“Take me with you,” I told Jameson.
“Just this once,” he said, an aching tone in his voice, “let me be the one who protects you, Avery.”
He’d used my actual name. “I don’t need you to protect me. You can’t just leave me here, Jameson!”
“Can’t. Shouldn’t. Have to. This is my family’s mess, Heiress.” For once, there was nothing wicked in Jameson’s tone, no innuendo. “It’s up to us to clean it up.”
“And what about Eve?” I asked. “You know what your grandfather said. Don’t trust anyone. Grayson isn’t thinking straight, but you—”
“I’m thinking more clearly than I ever have. I don’t trust Eve.” His voice was low and aching. “The only person I trust with all that I am and all that could be, Heiress, is you.”
And just like that, Jameson Winchester Hawthorne hung up the phone.
CHAPTER 58
I was going to throttle Jameson. The two of us were races and wagers and dares, not this.
I tried calling Oren, but it went to voicemail. Libby didn’t pick up, either, which probably meant her phone wasn’t charged. I tried Xander, then Rebecca. I was halfway to calling Thea before I remembered her phone had been destroyed. Trying to calm myself, I took out my knife, plotted murder, then gave away ten thousand dollars to strangers struggling to pay rent.
Finally, I texted Max. Jameson locked me in the world’s most expensive dungeon, I wrote. He’s got some asinine idea about protecting me.
Max’s reply didn’t take long. THAT GREEN-EYED BASTARD.
I grinned despite myself and typed back: You cursed.
Max replied in rapid-fire: Would you prefer “smirking, paternalistic ship-head who can shove his mother-faxing paternalism up his mother-faxing asp”？
I snorted, then finally calmed down enough to take in the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the gemstone room. Two walls made of obsidian, I thought. Two walls made of white agate. Probing the walls didn’t lead me to an exit switch but did reveal that the gemstones had been formed into bricks, and if you pressed at the top or bottom of any of those bricks, they rotated. Rotating a black brick turned it white. Rotating a white brick turned it black.
I thought about all the times I’d seen Xander fiddling with a handheld puzzle, then craned my neck, taking in every detail of the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Jameson hadn’t locked me in a dungeon.
He’d locked me in an escape room.
Three hours in, I still hadn’t hit on the right pattern, and with each passing minute, I wondered if Jameson and Grayson had caught up to Eve. Warnings of all kinds swirled in my mind.
Don’t trust anyone.
Anyone close to you could be the next target.
I tire of waiting.
In my darkest moments, I thought about how Eve had sworn that she would do anything—anything—to get Toby back.
Don’t think about her. Or them. Or any of it. I stared at the glittering room around me—the opulence, the beauty—and tried not to feel like the walls were closing in. “Glittering,” I muttered. “Opulence. What about diamonds?”
I’d already tried dozens of designs: the letter H; a chessboard, a key…
Now I tried a black diamond on each of the white walls, a white diamond on each of the black ones. Nothing. Frustrated, I swept my hand over one of the diamonds, wiping it away.
Click.
My eyes went wide at the sound. Two black diamonds, one white one, nothing on the other obsidian wall. With a second click, a panel on the floor popped up. I squatted to get a better look. Not a panel. A trapdoor. “Finally!”
No thinking, no hesitation, I dropped down into darkness. I grabbed my phone and switched on the flashlight, then followed the twists and turns of the winding passageway until I hit a ladder. I climbed it and came to a ceiling—and another trapdoor.
Laying my palms flat against it, I pushed until it gave, then pulled myself up into a bedroom, though not one I’d seen before. A beat-up six-string guitar leaned against the wall in front of me; a king-sized bed made of what looked to be repurposed driftwood sat to my left. I turned around to see Nash perched on a metal stool next to a large wooden workbench that seemed to be doubling as a dresser.
He was blocking the door.
I walked toward him. “I’m leaving,” I said, my temper simmering. “Don’t try to stop me. I’m going after Jameson and Grayson.”
“That right?” Nash didn’t move from the stool. “I taught you to fight because I trust you to think, kid.” He stood, his expression mild. “That trust misplaced?” Nash gave me a second to chew on that question, then stepped aside, clearing the way to the door.
Damn it, Nash. I blew out a long breath. “No.”
I thought past my fury and worry and the dark, looping thoughts. I was three hours behind, and it wasn’t like Oren would have let Jameson and Grayson run off alone.
“If you want to borrow some duct tape when the knuckleheads get back,” Nash drawled, “I could be persuaded.”
“Thanks, Nash.” A little calmer, I stepped into the hall and saw Oren. “Jameson, Grayson, and Eve,” I said immediately, an edge in my voice. “What’s their status?”
“Safe and accounted for,” Oren reported. “Eve made it to the Blake compound but wasn’t allowed admittance. The boys got there shortly thereafter and talked her down. They’re all on their way back now.”
Relief hit, clearing the way for my annoyance to surge. “You let Jameson lock me up!”
“You were safe.” Oren’s lips twitched. “Secured.”
“Behold!” boomed a voice from the other side of Oren. “The heroes ride into battle! Avery will be liberated!”
I looked past Oren to see Xander, Thea, and Rebecca incoming. Xander was holding an enormous metal shield that looked like it had been lifted straight off the arm of a medieval knight.
“I swear to all that is good and holy,” Thea said under her breath, “if you say one more word about LARPing right now, Xander—”
I stepped around Oren. “I appreciate the ‘rescue,’ Xan, but you couldn’t answer your phone?” I looked to Rebecca. “You, either?”
“Sorry,” Rebecca said. “My phone was on silent. We were blowing off some steam.” Her green eyes slid to Thea’s. “Playing pool.”
I glanced at Thea. Her sweater was ripped at the shoulder, her hair markedly less than perfect. The two of them might have been in the billiards room or arcade, but there was no way in hell they’d been playing pool. But at least Rebecca didn’t look like a shell of herself anymore.
“What’s your excuse?” I asked Xander.
He held his shield to the side. “Step into my office.”
I rolled my eyes but joined him.
Xander used the shield to block us off from Oren, then led me around the corner. “I went down the rabbit hole of doing a deep dive on Vincent Blake’s holdings, current and past,” Xander admitted. “Blake was the sole funder of the VB Innovation Lab.” Xander paused, steeling himself. “I recognized the name. VB is where Isaiah Alexander worked right after he was fired.”