The Hawthorne Legacy (The Inheritance Games #2)(6)

“Who have you told?” Grayson’s voice was deadly serious.

“About the bet?”

“About Toby.”

“Nan was there when I found out. I was going to tell Alisa, but—”

“Don’t,” Grayson cut in. “Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. You understand?”

I stared at him. “I’m starting to get the feeling that I don’t.”

“My mother has no grounds on which to challenge the will. My aunt has no grounds on which to challenge the will. But Toby?” Grayson had grown up as the heir apparent. Of all the Hawthorne brothers, he had taken being disinherited the hardest. “If my uncle is alive, he is the one person on this planet who might be able to break the old man’s will.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I told him. “From my perspective, sure. But from yours…”

“My mother cannot find out. Zara cannot find out.” Grayson’s expression was intense, everything in him focused on me. “McNamara, Ortega, and Jones cannot find out.”

In the week that Jameson and I had been discussing this turn of events, we’d been completely focused on the mystery—not on what might happen if Tobias Hawthorne’s lost heir suddenly turned up alive.

“Aren’t you even a little bit curious?” I asked Grayson. “About what this means?”

“I know what this means,” Grayson replied tersely. “I am telling you what this means, Avery.”

“If your uncle were interested in inheriting, don’t you think he would have come forward by now?” I asked. “Unless there’s a reason he’s in hiding.”

“Then let him hide. Do you have any idea how risky—” Grayson didn’t get to finish that question.

“What’s life without a little risk, brother?”

I turned toward the elevator. I hadn’t noticed it going down or coming back up, but there Jameson was. He strolled past Grayson and settled into the seat on the other side of mine. “Made any progress on our bet, Heiress?”

I snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Jameson smirked, then opened his mouth to say something else, but his words were drowned out by an explosion. More than one. Gunfire. Panic shot through my veins, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground. Where’s the shooter? This was like Black Wood. Just like the Black Wood.

“Heiress.”

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. And then Jameson was on the floor with me. He brought his face level with mine and cupped my head in his hands. “Fireworks,” he told me. “It’s just fireworks, Heiress, for halftime.”

My brain registered his words, but my body was still lost in memory. Jameson had been there in the Black Wood with me. He’d thrown his body over mine.

“You’re okay, Avery.” Grayson knelt beside Jameson, beside me. “We won’t let anything hurt you.” For a long, drawn-out moment, there wasn’t a sound in the room except our breathing. Grayson’s. Jameson’s. And mine.

“Just fireworks,” I repeated back to Jameson, my chest tight.

Grayson stood, but Jameson stayed exactly where he was. He stared at me, his body against mine. There was something almost tender in his expression. I swallowed—and then his lips twisted into a wicked smile.

“For the record, Heiress, I have been making excellent progress on our bet.” He let his thumb trace the outline of my jaw.

I shuddered, then glared at him and climbed to my feet. For the sake of my own sanity, I needed to win this bet. Fast.





CHAPTER 5


Monday meant school. Private school. A private school with seemingly endless resources and “modular scheduling,” which left me with random pockets of free time scattered throughout the day. I used that time to dig up everything I could about Toby Hawthorne.

I already knew the basics: He was the youngest of Tobias Hawthorne’s three children and, by most accounts, the favorite. At the age of nineteen, he and some friends had taken a trip to a private island the Hawthorne family owned off the coast of Oregon. There was a deadly fire and a horrible storm, and his body was never recovered.

The tragedy had made the news, and sifting through articles gave me a few more details about what had happened. Four people had gone out to Hawthorne Island. None had made it back alive. Three bodies had been recovered. Toby’s was presumed lost to the ocean storm.

I found out what I could about the other victims. Two of them were basically Toby clones: prep school boys. Heirs. The third was a girl, Kaylie Rooney. From what I gathered, she was a local, a troubled teen from a small fishing village on the mainland. Several articles mentioned that she had a criminal record—a sealed juvenile record. It took me longer to find a source—though not necessarily a reputable one—that claimed that Kaylie Rooney’s criminal record included drugs, assault, and arson.

She started the fire. That was the story the press ran with, without coming right out and saying the words. Three promising young men, one troubled young woman. A party that spun out of control. Everything, engulfed in flames. Kaylie was the one the press blamed—sometimes between the lines, sometimes explicitly. The boys were lionized and eulogized and held up as shining beacons in their communities. Colin Anders Wright. David Golding. Tobias Hawthorne II. So much brilliance, so much potential, gone too soon.