“The bishop as the son who kept faith,” I commented as Xander placed the final piece on the desk. “Nice touch.” I stared at the three pieces. A wasteful youth, wandering the world—ungrateful. The memory of that voice stuck to me like oil. A benevolent father, ready to welcome him home.
I picked up the knight. “Prodigal means wastrel. We all know what teenage Toby was like. He slept and drank his way across the country, was responsible for a fire that killed three people, and allowed his family to think he was dead for decades.”
“And through all of that,” Jameson mused, picking up the king, “our grandfather wanted nothing more than to welcome his prodigal son home.”
Toby, the prodigal. Tobias, the father.
“That just leaves the other son,” Grayson said, walking over to join us as the desk. Nash circled up, too, leaving only a muted Eve on the outskirts.
“The one who toiled faithfully,” Grayson continued, “and was given nothing.”
He managed to say those words like they held no meaning to him, but this part of the story had to hit close to home for him—for all of them. “We already talked to Skye,” I said, picking up the bishop, the faithful son. “But Skye isn’t Toby’s only sibling.”
I hated to even say it because I hadn’t seen Tobias Hawthorne’s older daughter as an enemy in months.
“It’s not Zara,” Jameson said with the kind of intensity I associated with him and only him. “She’s Hawthorne enough to pull it off, if she wanted to, but unless we believe that the man on that phone call was an actor—a front —we know who the third player in this story is.”
Avenge. Revenge. Vengeance. Avenger.
I always win in the end.
The three characters in the story of the prodigal son.
Each piece of the riddle told us something about our opponent. “If Toby is supposed to be the unworthy prodigal,” I said, my entire body wound tight, “and Tobias Hawthorne is the father who forgave him, the only role left for Toby’s abductor is the other son.”
Another son. My body went utterly still as that possibility sank in.
Xander raised his hand. “Anyone else wondering if we have a secret uncle out there no one knows about? Because at this point, secret uncle just kind of feels like it belongs on the Hawthorne bingo card.”
“I don’t buy it.” Nash’s voice was steady, sure, unhurried. “The old man wasn’t exactly scrupulous, but he was faithful—and damn possessive of anyone or anything he considered his. Besides, we don’t have to go lookin’
for secret uncles.”
I registered his meaning at the exact same time that Jameson did. “That wasn’t Constantine on the phone,” he said. “But—”
“Constantine Calligaris wasn’t Zara’s first husband,” I finished. Tobias Hawthorne might have had only one son, but he’d had more than one son-in-law.
“No one ever talks about the first guy,” Xander offered. “Ever.”
A son, cut from the family, ignored, forgotten. I looked to Oren.
“Where’s Zara?”
That question was loaded, given their history, but my head of security answered like the professional he was. “She wakes up early in the mornings to tend the roses.”
“I’ll go.” Grayson wasn’t asking permission or volunteering.
Eve finally joined the rest of us at the desk. She looked up at Grayson, tear tracks on her face. “I’ll go with you, Gray.”
He was going to take her up on the offer. I could tell that just by looking at him, but I didn’t object. I didn’t let myself say a single word.