CHAPTER 86

I wasn’t able to overhear whatever words were exchanged between Oren and Toby. I was shuttled into the SUV, and when Oren took his place in the driver’s seat a few minutes later, I noted that he’d left several of his men inside.

I thought about Sheffield Grayson, dead on the floor. About Toby’s plan for that body. “Is disposing of corpses part of your job description?” I asked Oren.

He met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “You want a real answer to that?”

I looked out the window. The world blurred as the SUV picked up speed. “Skye and Ricky didn’t plant that bomb,” I said. I tried to focus on the facts, not the flood of emotions I was barely holding back. “They were framed.”

“This time,” Oren said. “Skye has already tried to have you killed once. Both of them are threats. I suggest we let them cool their heels in prison at least until your emancipation goes through.”

Once I was legally an adult, once I could write my own will, Ricky and Skye would stand to gain nothing by my death.

“Rebecca.” I lunged forward in my seat suddenly, remembering. “Thea helped Mellie abduct me because someone had Rebecca.”

“It’s been handled,” Oren told me. “They’re fine. So are you. The rest of the family is none the wiser.” From his tone, you would have thought this was just business as usual. The kidnapping. The body. The cover-up.

“Was it like this for the old man?” I asked. “Or am I just lucky?”

I thought about Toby, sparing Eve from my fate, like inheriting this fortune was less blessing than curse.

“Mr. Hawthorne had a list.” Oren took his time with his reply. “It was a different kind of list from yours. He had enemies. Some of them had resources, but by and large, we knew what to expect. Mr. Hawthorne had a way of seeing things coming.”

I was starting to think that if I was going to survive being the Hawthorne heiress, I was going to have to start doing the same. I would have to learn to think like the old man.

Twelve birds, one stone.

Back at Hawthorne House, Oren made it clear that he intended to escort me all the way to my room. When we hit the grand staircase, I cleared my throat.

“We’ll need to disable the passageway,” I told him. “Permanently.”

I paused on the staircase, in front of Tobias Hawthorne’s portrait. Not for the first time, I stared at the old man. Had he known who Mellie and Eli were? Had he known about Eve? I was certain he would have run a DNA test on me at some point. He knew I wasn’t Toby’s daughter—not by blood.

But he’d still used me to lure Toby out—the same way Sheffield Grayson had, the same way Mellie and Eli had. You’re not a player, Nash had told me a small eternity ago. You’re the glass ballerina—or the knife.

Maybe I was both. Maybe I was a dozen different things, chosen for a dozen different reasons—none of them having a damn thing to do with who I was or what made me special.

I met the portrait’s eyes and thought about my dream—about playing chess with the old man. You didn’t choose me. You used me. You’re still using me. But as of this moment?

I was done being used.