CHAPTER 3 GRAYSON
GRAYSON
G rayson looked down at the smartwatch on his wrist. Given that each remaining player in the Grandest Game had been given one, it doubtlessly did more than tell time.
A thorough assessment, however, revealed that the only thing Grayson could do with the watch at this juncture was toggle between the time and another symbol.
A spade.
In phase one of the game, the players had been divided into teams: Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs.
Grayson’s mind made quick work of this fourth symbol.
Spades—for the people behind the scenes.
From the beginning, Grayson had been able to feel his brothers’ and Avery’s touches in every detail of the Grandest Game—including the fact that they’d made him a player.
Grayson had fully intended to have a conversation with all four of them about that, but now there were more important conversations to be had.
Grayson tapped the spade. A text box and keyboard popped up, a way to send a message to the game makers. Grayson chose his words with care, a simple anagram that Avery and his brothers would recognize as a Hawthorne request—meaning that it really was not a request at all.
ZEN DROVE US.
Grayson waited for a reply, and eventually, he got one. NORTHERN SHORE.
Grayson knew from experience that, when it came to his brothers, a rendezvous could take a variety of forms. Some involved explosions.
Some involved helicopters. Sword fights, mud wrestling, karaoke, and fisticuffs were all on the table.
But the brother who joined Grayson on the northern shore of Hawthorne Island wasn’t prone to most of those.
“Nash.” Grayson kept his gaze trained on the ocean and greeted his eldest brother moments before Nash stepped into his peripheral vision.
“Thinkin’ about a swim?” The oldest of the four Hawthorne brothers nodded his head toward the waves.
“A bit cold for that,” Grayson replied.
“Never stopped you before.”
“Assignment from my therapist,” Grayson said evenly. “Apparently, I swim as an exercise in punishing perfectionism with the goal of exhausting myself to the point where I cannot feel. It is, supposedly, healthier to let the thoughts and the feelings come.”
Thoughts like: Some mistakes are worth making .
Thoughts like: Why not me? With her, right now—why not me?
But Grayson hadn’t called for a rendezvous to discuss his feelings. “There’s a threat,” he told Nash. “Or at the very least, the potential for one. Lyra Kane received her ticket to the Grandest Game from an anonymous third party. Someone sent her here.”
Nash chewed on that. “Now why would an anonymous third party do that?”
Exactly. “As it happens, our family was implicated in Lyra’s father’s death.
” Grayson’s voice sounded, to his own ears, far more measured than he felt.
“Suicide. She was four. She was there .” Just thinking about what the memory of that night did to Lyra made Grayson want to wage war on behalf of the child she’d been—and that wasn’t even touching on the woman she was now.
In his entire life, Grayson had kissed four people, counting Lyra. And when he’d kissed her, for the first time in his life, he’d let the feelings come. All of them.
Lyra Kane kissed the way she moved: with heightened bodily awareness, with grace, like kissing was a matter of whole-body coordination.
“How big a threat is she?” Nash asked, his tone casual. Grayson wasn’t fooled. A threat to one of them was a threat to all of them, and Nash was a man who defended what he loved.
“Lyra is not the threat.” Grayson hadn’t meant to issue that statement as a warning, but there it was.
Nash cocked his head. “Exactly how far gone are you, little brother?”
“It’s only been one day,” Grayson replied, the answer automatic.
Nash rocked back on the heels of his boots. “I knew almost immediately with Lib.”
Libby Grambs—Libby Hawthorne, now—was Nash’s wife. Grayson lips quirked upward just thinking about his sister-in-law and the babies she was carrying. “How is Libby?”
“Full of cravings. A little cranky.” Nash grinned. “Wholly incandescent.” He turned his head to shoot Grayson a knowing look. “I’m going to ask again, Gray: How far gone are you with this girl who’s not a threat?”
Grayson fixed his eyes back on the horizon. Let it all come. “Far enough.”
Nash let out a low whistle. “Jamie was right. This is gonna be fun.”
“Delighted to amuse,” Grayson said dryly. “But I didn’t call you here for fun . What do we know about the blackout last night?”
