“Your move, princess.” Toby wasn’t pulling his punches, but he did his best to put me at ease, to remind me that even if he played his hardest, I’d beaten him before.
“Not a princess.” I echoed my line in our script back at him and slid my bishop across the board. “Your move, old man.”
Toby narrowed his eyes slightly. “Don’t get cocky.”
“Fine words from a Hawthorne,” I retorted.
“I mean it, Avery. Don’t get cocky.”
He sees something I don’t.
“Eve,” Vincent Blake said pleasantly. “Your arm?”
Her chin steady, Eve held it out to him. Blake rested the edge of his blade against her skin. “Play,” he told Toby. “And no more hints to the girl.”
There was a beat—a single second—and then Toby did as he’d been instructed. I scanned the board, then saw why he’d cautioned me against getting cocky. It took three moves, but then: “Check,” Toby gritted out.
I took in the board, all of it at once. I had three possible next moves, and I played all of them out. Two led to Toby getting checkmate within the next five moves. That meant I was stuck with the third. I knew how Toby would counter it, and from there I had four or five options. I let my brain race, let the possibilities slowly untangle themselves.
I tried not to think too much about the fact that if Toby beat me, the cover-up of Sheffield Grayson’s death would be exposed. Either that, or I’d have to give Blake something much more significant than a favor to keep it quiet.
The man would own me.
No. I could do this. There was a way. My move. His. My move. His. Again and again, faster and faster, we played.
Then, finally, a breath whooshed out of my chest. “Check.”
I knew the exact moment that Toby saw the trap I had laid. “Horrible girl,” he whispered roughly, and the tenderness in his eyes when he said it almost took me down.
His move. Mine. His move. Mine.
And then, finally—finally… “Checkmate,” I said.
Vincent Blake kept the bowie knife on Eve’s arm a moment longer, then slowly lowered it. His grandson had lost, and as the realization of what that meant fell over me, my insides twisted.
Toby had lost both matches. He was Blake’s.
CHAPTER 81
I expect better next time,” Vincent Blake told Toby. “You’re a Blake now, and Blakes don’t lose to little girls.”
I caught Toby’s gaze. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly, urgently.
“Don’t be.” Toby reached out to cup my face. “I see so much of your mother in you.”
That felt far too much like good-bye. From the moment Eve had arrived at the gates of Hawthorne House, I had been determined to get him back. And now—
“Will I…” The words stopped, like the question was gumming up my throat. “Can I see you?” I asked.
You have a daughter, I could hear myself saying.
I have two.
Blake didn’t give Toby the chance to reply. He shifted his attention to Eve. She basked in it, like he was the sun and she had the type of skin that didn’t burn. For the first time, instead of looking at her and seeing Emily, I saw something very different.
An intensity that was Toby’s. Blake’s.
“If I win this game…，” she said, steel and wonder in her tone.
“It’s yours,” Blake confirmed. “All of it. But before we begin…” Blake lifted a finger, and a member of his security team rushed over. “Could you fetch our other guest for Ms. Grambs?”
Grayson. I didn’t let myself fully believe that he was okay until I saw him, and then I let myself think about what I’d won—not just his freedom, but a promise that no one I cared about would find themselves a guest here again.
“Avery.” Grayson’s blue-gray eyes—his irises icy and light against the inky black of his pupils—locked on to mine. “I had a plan.”
“Reckless self-sacrifice?” I retorted. “Yeah, I got that.” I pulled him close and spoke directly into his ear. “I told you, Grayson, we’re family.”
I let go of him. The board was set up a final time. Eve was white. I was black. With tens of thousands of diamonds glittering between us, we faced off in a game of greatest stakes.
Based on Eve’s level of play against Toby, I hadn’t anticipated the challenge I soon found myself facing. It was like she’d watched my game against her father, internalized a dozen new strategies, and learned how I saw the board.
She’s playing to win. I was desperate to save Oren, and I had no idea how much of a crime I had committed by not reporting Sheffield Grayson’s death. But Eve? She was playing for the keys to the kingdom—for wealth and power beyond imagining.
For acceptance from someone she was desperate to be accepted by.
The rest of the room faded away until I couldn’t hear anything but the sounds of my own body and couldn’t see anything but the board. It took longer than I’d anticipated, but finally, I saw my opening.
I could have her in check in three moves, checkmate in five.
Just like that, I could walk away from here with Grayson, knowing that Vincent Blake had that many fewer ways of coming at me.
But he’ll still come.
The assaults on my financial interests, the paparazzi, playing games and boxing me in. He’ll just keep coming. That thought grew louder in my mind, pushing my focus from my match against Eve to the bigger picture.
For me, this wasn’t the ultimate game.
I could win, and I would still walk out of here no better off than when Tobias Hawthorne had died. It would still be hunting season. A man who Tobias Hawthorne had so feared that he had left a virtual stranger his fortune would still be gunning for me.
Even without violence, even with our physical safety guaranteed, Vincent Blake would still find a way of destroying anyone, everyone, and everything that stood in his way.
This win right now against Eve—it wouldn’t be enough.
I had to play the long game. I had to look past the board, play ten moves ahead, not five, think in three dimensions, not two. If I beat Eve, Vincent Blake would send me on my way, and he’d do so knowing that I was more than he’d given me credit for. He’d adjust his expectations in the future.
You’re young. Tobias Hawthorne’s voice rang in my mind. You’re female. You’re nobody—use that. If I gave Vincent Blake an excuse to continue underestimating me, he would.
I’d come here with a plan in mind. The tournament hadn’t been a part of that plan—but I could use it.
Playing chess wasn’t just about anticipating your opponent’s moves. It was about planting those moves in their mind—baiting them. After listening to the recording the old man had left for us, Xander had marveled at the fact that Tobias Hawthorne had foreseen exactly what we would all do after his death, but Hawthorne hadn’t just foreseen it.
He’d manipulated it. Manipulated us.
If I wanted to beat Blake, I had to do the same. So I didn’t take the opening Eve had given me. I didn’t beat her in five moves.
I let her beat me in ten.
I saw the exact moment when Eve realized that Vincent Blake’s empire was in her grasp—and the moment, right afterward, when Toby’s eyes flashed. Did he suspect I’d thrown the game?