Eve almost did, but then Avery said something on screen that stopped her in her tracks.
“Tobias Hawthorne wasn’t a good man, but he had a human side. He loved puzzles and riddles and games. Every Saturday morning, he would present his grandsons with a challenge…”
His grandsons, Eve thought bitterly. But not his granddaughter. She should have grown up at Hawthorne House. The dead billionaire had known about her. She was his only son’s only child. She was the one who’d been betrayed—not the other way around.
All she’d ever done was try to take care of herself.
“If there’s one thing that the Hawthornes have taught me,” Avery said on screen, “it’s that I like a challenge. I love to play.”
“Do you?” Eve murmured, staring bullets at the happy, happy girl who’d stolen the life that should have been hers. “Do you really?”
“Every year,” Avery—perfect, beloved, brilliant Avery—said, “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.”
Avery, in the spotlight.
Avery, calling the shots.
“This game. These puzzles. They’ll be of your making?” the interviewer asked.
Avery, smiling. “I’ll have help.”
Those words—more than any other part of this interview—were blades to Eve’s heart. Because she didn’t have help. Besides Toby, who loved Avery as a daughter, besides Slate, who half despised her, she had no one.
All the money in the world, and still, she had no one.
On the screen, Avery was being asked when the first game would start. She was holding up a gold card. “The game starts right now.”
Eve turned off the television. She closed her eyes, just for a moment, then turned to Slate. Avery wasn’t the only one who liked a challenge. She wasn’t the only one who liked to play.
Vincent Blake was dead. He was gone. Eve wasn’t bound by his honor anymore. She wasn’t bound by anything. “I have a job for you,” she told Slate.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” he advised her, “don’t.”
“Do it,” she told him, “and I’ll give you one of my seals, make you one of my heirs.”
Slate’s expression was never easy to read. He wasn’t easy at all. She liked that about him.
“What do you want me to do?” Slate asked.
“I need you to help me get a little one-on-one chat,” she told him, “with Grayson’s little sister.”
“Gigi?” Slate’s eyes narrowed at her. That she’d gotten any emotional reaction out of him at all was… unusual.
“No.” Eve shook her head. “The other one.” The one who reminded her of Grayson. “I think it’s about time that Savannah Grayson and I had a discussion about her father.”
Eve imagined herself back at the chessboard, across from Avery. No one is letting me win this time, she thought. Avery had her game now.
And Eve had hers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Expanding the world of the Inheritance Games series and getting to spend more time with these characters has brought me so much joy, so I want to start by thanking every single reader whose passion for these characters has given me the opportunity to think big and continue writing in this world that I love so much.
To everyone at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, thank you, thank you, thank you for everything you have done to get these books into so many hands. I am constantly in awe of this team’s brilliance and creativity; I feel like the luckiest author in the world to have such a powerhouse team behind me, doing everything they can to get books into readers’ hands.
Thanks especially to my editor, Lisa Yoskowitz, who is a joy to work with and such an incredible advocate for me as an author and for these books. Lisa came up with title for this one, and her keen editorial insights helped me take it from a draft that I liked to a book that I LOVE. Some of my favorite moments in this book came about based on Lisa’s suggestions, and it’s hard to overstate how comforting it is as an author to work with an editor whose intuitions, insights, and feedback make me feel like I can shoot for the stars every time, because I know that together, we’ll get there.
So much goes in to making a book; the words on the page are just the beginning. My publishing team, led by the amazing Megan Tingley and Jackie Engel, is so incredibly good at their jobs that some mornings I just wake up thinking “HOW ARE THEY SO GOOD?” I am incredibly grateful to everyone at Little, Brown who helped bring this book to life and get it into readers’ hands, including Marisa Finkelstein, Andy Ball, Caitlyn Averett, Alex Houdeshell, Virginia Lawther, Becky Munich, Jess Mercado, Cheryl Lew, Kelly Moran, Shawn Foster, Danielle Cantarella, Claire Gamble, Leah CollinsLipsett, Celeste Gordon, Anna Herling, Katie Tucker, Karen Torres, Cara Nesi, Janelle DeLuise, Hannah Koerner, Lisa Cahn, Victoria Stapleton, and Christie Michel. Special thanks go out to cover designer Karina Granda and artist Katt Phatt for the absolutely gorgeous cover, and to Emilie Polster, Bill Grace, and Savannah Kennelly for their amazing efforts to find fun ways to bring Inheritance Games fans together and build anticipation for this book—and everything that comes next!