard, and successfully rescued Masuyo while ensuring the original substitution plan remained intact. Steers appears to accept their account and dismisses them to rest. Nash then visits Thura, who is delighted with his luxurious new accommodations. Thura knows his visa is temporary and he cannot stay in Hong Kong. Nash, feeling responsible for him, promises to speak to Steers about securing his future.

Temple meets with Steers and asks to be released from her service. He offers to cede control of his company, Sybaritic, by appointing a CEO of her choosing. Steers agrees, but with two conditions: Not realizing that Hope and Nash are the same person, she tells Temple to order Hope to remain in her service, and she instructs Temple to resume the search for Nash. Eager for his freedom, Temple immediately agrees to abandon Hope and pretends he will continue the search, considering it a small price to pay for his freedom.

Masuyo quickly establishes her authority in the penthouse, demanding her place at the head of the dining table and ordering a full briefing on her daughter’s business operations. She praises Nash’s competence during the rescue. Steers shows her the severe burn scars on her arms, and Masuyo questions why the person responsible was never found. Steers tells Masuyo that she wants Nash and Thura to be her personal bodyguards. When Masuyo questions her daughter’s interest in Nash, Steers says that he is an “enigma” she wishes to understand better. Masuyo warns her daughter that she will not tolerate being lied to.

Temple informs Nash that Steers has commanded Nash to stay in Hong Kong. He falsely promises to arrange for Nash’s extraction once he is safely back in the U.S., but Nash recognizes his tells and knows he is being abandoned. Shortly after, one of Steers’s guards summons Nash for a meeting.

Steers meets Nash in her private study, where he sees a family photograph of her with her four siblings. Nash assumes, based on what the FBI told him, that she killed them. Steers formally offers him and Thura positions as her mother’s personal bodyguards. She makes it clear this is not a choice: They will either accept or be killed. As compensation, she offers $2 million per year for Nash and $1 million for Thura, with all their needs provided for, including the sexual services of women. Though internally furious at being made her pawn, Nash accepts, realizing the position gives him the proximity he needs to continue his mission against her.

Nash explains the new arrangement to Thura, who is overjoyed at the salary and lavish lifestyle Steers is offering them. Meanwhile, Temple packs his belongings, ready to return to the United States and leave Nash to his fate.

Two weeks later, Masuyo formally meets with Nash and Thura, asserting that they now work for her exclusively, not for her daughter. She warns that disloyalty will not be tolerated. Dismissing Nash’s security concerns, she announces her intention to start going out in public. She then confronts Nash about how he knew her real Chinese name, Dai Lu, at the airport. He gives a vague answer, but Masuyo is not satisfied. She threatens that if he proves disloyal to her, she will reveal his knowledge of her name to Steers, implying it would lead to his death.

Months pass, and Nash and Thura settle into their roles. During this time, Nash manages to use a pay phone to leave a detailed voicemail for Agent Morris, updating him on everything that has happened, including Steers’s threat to frame him and Temple for Ryder’s murder.

One day, Steers arranges an outing for her mother with Hiroko. Masuyo is visibly annoyed by Hiroko’s presence. Afterward, Nash accepts Hiroko’s invitation for tea. She speaks lovingly of Steers, whom she has cared for since birth, and reveals that she was with Steers during the plane crash that killed her father eight years ago, that she pulled Steers from the burning wreckage, and that the crash may not have been an accident.

Masuyo summons Nash for a private walk in Kowloon Park. She again demands his absolute loyalty, threatening to have him “replaced” if he fails her. During the walk, she has him buy her a cup of ice cream, which she then leaves on a park bench after a brief stop in a restroom. As they depart, Nash sees the container has been taken by an unknown person and realizes it was a dead drop for a message.

While exploring the basement gym, Nash discovers a locked storage room. Slipping inside after two of Steers’s guards leave, he finds a box labeled with his deceased daughter’s initials, “MN.” Inside are Maggie Nash’s personal belongings, including the warmup suit she wore in the video accusing him of sexually abusing her and her high school graduation ring. Overcome with grief and rage, Nash photographs the items. The discovery solidifies his resolve, and he is consumed by the thought of killing Steers.

The dead-drop routine in Kowloon Park continues, and Nash eventually manages to photograph the young man who retrieves Masuyo’s messages. Later, Steers summons Nash to her private art gallery. Still reeling from finding his daughter’s belongings, Nash fights the urge to kill her with a nearby statuette. Steers, however, is uncharacteristically vulnerable, discussing her love of art and her feeling of being misjudged. She tells Nash she sees him as empathetic and kind, and she confesses that she wishes she had lived a different life. She concludes the strange meeting by inviting him to dinner that evening as her guest, not her bodyguard.

Nash visits Hiroko to continue their conversation. He proves Steers trusts him by correctly describing the location of the scars on both her arms and her back to Hiroko, who confirms that to her knowledge no one else has ever seen them. In a flood of emotion, Hiroko reveals a shocking truth: Masuyo, not Victoria, murdered her four other children. Masuyo, a Chinese operative, considered her children with her English husband “unpure” and favored Victoria, who was secretly the daughter of a Chinese man. Using drugs and psychological manipulation, Masuyo convinced a young Victoria that she herself had killed her siblings, a lie that irrevocably shaped her personality. Hiroko admits she was too frightened of Masuyo to ever tell Victoria the truth. She advises Nash to follow his heart during his dinner with Steers.

Nash meets Steers for their dinner date. She is uncharacteristically nervous and dressed in a colorful orange dress, a stark departure from her usual black attire. At a private, empty restaurant, she proposes a new relationship, asking him to become her trusted friend and loyal confidant, not just an employee. She requests they address each other as “Victoria-san” and “Dillon-san.” Nash sees this as an opportunity to get closer to her and agrees, toasting to their “new understanding.”

During dinner, Steers surprises Nash with a cake because it’s his birthday. As they leave the restaurant, they are ambushed. The head of her security detail, Hao, attacks Steers with a knife. Drawing on his prior observation that Hao’s knee edged too far over his foot when striking, Nash grips Hao’s knife hand, jerks him off balance, and drives the blade into the center of Hao’s chest twice, killing him. Gunfire erupts from a nearby alley, killing the rest of her security team. Nash shoves Steers into their car and escapes under a hail of bullets. Once they are clear, he discovers Steers is bleeding profusely from a deep slash on her neck from Hao’s initial attack. Torn between letting her die and upholding his duty, Nash chooses to save her life. He rushes her to a hospital, where he also receives treatment for a minor wound he had not noticed. The Hong Kong police arrive to take Nash’s statement but are dismissive, acknowledging that Steers is a known criminal with many enemies and implying they will not prioritize investigating the attack, especially if she dies.