Gigi restrained herself while they were in the elevator, but Grayson could see her practically bursting with questions. In less than a minute, he’d have to supply her with answers of some kind.
Consider your options. Project the likely outcomes. Calculate risks.
The moment the two of them were alone in the black-card suite, Gigi burst. “So… who’s Eve?”
“It’s complicated.”
Gigi grinned. “I love complicated!”
“She’s Toby Hawthorne’s—now Toby Blake’s—recently discovered biological daughter.” Grayson committed to a course of action. He’d lied to Gigi enough. In the future, he’d probably have to lie to her more. This wasn’t a secret he had to keep.
“Family drama.” Gigi clapped her hands in front of her body. “I dig it!
And Toby is…” “My uncle.”
“So Eve’s your cousin?”
Grayson’s entire body clenched at that question. “Legally, no. Biologically, also no.” Toby was adopted. Eve had another man’s name on her birth certificate. She’d only met the Hawthornes—Grayson and Toby included—in adulthood. “Like I said, it’s complicated. What’s not complicated is that she’s dangerous—and so is that guy you were talking to outside.”
“Just out of curiosity,” Gigi said, her tone wheedling, “does he have a name?”
Mattias Slater. “Not one that you need to know,” Grayson told Gigi. “I need you to promise me that if you ever see him again, you’ll run.”
“Well…,” Gigi hedged. “What if…”
“No,” Grayson told her. “Just no, Juliet. If you see him, you get the hell out of there, and you call me. I’m fairly certain that Eve is responsible for setting the FBI on your mother yesterday, and I can’t swear that she won’t do worse.”
Eve had been a mistake, and if there was one thing that Grayson Hawthorne knew with every fiber of his being, it was that his mistakes always came back to haunt him.
“Why would she do that?” Gigi asked, crinkling her nose. When Grayson wasn’t forthcoming with an answer, she sighed. “Fine. If I see Mr. Tall, Dark-Eyed, and Broody again, I’ll call you. Code name: Mimosas. And if you’re wondering if it’s because I could get drunk just looking at the eyes, the cheekbones, the tattoos, honey-golden hair and sun-kissed skin, that little scar through his eyebrow…”
Grayson gave Gigi his most quelling look, and she plopped down on the floor next to the reassembled puzzle box.
“Any progress?” she asked.
Grayson didn’t say no. He didn’t lie to her per se. Instead, he sat down on the floor next to her and met her eyes. “I thought it might help to start again from the beginning.”
And that was what they did. They removed the loose strip of wood from the top of the box, sliding it out, then flipping it over to remove the tool. Gigi turned the box upside down, and Grayson used the magnet end of the tool to remove the panel on the bottom of the box, revealing a hole in which the other side of the tool could be inserted. That loosened the strips of wood on the top, allowing them to be pressed down on the ends to enter the combination that triggered another release. Off came another panel on the box, revealing a small opening, barely larger than a USB.
“Have we tried shaking it?” Gigi said thoughtfully. She didn’t wait for an answer. She shook the box—and out fell the USB key.
Grayson wondered then if he’d made a mistake by making it easier for the girls to open the box, but he didn’t let himself linger on the question for long. Regret never pays dividends, boys. Remember that. Once you start second-guessing yourself, you’ve failed.
“Was this here before?” Gigi asked, scrunching up her forehead. “Because I kind of feel like this wasn’t here before.”
“We didn’t check,” Grayson told her, willing her to drop it.
With a grin, Gigi did. She stuck the faux USB into the opening and twisted it, then hesitated. “We should wait for Savannah,” she declared, fishing her phone out of her pocket and firing off a text. “She’ll want to be here for this.”
There was something about the way that Gigi said her twin’s name that put Grayson on high alert. “Is Savannah okay?”
Gigi nodded, but she also didn’t quite meet his eyes. “She and Mom had a fight last night after you left. About our trusts.”
The trusts that Zabrowski still hadn’t gotten him the paperwork on. “Everything is going to be okay, Gigi.” Grayson came this close to calling her little sister, the way Nash liked to use little brother. “I promise.”
Grayson didn’t realize that he was going to pull her into a hug until he did it. Gigi hugged back. She fit under his chin, and for a single moment in time, Grayson felt like he was exactly where he belonged.
“Give me your phone,” Gigi told him. Clearly, that was an order.
Grayson gave her his phone. She turned it toward his face, unlocked it, and then leaned in next to him again. “Now smile and say I like my sister!”
Three days ago, Grayson would have resisted every part of that request. “I like my sister.”
“I’m not sure that counts as a smile,” Gigi informed him after she’d snapped a picture. “But kudos for the effort. Now let’s take one posed next to the box. Say we did it!”
“We did it,” Grayson said.
“We are the best!” Gigi was snapping pictures like mad. “We are the best,” Grayson repeated.
“Code Name Mimosa’s real name is…”
Grayson narrowed his eyes. “Gigi,” he said, putting more than a little warning in his tone.
