Toby and me. Ouch.
“And…” Blake raised a third and final finger. “Avery and Eve against each other.” The man gave us a few seconds to process that, then continued. “As for incentive… well, these things must have stakes.”
Something about the way he said stakes sent a shiver down my spine.
“Win both of your matches and you can go,” Blake told Toby. “Disappear however you like. You’ll never hear from me again, and I’ll allow the world to continue to believe that you are dead. Lose one of your matches and you’re still free to go, but not as a dead man. You’ll confirm for the world that Toby Hawthorne is alive and never go off the grid again.”
Toby didn’t blanch. I wasn’t sure if Blake had expected him to.
“Lose both of your matches,” the older man continued with a tilt to his lips that I did not trust, “and you won’t be coming back to life as Toby Hawthorne. You’ll agree to stay here of your own free will as Toby Blake.”
“No!” I objected. “Toby, you—”
Toby cut me off with the slightest shift in his expression—a warning. “What are their terms?” he asked his grandfather.
Blake drank in Toby’s response, pleased, and then turned to Eve. “Win one of your matches,” he told her, “and you can have this.” He brandished a Blake family seal at Eve. “Lose both, and you’ll be at the service of whoever I give it to in your stead.” There was something deeply disconcerting about the way he said service. “Win both of your matches,” Blake finished silkily, “and I’ll give you all five.”
All five seals. An electric current swept through the premises. Isaiah had said that anyone holding a seal when Vincent Blake died was entitled to one-fifth of his fortune, and that meant Blake had just promised Eve that if she could beat Toby and me, he’d give her everything.
All the power. All the money. All of it.
“And as for you, Tobias Hawthorne’s very risky gamble…” Vincent Blake smiled. “Lose both, and I’ll take that favor you offered—a blank check, if you will, to be cashed at a time of my choosing.”
Toby caught my gaze. No. He didn’t make the objection out loud. After a moment, I looked away. There wasn’t a warning he could issue that would be news to me. Owing Vincent Blake a favor was a very bad idea.
“Win at least one game,” Blake continued, “and I’ll release Grayson Hawthorne to you, with a guarantee that I won’t make a guest of anyone under your protection again.”
Guest was one way of phrasing it—but as far as incentives went, it was enticing. Too enticing. If he’s willing to keep his hands off my loved ones, he must have other buttons to push. Other forms of leverage.
Another plan to take everything from me.
“Win both games,” Blake promised, “and I’ll also swear secrecy on the matter of Sheffield Grayson.”
Toby flinched. Clearly, he hadn’t known about that bit of leverage his biological grandfather had been holding in reserve.
“Are these terms acceptable to you?” Blake asked Toby and only Toby, like Eve and I were foregone conclusions.
Toby gritted his teeth. “Yes.”
“Yes,” Eve said, alive in a way that made all other versions of her seem faded and incomplete.
And as for me…
Blake will honor his word. If I won both matches, the truth about Grayson’s father would stay buried. The people I loved would be safe. Blake would still be coming for me. He’d find a way of destroying me and all I held dear, but he’d be limited in how he could do that.
“I agree to your terms,” I said, even though he’d never given me the option to do anything else.
Blake turned to the glittering, five-hundred-thousand-dollar chess set I’d gifted him. “Well then. Shall we begin?”
CHAPTER 80
Toby and Eve went first. I’d played against Toby often enough to know that he could have ended it within the first twelve moves if he’d wanted to.
He let her win.
Blake must have concluded the same thing because once the board had been reset for my match against Toby, the older man picked up his bowie knife. “Throw this game, too,” he told Toby contemplatively, “and I’ll ask Eve to give me her arm and use this to open a vein.”
If Eve was disturbed by the implication that her great-grandfather would slice her open, she didn’t show it. Instead, she held tight to the seal she’d been given and kept her eyes on the board.
I took my position and met Toby’s eyes. It had been more than a year since we’d played, but the second I moved my first pawn, it was like no time had passed at all. Harry and I were right back in the park.
“Your move, princess.” Toby wasn’t pulling his punches, but he did his best to put me at ease, to remind me that even if he played his hardest, I’d beaten him before.
“Not a princess.” I echoed my line in our script back at him and slid my bishop across the board. “Your move, old man.”
Toby narrowed his eyes slightly. “Don’t get cocky.”
“Fine words from a Hawthorne,” I retorted.
“I mean it, Avery. Don’t get cocky.”
He sees something I don’t.
“Eve,” Vincent Blake said pleasantly. “Your arm?”
Her chin steady, Eve held it out to him. Blake rested the edge of his blade against her skin. “Play,” he told Toby. “And no more hints to the girl.”
There was a beat—a single second—and then Toby did as he’d been instructed. I scanned the board, then saw why he’d cautioned me against getting cocky. It took three moves, but then: “Check,” Toby gritted out.
I took in the board, all of it at once. I had three possible next moves, and I played all of them out. Two led to Toby getting checkmate within the next five moves. That meant I was stuck with the third. I knew how Toby would counter it, and from there I had four or five options. I let my brain race, let the possibilities slowly untangle themselves.
I tried not to think too much about the fact that if Toby beat me, the cover-up of Sheffield Grayson’s death would be exposed. Either that, or I’d have to give Blake something much more significant than a favor to keep it quiet.
The man would own me.
No. I could do this. There was a way. My move. His. My move. His. Again and again, faster and faster, we played.
Then, finally, a breath whooshed out of my chest. “Check.”
I knew the exact moment that Toby saw the trap I had laid. “Horrible girl,” he whispered roughly, and the tenderness in his eyes when he said it almost took me down.
His move. Mine. His move. Mine.
And then, finally—finally… “Checkmate,” I said.
Vincent Blake kept the bowie knife on Eve’s arm a moment longer, then slowly lowered it. His grandson had lost, and as the realization of what that meant fell over me, my insides twisted.
Toby had lost both matches. He was Blake’s.
CHAPTER 81
I expect better next time,” Vincent Blake told Toby. “You’re a Blake now, and Blakes don’t lose to little girls.”
I caught Toby’s gaze. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly, urgently.