The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games, #3)(99)

“You forgot Nash,” I said easily. “He’s tending bar and working as a cupcake taster on the weekends.”

I was smiling now, emanating the kind of contentedness—not to mention amusement—that a person couldn’t fake. The Hawthorne brothers weren’t, as she’d suggested, going off the rails. They were—all of them—exactly where they were supposed to be.

They’d been sculpted by Tobias Hawthorne, formed and forged by the billionaire’s hands. They were extraordinary, and for the first time in their lives, they weren’t living under the weight of his expectations.

The interviewer caught my smile and shifted subjects—slightly. “Do you have any comments on rumors of Nash Hawthorne’s engagement to your sister?”

“I don’t pay much attention to rumors,” I managed to say with a straight face.

“What’s next for you, Avery? As you pointed out, you still have an incredibly massive fortune. Any plans?”

“Travel,” I answered immediately. On the walls all around us, there were at least thirty souvenirs—but there were still so many places I hadn’t been.

Places where Jameson hadn’t yet taken an inadvisable dare.

Places we could fly.

“And,” I continued, “after a gap year or two, I’ll be enrolling as an actuarial science major at UConn.”

“Actuarial science?” Her eyebrows skyrocketed. “At UConn.”

“Statistical risk assessment,” I said. There were people out there who built models and algorithms, whose advice my financial advisors took. I had a lot to learn before I could start managing the risks all on my own.

And besides, the moment I’d said UConn, Jameson had started talking about Yale. Do you think their secret societies could use a Hawthorne?

“Okay, travel. College. What else?” The interviewer grinned. She was enjoying herself now. “You must have plans for something fun. This has been the ultimate Cinderella story. Give us just a taste of the kind of extravagance that most people can only dream of.”

The people watching were probably expecting me to talk about yachts or jewels or private planes—private islands, even. But I had other plans. “Actually,” I said, well aware of my tone changing as excitement bubbled up inside me, “I do have one fun idea.”

It was the reason I’d agreed to this interview. Subtly, I dipped my hand down to the side of my chair, where I’d tucked a golden card etched with a very complicated design.

“I already told you that it would be difficult for me to spend all the money that two billion dollars makes in a year,” I said, “but what I didn’t tell you is that I have no intention of growing my fortune. Each year, after I balance my expense sheet, take stock of any changes in my net worth, and calculate the difference, I’m earmarking the rest to be given away.”

“More charity?”

“I’m sure there will be a lot more charity work in my future, but this is for fun.” There wasn’t much I wanted to buy. I wanted experiences. I wanted to keep adding on to Hawthorne House, to maintain it and make sure the staff stayed employed. I wanted to make sure that no one I loved ever wanted for anything.

And I wanted this.

“Tobias Hawthorne wasn’t a good man,” I said seriously, “but he had a human side. He loved puzzles and riddles and games. Every Saturday morning, he would present his grandsons with a challenge—clues to decipher, connections to make, a complicated multistage puzzle to solve. The game would take the boys all over Hawthorne House.”

I could picture them as children as easily as I could picture them now. Jameson. Grayson. Xander. Nash. Tobias Hawthorne had been a real piece of work. He’d played to win, crossed lines that should never be crossed, expected perfection.

But the games? The ones the boys had played growing up, the ones I had played? Those games hadn’t made us extraordinary.

They’d showed us that we already were.

“If there’s one thing that the Hawthornes have taught me,” I said, “it’s that I like a challenge. I like to play.”

As Jameson had said once, there would always be more mysteries to solve, but I knew in my core that we’d played the old man’s last game.

So now I was planning one of my own. “Every year, I’ll be hosting a contest with substantial, life-changing prize money. Some years, the game will be open to the general public. Others… well, maybe you’ll find yourself on the receiving end of the world’s most exclusive invitation.”

This wasn’t the most responsible way to spend money, but once I’d had the idea, I couldn’t shake it, and once I’d mentioned it to Jameson, there was no turning back.

“This game.” The interviewer’s eyes were alight. “These puzzles. They’ll be of your making?”

I smiled. “I’ll have help.” Not just the boys. Alisa had sometimes joined in Tobias Hawthorne’s games growing up. Oren was running logistics for me. Rebecca and Thea, in combined force, were downright diabolical in their contributions to what I had been calling The Grandest Game.

“When will the first game start?” the woman across from me asked.

That was the question I’d been waiting for. I held up the gold card in my hand and brandished it at the camera—design out.