“Forget it,” Eve bit out. “Forget I called. Forget me. I’m used to it.”
“Don’t, Eve.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t bleed for me. Don’t show me your wounds and expect me to tend to them. I’m not playing that game with you again.”
“Is it so hard to believe that I’m not playing?” Eve asked. “Vincent Blake is my family, Grayson. And maybe you think I don’t deserve one. Maybe I never did. But can you at least believe me when I say that I don’t want to be alone right now?”
Grayson remembered calling her Evie. He remembered the girl he’d thought she was. “You have Toby. He’s your father.”
For the longest time, there was silence on the other end of the line. “He wishes I was her.”
For Eve, there was only one her. Eve was Toby’s daughter biologically, but Avery was the one that Toby had watched out for longer, the one whose mother he’d loved with that once-in-a-lifetime, undying, ruinous, Hawthorne kind of love.
“I’m not your person, Eve. You don’t get to call me. You don’t get to ask me for anything.”
“Message received. I don’t matter. Not to you.” Eve’s voice went dangerously low. “But believe me, Grayson, I will.”
She ended the call—or maybe he did. Either way, Grayson drove the rest of the way to the airport unable to shake the feeling that he’d just made another mistake.
Who would he lose this time?
Trying to banish that question, Grayson parked the Ferrari in long-term parking, left the key under the mat, and sent a text to the contact who’d provided him with it documenting its return. And then, staring down at his phone, he thought about everything that had happened, all of it, since he’d come to Phoenix. He thought about everything that had happened before that.
Look where repressing my emotions got me before. Grayson knew better now—or at least, he was supposed to. If he couldn’t stop making mistakes, he could at least stop making the same ones, again and again.
He could admit this time that, like Eve, he didn’t want to be alone.
Letting out a long, slow, painful breath, Grayson sent a text message to his brothers. No words, three numbers.
911.
CHAPTER 87
JAMESON
Jameson found Katharine and Rohan outside, near the cliffs. The older woman’s hand was extended, the silver ballerina lying flat on her palm.
“Give me the mark.” Katharine’s words were nearly lost in the wind, but a moment later, the wind stopped suddenly and completely.
“I’m afraid that’s not how this works.” Rohan’s white dress shirt was untucked and unbuttoned nearly halfway down. Something about the way he was standing reminded Jameson of the chameleon he’d met outside the club—and the fighter he’d met in the ring.
“You said that whoever brought you what was in the final box would win the game and receive the mark.” Katharine straightened.
“Technically,” Jameson put in, strolling toward the two of them, a rakish smile on his face, “that isn’t what he said. I believe the exact words were: Two boxes with secrets. In the third, you’ll find something much more valuable. Tell me what you find in the third box, and you’ll win the mark.”
Rohan hadn’t said that the winner would be the one who brought him the object in the box. He’d said that it would be the person who told him what was in the box—and whatever that thing was, it had to be more valuable than even the most dangerous secrets.
“Fine, then,” Katharine said briskly. “A ballerina. A figurine. A piece of silver. That’s what was in the box.”
“Wrong answer,” Rohan told her. Slowly, he turned toward Jameson. The last time they’d faced each other this directly, Rohan had just told him to stay down.
Jameson thought the Factotum knew him a little better now.
“Have a different answer for me, Hawthorne?” Rohan asked.
“As a matter of fact,” Jameson replied. “I do.” He held Rohan’s gaze, his own blazing, adrenaline coursing through his veins. “Silence.”
Jameson let the answer hang in the air, just for a moment.
“More valuable than secrets,” he continued. The ability to say nothing, to keep those secrets. Silence. “And this”—Jameson nodded toward the silver chest—“isn’t just a box. It’s a music box. The music plays, the ballerina turns. Except this time, no music. Silence.”
Rohan’s lips slowly curled into a closed-mouthed smile. “It looks like we have a winner.”
Euphoria exploded in Jameson like a speeding train crashing through wall after wall after wall. The world grew brighter, his hearing more acute, and he felt everything—every bruise, every wound, the rush of adrenaline, the taste of the seaside air, the breath in his lungs, the blood in his veins—all of it.
This was more.
“And so,” the Factotum continued, “this year’s Game is concluded.” With a flourish, Rohan produced the stone mark: half black, half white, entirely smooth. He held it out to Jameson, who took it. The stone felt cool in his palm, like a disk made entirely of ice.
I did it.
“You may have a day,” Rohan told him, “to decide what you wish to trade that in for.”
All Jameson could think was that this was what he was—without the Hawthorne name, without the old man, without Avery, even. Jameson had played this his way, and he’d won.
He could feel Katharine’s eyes on his face, assessing him, determining her next move. You don’t have be to a player to win the game. All one really has to do to win is control the players. She was going to offer him something—or threaten him. Maybe both. She’d already tried to use Ian against him, and who knew where Ian was—or what he was doing—now.
Jameson wasn’t about to give Katharine another twenty-four hours to determine her—and his mysterious uncle Bowen’s—next move. “I don’t need a day,” he told Rohan.
The Proprietor of the Devil’s Mercy kept control of its membership through use of a ledger that held their secrets. Powerful secrets of powerful men—and some women, though not many.
Jameson looked to Zella. Her lips ticked very slightly upward on the ends. Whatever she’d wanted from Katharine—or Bowen Johnstone-Jameson—she’d presumably secured it. She’d fulfilled her end of whatever deal she’d struck with them by handing over the last key. And now, the duchess owed Jameson a debt, one she seemed to think she’d soon be in excellent position to repay.
Jameson looked to Branford next: uncle, head of a family that wasn’t Jameson’s in any way but blood. And yet… Jameson had to put real effort into looking away from the man, and when he did, it was to look up at Vantage. He thought of the portrait of his paternal grandmother. This was her ancestral home, and through her blood, his.
Jameson held the mark back out to Rohan. “I like this place,” he told him. “Though I might get rid of that damn bell.”
CHAPTER 88
JAMESON
Walking through the front door of Vantage felt different this time. It felt right. Jameson moved slowly to the bottom of the grand staircase. He looked up. Mine. He’d grown up being handed every opportunity, every luxury, in a mansion easily larger than this place, but Jameson’s entire life, nothing had ever been just his.
“It suits you,” Zella called from somewhere behind him.
Jameson didn’t turn. He barely heard her.
“You would think so.” That was Rohan, also behind him. Katharine had made her exit.
Branford strode past the others, making his way to Jameson and fixing him with a stare so pointed that it drew to mind a threat: If I’d had any hand in raising you, I would be doing a hell of a lot more than yelling.
“We need to talk.” Branford didn’t wait for Jameson to reply before nodding sharply toward the stairs. As Jameson took the first step, the viscount turned to shoot a warning look at anyone who might be tempted to follow. “I need a moment with my nephew. Alone.”