During phase one, the power had gone off—generator and backup generator both.
“Xander says the culprits appear to be squirrels,” Nash replied. “The collective noun of which he insists is also squirrel .”
“A squirrel of squirrels?” Grayson tone made it clear: His skepticism was not limited to Xander’s linguistic assertion.
“Island’s locked down tight,” Nash said.
“Either it’s not locked down as tight as you think or Lyra’s sponsor has another player in the game.
” With characteristic efficiency, Grayson proceeded to tell Nash about the notes someone had left for Lyra in the burned forest, bearing her dead father’s names—his aliases .
“You’ll also want to have someone keep tabs on Odette Morales now that she’s exited the game. She knows something.”
“What kind of something?”
Grayson saw no reason to dissemble. “The kind that involves our grandmother not being nearly as dead as advertised.”
Nash responded to that bombshell with trademark calm, removing his worn cowboy hat and running his thumb slowly over its edge. He’d done the exact same thing the one and only time Grayson had ever taken a swing at him.
“You’re going to want to get in a sharing mood real quick, little brother.”
Grayson narrowed his eyes, but ultimately, he allowed Nash to get away with pulling rank.
“As of fifteen years ago—several years after our grandmother’s supposed death—Alice Hawthorne was apparently alive and well.
She came to the old man, revealed herself, and asked him for a favor.
” Grayson paused, thinking about the grandfather he had known, the Tobias Hawthorne who’d come out on top of every challenge, every confrontation.
The one who’d trained them to do the same.
“Also fifteen years ago,” Grayson continued, “one of the last things that Lyra’s father said to her before putting a bullet in his own head was: A Hawthorne did this . ”
“ A. Hawthorne. Alice.”
“You’ll tell the others.” Grayson did not phrase that as a question. “There may be more than one game being played on this island.”
“Do we call it off?” Nash said, steady as ever. “This year’s Grandest Game?”
“No.” Grayson didn’t even hesitate. “Either there is no true threat and calling the game off would be premature, or there is one—and we need to take this opportunity to identify it.”
The first step to neutralizing an opponent was to make them show their hand.
“So you’re playing,” Nash said. “Phase two.”
“I’m playing,” Grayson confirmed. Not to win—but for her.
Nash ran the back of his hand over the five o’clock shadow on his jaw and smiled slightly. “What does she need the prize money for?”
Grayson’s brothers had all always been too perceptive for their own good. “She wants to save her family home.” Grayson thought about Lyra refusing his jacket and threatening to give him hers. “Suffice it to say, the lady will not accept a dime from me.”
Lyra needed to win the money. Grayson needed to do whatever he could to help her.
“She got a nickname for you yet?” Nash cocked a brow.
Grayson’s lips twitched. “I’m pretty sure it’s asshole .”
“I like her already.” Nash grinned and put his hat back on.
“And speaking of family, I have something to tell you, and you’re not gonna like it.
When we went to escort the eliminated players off the island, Gigi never showed.
Little sis is MIA—and so is Xander’s boat.
Seems Gigi took it and left a note. And apology Twinkies. ”
Grayson frowned. “We’re on an island. Where did Gigi get Twinkies?”
“My understanding from Xan is that it was more of an IOU.”
Grayson kneaded his forehead. That sounded exactly like his sister, and Grayson didn’t need Nash to tell him that Gigi had taken being eliminated from the Grandest Game hard. “I should have checked on her.”
“Alisa’s already working on tracking down the boat. We’ll find little sis. In the meantime, you’ve got a game to play—and another sister to watch out for.”
Savannah. Nash’s reminder had Grayson thinking about his sister’s roughly shorn hair—hair that looked very much like it had been cut with a knife. And then Grayson thought about the player with whom Savannah appeared to have allied herself in this game.
The person who had, in all likelihood, borne the knife.
“Savannah doesn’t want me looking after her,” Grayson commented with all the calm he could muster.
“The ones who need the most looking after never do.” Nash slapped Grayson on the back. “And on that note, we fixed a room up for you at the house.” He held out a large, bronze key. “Find it and get some shut-eye, little brother. Phase two is not for the weak of heart.”