Gigi was absolutely unabashed. “What a coincidence,” she said seriously. “My name is also Gigi.” She scrolled through the photos she’d taken. “I like this one,” she told him. “You’re actually smiling. I’ll make it your wallpaper.”
Grayson grabbed for his phone, but she dodged.
“Now, I’m sending it to myself… and also to Xander.… And… done.” Gigi stared at Grayson’s phone for a second or two longer, then flicked her gaze back to the puzzle box. “I changed my mind. Let’s not wait for Savannah.” Gigi squatted, locked her fingers around the faux USB, and pulled out the board, the last remaining barrier to the compartment that held the journal.
Not the real one. Grayson buried the guilt, buried it so deep that no amount of discussion or bonding with Gigi now could unearth it.
His sister flipped through the pages of the duplicate journal. “It’s full of numbers,” she said, frowning. “Just strings and strings of numbers.”
“Let me see it,” Grayson said, the way he would have if this was his first time in a room with that book. Gigi handed it to him, and Grayson made his own inspection of it, page by page. “It’s a code, obviously,” he said. “Some kind of substitution cipher, perhaps.”
Not perhaps. Not just any cipher.
“I’m going to need some coffee,” Gigi declared. “Oooh! Look! There’s a coffee maker!”
Grayson held out an arm to stop her. “You do not need any coffee.”
“You like me,” Gigi reminded him, poking him in the chest. “You find me charming.”
The muscles in Grayson’s throat tightened. “I like you,” he said quietly. “And I am still not giving you coffee.”
“Decaf,” Gigi countered. “Final offer!” Grayson gave a roll of his eyes. “Fine.”
He walked into the kitchen to make her decaf. When he came back, she wasn’t sitting near the puzzle box. She was standing—and staring at his phone.
“This isn’t the picture you sent me.” Gigi’s voice was very quiet. “The passwords. The ones from Mr. Trowbridge’s office. You sent me a picture, but this…” She held up his phone, his photo roll. “These aren’t the passwords you sent me, Grayson.”
He saw, all at once, the mistakes he’d made. Letting his guard down. Letting her in. Giving her his phone. Letting her pull up his photos to scroll through the ones she’d taken of the two of them. Failing to take the phone back before he’d left the room. Was it still unlocked, or did she figure out the passcode?
Did it matter?
“And my key…” Gigi was staring at the photo roll, just staring and staring at it like she expected it to stop being what it was. “You took a picture of my key. I knew that. I didn’t think anything of it. I gave you my key, and then you gave it to Savannah. But my key didn’t work.” She looked up from the phone, stricken. “Why didn’t it work, Grayson?”
Grayson Hawthorne had been raised to take control of every situation, but he didn’t know how to make this stop. He didn’t know how to lie to her
—even though he’d done nothing but lie to her so far.
“Where did you get this?” Gigi held up the not-USB. “It wasn’t in the box before, was it? Have you already opened it?” Gigi dropped the USB, and the next thing Grayson knew, she was holding the journal—holding on to it for dear life. “Is this even real?”
It was real, Gigi. In his own mind, Grayson wasn’t focused on the journal.
“This is the part where you tell me that you can explain,” Gigi said, her voice catching. “Go ahead. Explain, Grayson.”
Grayson’s brain formulated a response. He looked her straight in the eyes. “I was trying to protect you.”
“Okay.” Gigi nodded, and it was like once she started nodding, she couldn’t stop. “I believe you. Okay? Because I’m the type of person who believes in people.” She smiled, but it didn’t look like a Gigi smile. “Because what fun is it going through life any other way?”
Grayson felt like she was ripping his heart out. He didn’t have any choice but to keep lying to her. And she would keep believing it, believing in him, because that was who she was.
“Only…” Gigi’s voice shook. “What exactly were you protecting me from?” She held up the journal again. “What’s in here?” She paused. “What’s not?”
Grayson couldn’t answer. Even if he had wanted to, his body wouldn’t let him. Some people can make mistakes, he could hear the old man saying. But you are not one of those people.
He’d known that he was emotionally compromised. He’d known that.
“I trusted you,” Gigi said, like the words had been ripped out of her. “Even after you lied to me. You’re my brother, and you lied to me, and I trusted you anyway. Because that’s what I do.”
“I can explain,” Grayson said, but that was just another lie, because he couldn’t. He wouldn’t ever be able to explain this to her because the secrets he was keeping—they had to stay hidden.
No matter the cost.
“Go ahead,” Gigi told him, tears streaming down her face. “Tell me you haven’t been sabotaging me—sabotaging us—from the beginning.”
Grayson couldn’t tell her that. He couldn’t tell her a damn thing.
“That guy outside, the one you claim is so dangerous, he said that you were playing your own game. He warned me. Careful with this one, sunshine.”
Grayson would never forgive himself if she ended up putting herself in danger because of him. “Gigi—” Grayson was not a person who pleaded, but he was pleading now.
