The next day, Steers asks Nash to take her on a picnic on her property. There, Nash informs her of Masuyo’s demand that he discover the details of Steers’s deal. Steers reveals she knew Nash followed her mother and identified the company she visited. She explains that Masuyo’s visit was a calculated move to send Steers a message that she is investigating her business operations. Steers instructs Nash to tell her mother that the sale is proceeding and the price is acceptable.

Steers then asks Nash for the real reason behind Temple’s most recent visit. Nash admits he provided Temple with the contact information of someone who can help him disappear, and Steers correctly intuits that Temple was blackmailing him. In exchange for his honesty, Steers offers a cryptic explanation of her strategy, noting that a low price in one facet of a deal can yield a high return in another. They conclude their outing by visiting Hiroko’s grave.

After Steers pays her respects at Hiroko’s grave, she and Nash drive back to the estate. She tells him she will need his protection even in her new life as elements of her old one will surely follow her. Nash then brings up a “flaw” he once mentioned in her plan to rescue her mother from Myanmar. He explains his theory that she had sent him and Temple there to die and take the blame for the prison break, which her own men were meant to carry out. Steers admits this was her original intention but claims she would not have gone through with it had she known him then as she does now.

Later, Nash receives an email from Morris confirming that Lord is on his way to the U.S. He reflects on his changed relationship with his wife, Judith, who had an affair with Temple when Nash was on the run. Although he feels empathy for the pain Judith felt after their daughter’s murder, he realizes that they no longer love one another as they once did. Suddenly, a distraught Thura bursts in. Thura reveals he sent a photo of Masuyo to his cousin, who was a guard at the Myanmar prison. The cousin replied that Masuyo was never a prisoner there.

Nash meets with a disguised Agent Morris at a car repair shop. He shares all recent developments, including the revelation that Masuyo was never a prisoner. They theorize that her captivity was staged by China to maintain control over Steers. Nash suggests that Masuyo’s entire criminal empire may have been a long-term Chinese operation to destabilize the U.S. and that she is now working with Lord to ramp up fentanyl deaths, a trend Steers had reversed.

Nash believes Steers’s decision to sell her business is a bold “curveball” intended to disrupt their plans. Morris confirms Lord is now on the West Coast for a meeting. Before they part, Morris voices concern that Nash is losing his objectivity regarding Steers. Nash insists he remains focused on holding everyone accountable for their crimes.

A month later, Steers and Nash fly to Los Angeles on her private jet to meet with Lord. Steers confides in Nash, explaining her desire to sell her business is not about money but about escaping her violent life for a peaceful existence with a small garden, a dream inspired by the kitchen garden she maintained with Hiroko during her childhood. Moved, Nash impulsively offers to help her in her garden, but she dismisses the idea, warning that she is “dangerous company.”

During the flight, Nash musters the courage to tell Steers that her mother was never held captive in the Myanmar prison. Visibly shaken by the news, Steers retreats to her private cabin and remains there for the rest of the journey.

In Malibu, Nash and Steers are brought to a lavish home where their weapons are confiscated before they meet Lord. Lord questions Steers’s one-dollar asking price for her multi-billion-dollar enterprise. Steers explains that two near-death experiences, the plane crash that scarred her and the assassination attempt that led to her recent hospitalization, have shifted her priorities away from wealth. She proposes that Lord compensate her partners with 76% of the business’s 10-billion-dollar valuation, keeping $1 for herself, to ensure a peaceful transition.

She then tells Lord that her mother is eager to return to power and would be perfect to run the business and increase fentanyl deaths, a goal she knows Lord and his Chinese associates share. She asks if he will have “need of her.” Seeing he has been outmaneuvered, Lord agrees. They settle on a deal: 70% of the value will go to the partners and an additional 6%—$600 million—will be paid to Masuyo as compensation for her years of imprisonment.

After dinner, Steers leads Nash on a walk outside, aware that Lord’s house is under surveillance. Nash asks what prevents Lord from simply killing them now that the deal is done. Steers reveals that it was not Lord who tried to kill her in Hong Kong but Masuyo. Steers has also recently realized Masuyo was behind the plane bombing that killed her father years ago. Steers was never supposed to be on that flight.

She explains that the legal complexities of transferring her legitimate assets require her to stay alive to sign the documents, which protects her for now. Her earlier question to Lord about using Masuyo was a successful ploy to confirm her suspicion that the two were secretly allied. She also reveals that Lord’s Myanmar prison is a black site used by Russian, Middle Eastern, African, and cartel interests to disappear enemies, a service that lets those parties truthfully deny holding the prisoners when questioned internationally.

