Several days later, a recovering Steers meets with Nash in her office. She explains that the woman who was her mother’s double was terminally ill and agreed to the prison swap in exchange for a large sum of money for her family. Since Hao knew nothing of the swap, Steers concludes there must be another spy within her organization. She also reveals that the Hong Kong police are displeased she survived the attack and will not investigate it seriously.

Citing the danger, Steers announces they will all relocate to her secluded home in the United States, which is located near Temple’s estate. Nash confronts her about her mother’s clandestine meetings in a park, where she leaves messages in an ice cream container. Steers dismisses his concerns, claiming to already know about the meetings and refusing to discuss the matter further even though Nash suspects a link between the messages and the attack. As the meeting ends, Steers expresses her gratitude for Nash’s loyalty and friendship, admitting she feels deeply alone.

Weeks later, Nash is unable to sleep and decides to take a late-night walk. He checks in with Thura, who is on duty guarding the penthouse. Thura asks about their impending move to America and what Steers wanted from Nash during their recent dinner. Nash replies that he believes Steers, despite her wealth and power, is lonely and simply wanted a friend. They reflect on the corrupting nature of money and the unpredictability of life, with Thura recalling how circumstances forced him to kill his former friend Amrita to save Nash. As Nash returns to the building around 3 a.m., he is stunned to see a familiar woman getting out of a taxi.

Nash is shocked to see Ryder, the woman he believed Steers had murdered, enter the building. He learns from security that Steers approved of her visit. After Ryder meets with Steers, Nash confronts them both. Steers dismisses Ryder and explains to Nash that the “murder” was an elaborate illusion staged to manipulate him into staying in her service. The gun was a fake, and the blood was a special effect.

Nash points out that the cuts she inflicted on him and Temple were real. Steers blurts out that she is a sociopath and that she killed her own siblings but immediately regrets the admission. When Nash presses her for details, suggesting she does not remember because she did not actually do it, she pulls a gun on him rather than answer. He remains defiant, and in a moment of crisis, Steers turns the gun on herself, declaring that her death would be better for everyone. Nash tries to talk her down, telling her that people care for her. Just as she scoffs at the idea, Hiroko enters the room. Hiroko gently disarms Steers, telling her that the innocent child she once was is still inside. She then leads the distraught Steers away, leaving a stunned Nash alone in the office.

Steers, Masuyo, Hiroko, Nash, Thura, and several attendants travel to the United States on a private jet. During the flight, Nash observes Masuyo’s demanding behavior and Hiroko’s anxiety about flying. Once most of the passengers are asleep, he goes to Steers’s private cabin to check on her. She is still shaken from her mental health crisis and remarks that she is not supposed to have feelings.

Nash once again raises his concerns about Masuyo’s suspicious activities in the park. Steers maintains that her mother is only evaluating the business after her long absence. Nash, however, questions why a master strategist like Masuyo would use such a clumsy and obvious method. He suggests that her actions are a “sleight of hand” meant to draw their attention to one place while her true machinations occur elsewhere. Steers is visibly struck by this insight.

The group arrives at Steers’s luxurious, secluded estate in the U.S., which is near Temple’s property to facilitate their business arrangement. Nash and Thura settle into the guesthouse, and Nash establishes a routine of working out while observing the property. He often sees Steers painting in quiet spots on the grounds. Steers refuses to hire more security, stating that she trusts only Nash and Thura after Hao’s betrayal.

Using a burner phone, Nash contacts Agent Morris, who reveals a major development: Fentanyl-related deaths in the U.S. have plummeted because the illegal drug supply now contains less lethal animal tranquilizers. The FBI believes Steers has gone rogue, shifting her manufacturing to Central America and defying her Chinese partners, who wanted to continue flooding the U.S. with deadly opioids. They speculate this is the reason for the assassination attempt on her life. Morris also informs Nash that his estranged wife, Judith, is in witness protection and knew it was him who saved her by killing the intruders who attacked their home.

Nash describes Steers’s complex personality to Morris, mentioning her staged killing of Ryder and her near-suicide. Morris is unsympathetic, reminding Nash that Steers is a criminal responsible for his daughter’s murder. Angered, Nash declares he is now on his own mission, not the FBI’s, and ends the call, feeling more isolated than ever.

A month later, Steers informs Nash that she will be hosting a meeting with business associates from Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras. She explains that they can travel freely into the U.S. because the authorities lack sufficient evidence to detain them, just as she has been protected in Hong Kong by a lack of proof and powerful allies.

Seeking a breakthrough for his own investigation, Nash brings up the ongoing search for Walter Nash. Steers is dismissive, but Nash presses her, questioning the morality of a business that results in the deaths of innocent people. Steers retorts that he has never tried to leave her employment, even now that he is back in the U.S. and the phony murder charge is no longer a threat. When Nash asks if she wants him to leave, a flustered Steers abruptly ends the conversation.

