CHAPTER 41 GRAYSON
GRAYSON
A spiraling black and silver staircase took Grayson from the third floor of the yacht to the fourth. The uppermost level was nothing but a deck, as close to a roof as one could get on a ship.
Jameson was exactly where Grayson had expected to find him: standing at the edge, leaning on the railing but not standing on top of it anymore.
“We need to talk,” Grayson said.
“Ominous,” Jameson replied without turning around, his nothing-risked-nothing-gained, push-the-limits tone one that Grayson recognized all too well. “Planning to explain why you requested a perimeter run of the island?”
“That,” Grayson said. “And I have questions.”
“No, Gray. You don’t.”
Those words served as a reminder for Grayson that Jameson wasn’t pushing limits right now.
He was running scared, and Grayson needed to know why.
He couldn’t protect Lyra, let alone give her what she needed, without information, so he said the one thing guaranteed to get his brother’s full and undivided attention. “I know who put Lyra in the game.”
Jameson whirled to face Grayson.
“Don’t mind me, boys.” Nash made an entrance, sauntered past Grayson, and took up position a ways away from them both. “I’m just here in case someone needs their ass kicked.”
Grayson couldn’t help himself. “How’s handling Nash going?” he asked Jameson.
Jameson didn’t take the bait. “What do you know, Gray?”
Grayson did not beat around the bush. “Eve.”
Jameson blinked.
“Eve?” Nash echoed. Apparently, he wasn’t just there for ass-kicking purposes.
“She made it onto the island,” Grayson said. “Your current security measures leave much to be desired, by the way. Fire whoever Oren tasked with maintaining a decent perimeter.”
Grayson knew without asking that Oren wasn’t personally keeping an eye on the ocean around Hawthorne Island, 24-7.
Avery’s head of security would never divert his attention away from his charge for that long.
And Grayson deeply suspected that Jameson hadn’t told anyone in security that there was a threat.
Which raises the question of why.
“Why would Eve go to the trouble of finding a wild card ticket, just to send it to Lyra and put her in the Grandest Game?” Jameson pressed.
You thought it was someone else. Grayson didn’t say that out loud—not yet. “It seems Eve’s great-grandfather also kept files, including some focused on our grandfather’s enemies. One guess as to who has those files now.”
Jameson didn’t bother guessing. “What exactly does Eve know?”
“About whatever you’re hiding?” Grayson replied. “Nothing. From what Lyra was able to tell, Eve is in the dark about…” Grayson came very close to saying Alice but held back. “Matters you refuse to discuss.”
Grayson recognized the glint in Jameson’s eyes. That was the look of a Hawthorne, sifting through possibilities, updating any and all relevant calculations.
“We will be discussing those matters now,” Grayson said.
“No.” Jameson turned back toward the railing. “We won’t.”
“Jamie?” Nash called, his voice deceptively mild. “Climb that thing again and see what happens.”
A single glance at Nash was enough to tell Grayson that Jameson had spent the duration of phase two on the edge in more ways than one. Grayson eyed his barely younger brother and made an executive decision. Turnabout was, after all, fair play. “Jamie? On Spake .”
Jameson didn’t climb the rail then. He jumped it.
By the time Grayson and Nash made it to the railing, Jameson had already swung himself down and into a dead drop.
“ Son of a— ” Nash cut himself off as Jameson stuck the landing on the deck below.
“After you,” Grayson told Nash.
The chase was on. It became apparent quickly enough that Jameson wasn’t avoiding them so much as leading them into the depths of the yacht and down, level after level, through room after room until he opened a door to a stateroom.
His suite , Grayson registered. And Avery’s.
It looked like something that one would find in a Hawthorne-owned luxury hotel.
Panoramic windows would have delivered quite a view in the day, but at night, the ocean was nothing but darkness.
Regardless, Jameson hit a button on the wall, and screens descended, covering the windows.
Privacy.
Almost immediately, the door to the suite flew inward. “What did I miss?” Xander asked.
Grayson didn’t even have to look at Jameson to know that he definitely didn’t want their youngest brother present for this.
“Xan?” Nash drawled. “Give us a minute.”
“I’m sensing that my presence might be adding some stress to an already emotionally wrought situation,” Xander said, holding his hands palms up. “But I think we can all agree that I really want to see this.”
Jameson glowered at him and pointed to the door.
“Grumpy Charades?” Xander deliberately misconstrued the situation. “I love Grumpy Charades!”
“Gray invoked On Spake,” Nash informed him.