“Don’t,” Gigi said, her voice low and guttural. “Just shut your mouth and give me what you really found in this box, because I don’t believe for a damn second that you haven’t already opened it.”
Grayson’s chest hurt. Every single breath he took hurt. It all hurt. “I can’t.”
Gigi swallowed. “Then stay the hell away from me—and my sister.”
She opened the door. Savannah was coming down the hall, but she took one look at her twin and brought her diamond-hard gaze to Grayson’s, and he knew.
He’d lost them both.
TWO YEARS AND EIGHT MONTHS
AGO
Grayson sat hunched on the floor of the tree house, his knees pulled to his chest. Posture unbefitting of a Hawthorne, he thought dully. The words didn’t hurt the way they should have.
He ran his thumb over the bit of metal in his hand. Grayson remembered being eight years old and writing haiku after haiku, crossing out the words, calmly tearing sheet after sheet out of his notebook. Because when you only got three lines, they had to be perfect.
He had wanted—so badly—for them to be perfect. He’d agonized over focus and content, metaphors and wording. A drop of water. The rain. The wind. A petal. A leaf. Love. Anger. Sorrow. But reading over the final product now, all he could think was that what he’d written hadn’t been perfect.
He hadn’t been—and this was the cost.
Everywhere Grayson looked, he saw Emily. Emily’s amber hair blowing in the wind. Emily’s wild, larger-than-life smile. Emily lying on the shore.
“Dead.” Grayson made himself say it out loud. It didn’t hurt the way it should have. Nothing hurt enough.
He read the damn haiku again, his grip on it viselike, the metal biting into his fingers. When words are real enough, he remembered telling Jameson, when they’re the exact right words, when what you’re saying matters, when it’s beautiful and perfect and true—it hurts.
Grayson had wanted Emily to love him. He’d wanted her to choose him. Being with her had made him feel like perfect didn’t matter. Like he could afford, every once in a while, to lose control.
This was his fault. He’d taken her to the cliffs, when Jameson wouldn’t.
Some people can make mistakes, Grayson. But you are not one of those
people.
A sound like a fist beating flesh broke the silence in the tree house. Brutal. Repetitive. Merciless. And the more Grayson listened to it—without moving, without blinking, barely even breathing—the more he realized that the vicious, ruthless thwack, thwack, thwack he was hearing wasn’t the work of a fist.
Splintering wood. A crash. Another. More.
Grayson managed to stand. He walked over to the tree house window and looked down. Jameson was on one of the bridges below. There was an ax in his hand and other blades at his feet. A longsword. A hatchet. A machete.
The bridge was barely holding on, but Jameson didn’t stop. He never stopped. He attacked the only thing holding him up like he couldn’t wait to fall.
Down below, Nash ran toward the tree house. “What the hell are you doing, Jamie?” In a flash, he was climbing to Jameson, who swung the ax harder, faster.
“I would think the answer’s apparent,” Jamie replied, in a tone that made Grayson think that he was enjoying this, destroying a thing they both had loved.
He blames me. He should blame me. It’s my fault she’s gone.
“Damn it, Jameson!” Nash tried to lunge forward, but the ax came down right next to his foot. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
He wants to hurt me. Grayson thought about Emily’s body, her hair wet, her eyes vacant. “Let him.” Grayson was surprised at the sound of his own voice. The words felt guttural, but they sounded almost robotic.
Jameson flung the ax down and picked up the machete.
Nash eased forward. “Em’s gone,” he said. “It’s not right. It’s not fair. You want to set something on fire—either of you—I’ll help. But not this. Not like this, Jamie.”
The bridge was decimated now, hanging by threads. Jameson stepped back onto a large platform, then swung. Nash barely had time to jump to the other side.
“Exactly like this,” Jameson said, as the bridge came crashing down.
The remaining blades fell roughly to the dirt.
“You’re hurting.” Nash made his way down the tree and over to the
other side—to Jameson.
All Grayson could do was watch.
“Hurting? Me?” Jameson replied, going at the tree house walls with the machete. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. “Nothing hurts unless you let it. Nothing matters unless you let it.”
Grayson didn’t realize he’d moved, but suddenly, he was on the ground, right next to the longsword.
“Don’t come any closer, Gray,” Nash warned him.
Grayson swallowed. “Don’t tell me what to do.” His throat felt swollen and rough.
Jameson looked directly at him. “So says the heir apparent.”
If you’re so perfect, Grayson imagined his brother saying, why is she dead?
“It’s my fault.” The words felt like they stuck in Grayson’s throat, but Jameson heard them all the same.
“Nothing’s ever your fault, Grayson.”
Nash moved in, and when Jameson went to raise the machete again, Nash caught his wrist. “Jamie. Enough.”
Grayson heard the machete clatter to the floor of the platform on which his brothers stood. My fault, he thought. I killed Emily.
That sentence rang in his mind: five syllables, so real and true they hurt. Grayson dropped his long-ago haiku to the ground. And then he bent, picked up the longsword, turned back to the tree house, and started swinging.
