The Hawthorne Legacy (The Inheritance Games #2)(82)

Devastating guilt drilled through me, a needle-thin icicle straight to the heart. I felt heavy and numb. “I’m sorry.”

Oren didn’t tell me not to be. He didn’t say that if I hadn’t pushed to go to Rockaway Watch, those men would still be alive.

“Wait…” I stared at him. “You said that the bomb was planted days before it exploded? Then the Rooneys”—the reason we’d brought so much security with us—“they weren’t the ones who…”

“No,” Oren confirmed.

Someone planted that bomb. “It must have been planted sometime after True North.” I tried to be logical about this, tried to view it from a distance without thinking about the fire, the lightning, the pain. “That man at True North, the professional…” My voice caught in my throat. “Who was he working for?”

Before Oren could answer, I heard the familiar sound of heels on the wood floor. Alisa appeared in the doorway. She stepped across the threshold, and when her eyes landed on me, she reached out to a nearby armoire, her fingers gripping the edge with knuckle-whitening ferocity. “Thank God,” she muttered. She closed her eyes, battling for calm, then opened them again. “I appreciate you telling your men to stand down.”

That was directed at Oren, not me.

“You have five minutes,” he said coldly.

Hurt flashed across Alisa’s features, and I remembered what Max had said. Alisa had moved me back here without permission. With my life on the line, she’d acted to save my inheritance.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Alisa said—to me this time. “It worked, didn’t it?”

I was here. I was alive. And I was still a billionaire.

“It cost me dearly.” Alisa held my gaze. “It cost me this family. But it worked.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “What’s the status of the police investigation about the bombing?” I asked. “Do they have any idea who…”

“The police made an arrest yesterday.” Alisa’s tone was brisker now, no-nonsense. Familiar. “The job was a professional one, obviously, but the police traced it back to Skye Hawthorne and…” She had the decency to hesitate, just for a moment. “Ricky Grambs.”

That answer shouldn’t have been surprising. It shouldn’t have mattered to me, but for a split second, I saw myself at four years old. I saw Ricky lifting me up and putting me on his shoulders.

I swallowed. “His name is on my birth certificate. If I die, he and Libby are my heirs.” It was the same song in a different key, courtesy of Skye Hawthorne.

“There’s something else you should know,” Alisa told me quietly. “We got back the DNA test you ordered.”

Of course she had. I’d been out for a week. “I know,” I said. “Ricky’s not my father.”

Alisa walked to stand beside my bed. “That’s the thing, Avery. He is.”





CHAPTER 80


I stared at my birth certificate. At the signature. This made no sense. None. Every single clue had pointed in the same direction. Toby had sought me out after my mother’s death. He’d signed my birth certificate. He and my mom had been in love. Tobias Hawthorne had left me his fortune.

I have a secret, my mother had told me, about the day you were born.

How was it even remotely possible that Toby wasn’t my father?

“Upside, downside, inside, outside, left side, right side.” Jameson Hawthorne stood in the doorway. When I saw him, something clicked. It was the feeling of a wave crashing over me—at last. “What’s missing?” Jameson asked. He walked toward me, and I tracked every step. He repeated his riddle. “Upside, downside, inside, outside, left side, right side. What’s missing?”

He stopped next to my bed, right next to it. “Beside,” I whispered.

He stared at me—at my eyes, at the lines of my face, like he was drinking it in. “I have to say, Heiress, I’m not a big fan of comas.” Jameson sounded just the same, wry and darkly tempting, but the expression on his face was one I’d never seen before.

He wasn’t joking.

I flashed back to something like a dream. Well, joke’s on me, because somewhere along the way, I stopped playing. Jameson Hawthorne and I had an understanding. No emotions. No mess. This wasn’t supposed to be an epic kind of love.

“I came to see you,” Jameson told me. “Every day. The least you could have done was wake up while I was here, tragically backlit, unspeakably handsome, and waiting.”

Picture yourself standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The wind is whipping in your hair. The sun is setting. You long, body and soul, for one thing. One person. You hear footsteps behind you. You turn.

Who’s there?

“Every day?” I asked, my voice foreign in my throat. I remembered standing at the edge of the ocean. I remembered a voice. Jameson Winchester Hawthorne.

“Every single day, Heiress.” Jameson closed his eyes, just for an instant. “But if I’m not the one you want to see…”

“Of course I want to see you.” That was true. I could say it. “But you don’t have to—” Tell me I’m special. Tell me I matter.

“Yes,” Jameson cut in, “I do.” He sank down beside my bed, bringing his eyes level with mine. “You aren’t a prize to be won.”