A motorcade of armored SUVs arrives at Steers’s estate, carrying her business associates and their security detail. Nash meets the head of their security, Gabriel Aguilar, and bluffs about having a dozen of his own guards hidden on the property. The meeting takes place in the estate’s ballroom. Seven associates and Ryder are in attendance, but Steers’s mother is conspicuously absent.

While Aguilar and his men stand guard, Nash positions himself outside the ballroom doors. He has planted a listening device inside and monitors the meeting through an earpiece. Steers opens the meeting by proposing a plan to centralize their operations under a single governing committee. She argues this will streamline their business and eliminate significant losses to theft. An older associate, Señor Ramirez, is immediately skeptical and questions who would control such a committee. Another associate, Señor Tecú, intervenes, persuading the skeptical Ramirez to let Steers finish her proposal.

Steers cleverly disarms Ramirez by suggesting a rotating one-year chairmanship for the new committee and offering him the inaugural term. She then presents her second major proposal: A plan to divest from the volatile and unregulated world of cryptocurrency. She warns that crypto is a sham vulnerable to market runs and quantum computing hacks, and she advises moving their assets into more stable investments like gold, real estate, and high-quality bonds.

The men are impressed with her foresight. Steers then addresses her recent break with her Chinese partners, framing it as a strategic necessity. She explains that she can no longer support their agenda of destroying the American customer base with deadly fentanyl. As proof of their displeasure, she shows the men the scar on her neck from the assassination attempt they orchestrated. She warns that they are all vulnerable to China’s immense power and that she is their only buffer. Convinced, Ramirez pledges to reward her as his first act as chairman.

After the cartel associates depart, Nash approaches Steers and, feigning ignorance of the meeting’s content, asks how it went. She replies that it was a successful first step. Nash comments on her mother’s absence, and Steers’s cryptic response implies she excluded Masuyo intentionally, likely due to Nash’s warnings about her suspicious behavior. Steers then informs Nash that they will soon have another visitor: The man who imprisoned her mother and sent her the severed head.

Rhett Temple arrives at the estate at Steers’s request, and Nash is ordered to attend the meeting. Steers rebukes Temple for his failure to find Walter Nash, whose continued absence she believes proves he is still working with the FBI. She gives Temple a one-month ultimatum to find him or face severe, painful consequences. Temple protests that all leads have gone cold, including the disappearance of Nash’s contact, Isaiah “Shock” York.

Steers instructs Temple and Nash to focus their efforts on finding Shock. She also authorizes Nash to hire a new security team to cover his regular duties, explaining to a shocked Temple that her previous team was massacred in an assassination attempt where Nash saved her life. After Temple leaves, Nash questions Steers’s renewed urgency. He suggests an alternative theory: that Nash isn’t working with the FBI but is in hiding to plan his revenge for his daughter’s murder. When he asks what she will do when they find him, Steers declares she will deal with him “[o]nce and for all” (221).

Nash and Rhett Temple stake out Shock’s empty condo. Temple complains about his vulnerable position with Steers, and they agree to take a road trip to search York’s training facility. Later that night, Nash secretly meets with Shock and asks him to remove the incriminating binders about his tattoos from the facility before he and Temple arrive. Shock agrees, arranging for an associate to retrieve them disguised as a cleaner. Nash confesses to Shock that, despite his mission, he feels pity for Steers. Shock sternly warns him that Steers is a ruthless survivor who will not hesitate to kill Nash if she ever perceives him as a threat.

While driving to Shock’s training facility, Temple confides in Nash that his stepmother, Mindy, wants to marry him and that her daughter is not his father’s child. Feeling trapped by both Mindy and Steers, he asks Nash to help him disappear. Nash refuses. At the facility, they stage a break-in and perform a search. Nash is relieved to see that Shock has successfully removed the incriminating tattoo binders.

A frustrated Temple complains about their lack of progress. He learns about the severed head sent to Steers and chastises Nash for saving Steers’s life, arguing that her death would have solved both their problems. Nash defends his actions, pointing out that his job is to protect her and that the assassins would have killed him as well. The conversation leaves Nash reflecting on Shock’s warning that Steers will always choose her own survival.

On the drive back from the failed search, Temple suggests they visit Rose Parker, the former partner of Nash’s deceased father, suspecting she knows more about Nash’s whereabouts. They find Parker at Nash’s old home. Temple questions her, pointing out the logical inconsistency of her inheriting the house without ever interacting with Nash, the executor of the estate.

To save her, Nash suggests she dealt with a lawyer instead. Parker seizes on the excuse, but Temple demands the lawyer’s name: Morton Dickey. Convinced Parker is lying, Temple wants to turn her over to Steers’s interrogators, arguing that the world is brutal and only the strong survive. Nash persuades him to speak with the lawyer first to avoid giving Steers a false lead, which could have negative consequences for both of them. Temple agrees but eyes Nash with renewed suspicion before inviting him to his estate for dinner.

