The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games #3)(94)

“And when I was her age,” Toby replied, opening the passenger door of the truck and gesturing for me to get in, “I killed your mother’s sister.”

I wanted to object, to say that he hadn’t lit the fire, even if he’d doused the house in gasoline, but he didn’t give me the chance.

“Hannah thought I was redeemable.” Even after all these years, Toby couldn’t reference my mom without emotion overtaking him. “Do you really think she’d want me to walk away from Eve?”

I felt a sob caught somewhere. “You could have told me,” I said, my voice scraping against my throat. “About Blake. About the body. About why you were so damn set on staying in the shadows.”

Toby lifted a hand to the side of my face, brushing my hair back from my temple. “There are a lot of things I would do differently if I could live this life all over again.”

I thought about what I’d said to Jameson about destiny and fate and choice. I knew why Tobias Hawthorne had chosen me. I knew that this had never been about me. But unlike Toby, I had no regrets. I would have done it—all of it—all over again.

Tobias Hawthorne’s game hadn’t made me extraordinary. It had shown me that I already was.

“Will I ever see you again?” I asked Toby, my voice breaking.

“Blake isn’t going to keep me under lock and key.” Toby waited for Alisa and Grayson to climb in after me, then closed the passenger door and rounded to the other side of the truck. When he spoke again, it was from the driver’s seat. “And Texas really isn’t that big—especially at the top.”

Money. Power. Status. My path and Vincent Blake’s would probably cross again—and so would mine and Toby’s. Mine and Eve’s.

“Here.” Toby placed a small wooden cube in my hand as he started up the truck. “I made you something, horrible girl.”

The endearment nearly undid me. “What is it?”

“Blake didn’t give me much to entertain myself with—just wood and a knife.”

“And you didn’t use the knife?” Grayson asked beside me. His tone made it very clear the kind of uses he would have approved of.

“Would you have,” Toby countered, “if you thought your captor could get to Avery?”

Toby had protected me. He’d made something for me.

You have a daughter.

I have two.

I looked down at the wooden cube in my hand, thinking about my mom, about this man, about the decades and tragedies and small moments that had led all of us to right now.

“Watch out for her,” Toby told Grayson when the border of Blake’s property came into sight. “Take care of each other.” The press had been cleared out, but Oren and his men were still there waiting—and so was Jameson Winchester Hawthorne.

Grayson saw his brother standing there, and he answered on behalf of both of them. “We will.”





CHAPTER 85

The knight returns with the damsel in distress,” Jameson declared as I made my way toward him. He glanced toward Grayson. “You’re the damsel.”

“I figured,” Grayson deadpanned.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Jameson, but the truth was, I didn’t care why he’d come—only that he was here. I’d won—after everything, I had won—and Jameson was the only person on the planet capable of fully understanding exactly how it had felt the moment I’d realized that my plan was going to work.

The rush. The thrill. The adrenaline-soaked awe.

The moment victory had been within my grasp had been like standing at the edge of the world’s most powerful waterfall, the roar of the moment blocking out everything else.

It was like jumping off a cliff and finding out you could fly.

It was like Jameson and me and Jameson-and-me, and I wanted to live it all over again with him.

“I thought you could use a ride home,” Jameson told me. I looked past him, expecting to see the McLaren or one of the Bugattis or the Aston Martin Valkyrie, but instead, my gaze landed on a helicopter—smaller than the one Oren had flown here.

“Pretty sure you aren’t allowed to land a helicopter there,” Grayson told his brother.

“You know what they say about permission and forgiveness,” Jameson replied, then he focused back on me with a familiar look—equal parts I dare you and I’ll never let you go. “Want to learn to fly?”

That night, I turned the cube Toby had given me over in my hands. My

finger caught on an edge, and I realized that it was made of interlocking pieces. Working slowly, I solved the puzzle, disassembling the cube and laying the pieces out in front of me.

On each one, he’d carved a word.

I

See

So

Much

Of

Your

Mother

In

You

And that, even more than the moment I’d defeated Blake, was when I knew.

The next morning, before anyone else was awake, I went to the Great Room and lit a fire in the massive fireplace. I could have done this in my own room—or in any of the other dozen fireplaces in Hawthorne House—but it felt right to return to the room where the will had been read. I could almost see ghosts here: all of us, in that moment.

Me, thinking how life-changing inheriting a few thousand dollars would be.