Returning to the estate, Steers confronts Masuyo, informing her of the sale and her new role working with Lord, which comes with a $600 million payment. Masuyo slaps Steers and calls her insolent. Steers retaliates by pointing out that Masuyo knew a bomb brought down the family plane, a detail that was never made public while Masuyo was supposedly imprisoned.

Steers tells her mother she believes everything Hiroko told her, referencing Hiroko’s claim that Masuyo killed Steers’s siblings. Sensing she is losing control, Masuyo tries to turn Steers against Nash. She reveals that Nash knew her real Chinese name, Dai Lu, during the rescue mission and questions how he could have known it. The revelation stuns Steers, who leaves the room without a word.

Nash informs Thura that Steers has sold the business but assures him he can legally remain in the U.S. He then calls Shock, who is training a miserable Temple, and tells him to continue making Temple’s life difficult. Later, Nash updates Agent Morris on the sale, but the conversation sours when Morris reveals that the Department of Justice expects Nash to be the lead witness in the case against Steers. Nash is furious, insisting he never agreed to testify. Shortly after, a newly cold and distant Steers asks Nash to take her for a drive.

In the car, Steers confronts Nash, reveals she knows he is a spy, and asks how he knew her mother’s real name. Holding him at gunpoint, she orders him to drive to Hiroko’s grave. There, she forces him to disarm and leads him into the woods. She demands to know his real identity. Nash confesses he is Walter Nash and says that she is responsible for the death of his daughter.

Stunned, Steers drops her gun. She expresses remorse, but Nash says he wants her to be punished. He admits he couldn’t let her die in Hong Kong because his feelings about her had become complicated. At that moment, his phone rings. It is a wounded Thura, who gasps that assassins have killed everyone at the estate. After a gunshot silences Thura, a man comes on the line and says, “You give us her, you get to live” (330). Nash grabs Steers, and they flee.

As they escape, Nash lies to Steers about the assassin’s message, telling her only that they were both threatened. They quickly abandon their car, rent a new one using a backup identity, and purchase new phones and SIM cards. Nash also buys an extra pistol and ammunition for it, as well as additional ammo for his Glock and Beretta. Steers left her gun at the gravesite when they fled. Steers reveals she has a safe house in New Orleans, and they begin the long drive south, stopping to buy clothes and other necessities.

During the drive to New Orleans, news reports of the massacre at Steers’s estate speculate that she may be the killer. Upon arriving at her secluded house in the Garden District, Nash contacts Agent Morris. Morris replies that the FBI has taken over the investigation and that Thura survived. Although he’s badly wounded and not certain to pull through, he managed to tell investigators what happened, clearing Nash and Steers. Morris also confirms that Masuyo was not among the dead. Later, Nash discovers his newly purchased pistol is missing and notices a bulge under Steers’s shirt. He realizes she has taken it, and they share a silent understanding that they both must remain armed and prepared for anything.

A few days later, Steers cooks Nash a traditional Japanese dinner using recipes Hiroko taught her. The meal is quiet and filled with unspoken tension. Two nights later, during a severe thunderstorm, Nash is unable to sleep and hears strange noises. He discovers a hidden lower level in the house containing a training room. Inside, he finds Steers violently attacking a dummy with knives and advanced martial arts.

She explains that her mother, a wushu master, forced her to train from a young age. They retreat to a porch to watch the storm, where Steers recalls her mother forcing her out into the rain as a child to “show her mettle.” Overwhelmed by the memory and Nash’s attempts at compassion, Steers stands in the driving rain before silently returning to her room.

Nash receives an emotional email from Judith, who is safe in hiding, but he is surprised by his own lack of feeling in response. He resolves that he cannot betray Steers by turning her over to their pursuers. The next morning, he finds Steers emotionally fragile. When he suggests her vulnerability is simply human, she becomes enraged, insisting that she has no control.

Steers’s anger erupts. She accuses Nash of being a spy sent to destroy her and physically attacks him. Nash defends himself without retaliating and eventually manages to restrain her in his arms until her struggles cease and she begins to weep. A brief moment of intimacy follows, but Nash abruptly pulls back. In a dissociated state, he raises his pistol toward himself. Steers intervenes, takes the gun from him as Hiroko once did for her, and shows him a photo on her phone. Nash immediately recognizes the person pictured and realizes that Maggie is alive.