The Hawthorne Legacy (The Inheritance Games #2)(86)

This entire place had been soaked in accelerant. Deep down, I knew why. He burned, because of you.

“I am what I am,” Toby said. “If you want to kill me, I won’t fight it. But let Avery go.”

Sheffield Grayson’s eyes—Grayson’s eyes—shifted toward me. “I am truly sorry,” he told me. “But I can’t leave any witnesses behind. Unlike some people, I don’t fancy the idea of disappearing for decades. My family deserves better than that.”

“What about Mellie?” I asked, stalling for time. “Or the man you had plant the bomb?”

“You don’t need to worry about that.” Sheffield aimed the gun at Toby. He was still calm, still in control.

He’s going to kill us both. I was going to die here with Toby Hawthorne. My mother’s Toby. No. I stood, ready to fight, aware that there was no use in fighting—but what else was I supposed to do?

I launched myself forward. Instantly, a gun fired. The sound of it was deafening.

I expected an explosion. I expected to burn. Instead, as I watched, Sheffield Grayson crumpled to the ground. An instant later, Mellie stepped into view, her eyes wide and unseeing, holding a gun.





CHAPTER 84


I killed him.” Mellie sounded dazed. “I… He was holding a gun. And he was going to… And I…”

“Easy,” Toby murmured. He stepped forward and removed the gun from her hand. Mellie let him.

What just happened here? Trying not to look at the body on the ground—at Grayson’s father—I made my way out of the unit. “I don’t understand.” That was probably the biggest understatement of my life. “You sold me out, Mellie. You left. Why would you—”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Mellie shook her head, and for a few seconds, it seemed like she couldn’t stop shaking it. “And we didn’t sell you out. This was never about the money.”

We? I thought dizzily.

“Who’s we?” Toby asked.

In answer, Mellie swallowed and reached a finger up to her eye. I wasn’t sure what she was doing at first, but then she removed a contact lens. I walked toward her, and she blinked up at me. The contact she’d removed was colored. Her left eye was still brown, but her right eye was a vibrant blue, with an amber circle around the center. Just like Eli’s.

“My brother and I agreed that I should be the one to wear contacts,” Mellie said, her voice still a little shaky.

“Eli’s your brother.” My mind raced. “He engineered a threat against me so he could stay close, then he leaked information about Toby to the press. And then you—”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Mellie repeated. “We were just trying to flush Toby out of hiding. We just wanted to talk. When Mr. Grayson offered his assistance—”

“You kidnapped me for him.”

“No!” Mellie’s response was instantaneous. “I mean… kind of.” She shook her head again. “After Grayson and Jameson went to see him in Arizona, Sheffield Grayson sent a man to follow them to True North. To watch them.” I thought about the professional in the woods. Oren had pulled me out of the tub—and sent one of his men after the interloper. “Eli caught the guy,” Mellie continued. “He tackled him, and then… they talked.”

“About me?” I paused. “About Toby?”

Mellie didn’t answer either question. “We didn’t know who the man was working for,” she said instead. “Not at first. But we all wanted the same thing.”

Toby. “So Eli leaked those pictures,” I said, my throat constricting. “And then a few days later, someone blew up my plane.”

“That wasn’t us! Eli and I never wanted to hurt you. We never wanted to hurt anyone!” Mellie’s eyes drifted toward Toby’s. “We just needed to talk.”

“Why?” I demanded, but Mellie didn’t answer me. Now that she’d looked over at Toby, she couldn’t stop staring at him.

“Do I know you?” he asked her, his brow furrowing.

Mellie looked down. “You knew my mother.”

The world shifted under my feet—suddenly, abruptly. Sheffield Grayson said he had a DNA test linking me to Toby. I sucked in a breath. But Toby’s not my father. It wasn’t my DNA.

“This is my mom.” Mellie pulled out her phone and showed Toby a picture. “I don’t expect you to remember her. Pretty sure she was just another wild night for you that summer.”

The summer he “died,” I thought. Across from me, Toby looked at the photo, and I remembered Zara saying that Tobias Hawthorne’s investigators had talked to at least one of the women that Toby had slept with that summer. Mellie’s mother?

Across from me, I could see Toby working his way through it, too.

“Sheffield Grayson said you gave him a DNA sample to test,” I said, staring at Mellie. “He was certain I was Toby’s daughter.” I glanced toward Toby, and the muscles in my stomach twisted. “But I’m not. Am I?”

“Not by blood.” Toby held my gaze a moment longer, then turned back to Mellie. “You’re right. I don’t remember your mother.”

“I was five,” Mellie told him. “Eli was six. Our parents were in a bad place, and suddenly, Mom was pregnant. She didn’t know your name. She didn’t know the kind of money you came from.”