“ Grayson made an invocation?” Xander raised both eyebrows. “The same Grayson Hawthorne who once claimed that the sacred rite of On Spake expired when he was ten?”
“Xander.” Avery entered the suite—and the fray—still gowned in the golden infinity gown.
“Milady,” Xander replied.
Avery met his gaze. “Please?”
That, more even than Jameson’s behavior, set Grayson’s teeth on edge. Whatever is going on here—she knows. Avery had more sense than Jameson did, but she didn’t scare easily, either.
“Xan.” Nash fixed their youngest brother with a look. “I’ve got them.” Xander was the great mediator. This was Nash telling him that everything was going to be okay. “And,” Nash added, “there are scones in the kitchen.”
“Foul play,” Xander told Nash. “And for the record: I want photographs, plural, of any and all wrestling that ensues.” With that, Xander took his leave. There was a shift in the air when he did, the slightest dissipation of tension.
Like Grayson had told Lyra, he would have died for his brothers—all of them, any of them, but Xander was the baby, and he was Xander . Whatever this was, it damn well wasn’t going to touch him. Or Libby. Or Avery. Or Lyra.
Though clearly, the last two were already in this up to their elbows.
“Eve is messing with the game,” Grayson told Avery, catching her up to speed.
“She’s the one who sent Lyra her ticket, which I know because Eve somehow snuck onto Hawthorne Island tonight and approached Lyra.
And despite what Eve offered her—millions, by the way—Lyra told me.
” He swiveled his gaze to Jameson. “Because Lyra is not a threat .”
Jameson opened his mouth to argue, then remembered. On Spake.
“I’m not saying that there isn’t a threat,” Grayson continued. “But the notes on the trees and Lyra’s presence in the game—those were Eve. And given that Eve somehow managed to make it onto Hawthorne Island, it’s likely enough that the blackout during phase one was her doing as well.”
“What’s Eve’s endgame?” Avery spoke because Jameson could not.
“Eve is not the reason I called On Spake.” Grayson directed his next words only to Jameson.
“You don’t want me even saying the name Alice Hawthorne , but the night Lyra’s biological father killed himself, he said three things to her.
He wished her a happy birthday. He told her A Hawthorne did this .
And then he spoke a sentence that contained a riddle masked with a deletion code, the answer to which was omega . ”
Jameson took a heavy step toward Grayson. It was fairly clear how this particular invocation of On Spake was going to end.
Grayson was not deterred. It wouldn’t be the first time he and Jameson fought. It very likely would not be the last. And he’d made Lyra a promise. “Lyra’s father also gave her two things that night. A candy necklace holding only three pieces of candy. And a flower—a calla lily.”
Jameson stayed right where he was, a flicker of recognition in his gaze. You’re thinking of the music box puzzle. Good.
“Lyra is starting to see that night as a game on par with the kind the old man used to lay out for us,” Grayson continued.
“A series of puzzles, albeit nonsequential ones in this case. Lyra has solved three of the four: A Hawthorne did this. Alice. What begins a bet? Not that. Omega—not the beginning of the alphabet but the end. The candy necklace—the significance there appears to be the number three. Incidentally, Nash, is someone keeping tabs on Odette Morales?”
“A certain lawyer says Ms. Morales has pulled a disappearing act.”
Grayson wondered who Odette was hiding from.
Not us—or not just us, anyway. “Do you know what Ms. Morales told Lyra and me, Jamie?” Grayson turned his attention back to his silent brother, to the dark, frenetic energy that he could practically see vibrating beneath the surface of Jameson’s skin.
“She said that there are always three .”
“Three what?” Nash said.
“Don’t know.” Grayson clipped the words—and kept his eyes on Jameson, who’d just taken another step toward him.
Avery put herself in Jameson’s path, then turned toward Grayson. “Gray.” Hazel eyes that Grayson knew all too well settled on his. “You need to stop.”
Like Jameson, Avery clearly didn’t want Grayson even talking about this, let alone asking questions. But for better or worse, Avery Kylie Grambs was a Hawthorne now in every way that mattered.
“Avery?” Now it was Grayson’s turn to hold her gaze. “On Spake.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it again, and Grayson got back to business.
“Of the puzzles Lyra’s father laid out for her that night,” he told Avery and Jameson both, “that just leaves the calla lily. Its meaning is still unknown, but earlier tonight, someone left a fresh one positioned just so on a rock next to the helipad.” Grayson flicked his gaze between the two of them.
“I can see that I was right in assuming that lily was not a part of the game. Eve claimed it wasn’t her doing, either. Lyra believes her, and I believe Lyra.”