The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games #3)(61)

“Tobias stopped dreaming of working for Blake and set his sights on becoming him. A better version. A better man.”

“So he filed two patents,” I said. “One that they’d worked on together and then a different one—a better one. Why didn’t Blake sue him?”

“Because Tobias beat him, fair and square. Oh, it was a little underhanded, maybe, and a betrayal, certainly, but Vincent Blake appreciated someone who could play the game.”

A rich and powerful man had let a young Tobias Hawthorne go, and in return, Tobias Hawthorne had eclipsed him—billions to his millions.

“Is Blake dangerous?” I asked.

“Men like Vincent Blake and Tobias—they’re always dangerous,” Nan replied.

“Why didn’t you tell Jameson and me this earlier?”

“It was more than forty-five years ago,” Nan scoffed. “Do you know how many enemies this family has made since then?”

I thought about that. “Your son-in-law had a list of threats. Blake wasn’t on it.”

“Then Tobias must not have considered Blake a threat—that, or he thought the threat was neutralized.”

“Why would Blake take Toby?” I asked. “Why now?”

“Because my son-in-law isn’t here anymore to hold him at bay.” Nan took my hand and held it tight. The expression on her face grew tender.

“You’re the one playing the piano now, girl. Men like Vincent Blake— they’ll break every one of those fingers of yours if you let them.”





CHAPTER 56

As I made my way back to the others, I thought about the fact that Vincent Blake had addressed every one of his missives to me. And he’d made it clear on the phone that he wouldn’t speak to anyone but “the heiress.”

You’re the one playing the piano now, girl.… Nan’s words were still echoing in my mind when I stepped into the foyer and heard a hushed conversation, bouncing off the walls of the Great Room.

“Don’t do this.” That was Thea, her voice low and intense. “Don’t fold in on yourself.”

“I’m not.” Rebecca.

“Don’t be sad, Bex.”

Rebecca read meaning in that emphasis. “Be angry.”

“Hate your mom, hate Emily and Eve, hate me if you have to, but don’t you dare disappear.”

The second he saw me, Jameson crossed the foyer. “Anything?”

I swallowed. “Vincent Blake brought your grandfather into his inner circle. Treated him like family—or his version of family, anyway.”

“The prodigal son.” Jameson’s eyes lit on mine.

“Eve?” That was Grayson—and he was yelling. I scanned the foyer.

Oren, Xander, Thea and Rebecca stepping in from the Great Room. But no Eve.

Grayson burst into view. “Eve’s gone. She left a note. She’s going after Blake.”

“What about her guard?” I asked Oren.

Grayson was the one who answered. “She went to the bathroom, gave him the slip.”

“Should we be worried?” Xander threw that question out there.

Men like Vincent Blake and Tobias, I could hear Nan warning me, they’re always dangerous.

“I’m going after her.” Grayson viciously cuffed his sleeves, like he was preparing for a fight.

“Grayson, stop,” I said urgently. “Think.” Eve bolting made no sense.

Did she think she could just show up on Vincent Blake’s door and demand Toby back?

Jameson stepped between Grayson and me. He held my gaze for a second or two, then turned to his brother. “Stand down, Gray.”

Grayson looked like someone who didn’t know the meaning of the words. He was stone: unmovable, the muscles in his jaw rock hard. “I can’t fail her again, Jamie.”

Again. My heart twisted. Jameson placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I invoke On Spake.”

Grayson swore. “I don’t have time—”

“Make. Time.” Jameson leaned forward and said something—I couldn’t hear what—directly into Grayson’s ear. On Spake was a Hawthorne rite; it meant that Grayson couldn’t speak until Jameson was done.

As Jameson finished whispering furiously in his ear, Grayson stood very still. I waited for him to call for a fight, to exercise his right to respond to what Jameson had said in a physical way. But instead, Grayson Davenport Hawthorne parted with two and only two words. “I waive.”

“Waive what?” Rebecca asked.

Thea snorted derisively. “Hawthornes.”

“Heiress?” Jameson turned back to me. “I need to speak to you. Alone.”





CHAPTER 57

Jameson led me to the third floor, to a hobby room filled with model trains. There were dozens of them and twice as many tracks set up on glass tables. Jameson pressed a button on the side of one of the trains. At his touch, the wall behind us split in two, revealing a hidden room the size and shape of an old-fashioned phone booth. Its walls were made entirely out of gemstone slabs—a shining, metallic black for half the room and iridescent white for the other.

“Obsidian,” Jameson told me. “And agate crystal.”

“What are we doing here, Jameson?” I asked. “What do you need to tell me?”