At dinner at the Temple estate, Nash notices that Mindy’s face is puffy and swollen. The meal is tense, with Temple growing increasingly irritated by Mindy’s presence. He finally snaps, cruelly telling her they will never be married and dismissing her from the table. When Nash later asks about Mindy’s swollen face, Temple quickly lies, claiming it was from recent dental work.

After Nash leaves, Temple is confronted by his sister, Angie. She tells him she saw Nash on a previous night, not in his assigned guest room but emerging from the room next to Temple’s own bedroom. This occurred on the same night Ryder visited. Angie recalls that the man had tea with her, told her to go “night-night” and then secretly pushed his car out of the gate before starting it.

Realizing the significance of this, Temple calls a private investigator to ask what Shock uses his facility for. The information he receives seems to confirm his new theory. He then rushes downstairs and carefully retrieves the wineglass Nash used at dinner, sealing it in a plastic bag to have the fingerprints analyzed. He is now certain he can prove Dillon Hope’s true identity.

As Nash leaves the Temple estate, Mindy intercepts him. She tearfully confesses that Temple has been physically abusing her and that her swollen face is the result of him hitting her. She admits she is afraid to go to the police because she fears a wider investigation.

Mindy then reveals that Temple murdered his father. She explains that during an argument, Temple knocked him unconscious. He then coerced her into helping him carry his father to the balcony, where he pushed him over the edge. Mindy feels complicit because she accepted a larger inheritance in exchange for her silence. Nash offers to help her and her daughter escape. He gives her his number, promising his support. As he drives away, Nash sees a figure he believes to be Temple watching him from an upstairs window.

A man arrives alone at Steers’s estate in a state-of-the-art helicopter. Nash observes that the visitor, though unaccompanied by security, carries an aura of immense power. Nash escorts him to Steers’s office and listens to their conversation via a hidden microphone. The man and Steers speak cryptically. He acknowledges her “skillful extraction” of her mother from the Myanmar prison but implies the severed head was sent as a necessary message about the consequences of crossing him.

Steers explains she rescued her mother out of concern for her failing health. The man chides her, stating her actions were bad for his business. Steers then makes a proposal: Citing her position as the last of her family line, she offers to sell him her entire criminal empire. When he asks for her price, she replies, “one American dollar.”

Stunned by Steers’s offer, Nash takes a photo of the visitor as he departs and sends it to Agent Morris for identification. Steers then summons Nash to her office and explains the man’s identity without naming him. He is a supremely powerful and wealthy strategist who operates from the shadows, manipulating global leaders in the U.S., the Middle East, and the Far East to promote surveillance states and consolidate power for the world’s elite.

She reveals that her mission in his larger plan was to tear apart the social fabric of the United States, which provided him enormous leverage in world affairs. However, she has recently defied him by reducing the lethality of illicit drugs. Steers admits she is playing both sides and expects the powerful man will soon uncover her duplicity and have her killed. She seems resigned to this fate, telling a conflicted Nash that she has no desire to live forever.

At dinner, Masuyo confronts Steers for meeting with the man who held her captive. Steers reveals that the man is displeased with her for not killing enough Americans. Masuyo berates her daughter for her weakness, attributing it to Hiroko’s “foolish” influence and urging her to be more ruthless. Steers cryptically replies that she has already taken action to resolve her conflicts.

Two nights later, Nash reads an email from Agent Morris identifying the mysterious visitor as Connor Lord, an American-born chess grand master and prodigy with a genius-level IQ who became a shadowy global power broker. As Nash stands in the hallway recalling past conversations with Hiroko, including her ominous, unfinished warning that Masuyo “will outlive us all…unless…” (263), he hears frantic cries from Hiroko’s room. He and Steers break down the locked door and find Hiroko dead in her chair from poisoning.

Nash identifies Hiroko’s tea as the vehicle used to administer the poison. Steers forbids Nash from calling the police even though it’s clear that Hiroko was murdered. Together, they prepare Hiroko’s body for a traditional burial. They drive to a secluded piece of land Steers owns, bury her, and mark the grave with a stone. Nash knows Steers believes her own mother murdered Hiroko, the only person she truly loved and trusted. The act leaves Nash feeling deeply conflicted, his hatred for Steers eroded by a shared grief and a dawning understanding of her tragedy.

The next day, Temple approaches Nash and reveals that he knows his secret identity. Nash threatens to kill him if he tells Steers. As payment for his silence, Temple demands that Nash help him escape Steers and Mindy. Nash retaliates by revealing that he knows Temple murdered his father but agrees to put Temple in contact with Shock, who can help him disappear. However, he warns Temple that he can’t guarantee that Shock will choose to assist him.