Page 116 of The Brothers Hawthorne

Acacia keeps asking about “my son.” As if he’s any business of hers—or mine, for that matter. As if the Hawthorne family hasn’t already taken enough from me. Acacia is too soft-hearted to understand. She won’t listen to reason—not about the boy and not about her trust.

And then, two pages later, there was another entry, a brief one:Tobias Hawthorne is dead at last.

It took another few weeks, but then, right after Avery had been named heir, the entries started up again.

That conniving bastard left his money to a girl not that much older than the twins. A stranger, they say, but there are whispers that she’s Hawthorne’s child.

Grayson could feel the seething anger building in these pages. The entries became more frequent. Some were about Colin, the fire, the evidence that Sheffield Grayson had put together that it was the result of arson—evidence that the police ignored. Other entries focused on Avery and Sheffield Grayson’s obsessive theories about who she was to the old man, to the Hawthorne family.

Theories about Grayson’s supposedly dead uncle, Toby Hawthorne.

Grayson was able to pinpoint the exact moment that Sheffield Grayson had decided to have Avery tracked, to spy on her. The man was convinced she’d lead him to Toby.

And since he’s already a dead man, well… they can hardly charge me with his murder, now can they?

Grayson didn’t let himself pause, even for a second, when he transcribed the wordmurder. He just let this almost Shakespearean drama play out: the unseated king stripped of power by the machinations of his dead mother-in-law; a rising heir entangled with the king’s archenemy. A family with blood on their hands. A debt thatwouldbe paid.

Grayson was getting closer and closer to the end of the journal. And then he wrote down a date that made him look up from the page, made him close his eyes.

The interview. Mine and Avery’s.Grayson could recall each question that he and Avery had been asked. He remembered the way Avery’s body had turned toward his, the way he’d let himself look at her,reallylook at her, in service of letting the world see that the Hawthorne family had accepted Tobias Hawthorne’s chosen heir.

But mostly, Grayson remembered the moment they’d lost control of the narrative—and the way he’d taken that control back.

Pulling her body to his.

Bringing his lips to hers.

For one damn moment, he’d stopped fighting himself. He’d kissed her like kissing her was what he had been born to do, like it was inevitable, liketheywere. And not long after, everything had exploded.

The way it always did. The way it had with Emily. With Avery. With Eve.

Why not you?Grayson forced his eyes open. He let himself stare at the date he’d written down, then he took Sheffield Grayson’s index card, matched its notches up to the notches on the page he was decoding, set the cipher wheel to the appropriate number, based on the withdrawal slip with that date. And then, he decoded, read, and wrote.

Sheffield Grayson had watched the interview. He was the one who had set them up to be broadsided with the bombshell accusation that Grayson’s uncle Toby was still alive. Sheffield Grayson had believed that Avery was Toby’s daughter. He’d wanted confirmation, but that confirmation had never come, because Grayson had taken matters into his own hands.

That kiss.

Grayson’s father’s resulting rage was palpable, even now.Toby Hawthorne’s daughter, he’d written,doesn’t get to kiss my son.

Grayson leaned his head back until swallowing hurt.He called me his son.No quotation marks. No dismissal. Nothing but possession and fury—and with that fury, purpose.

“Gray?” Xander said quietly beside him.

Grayson shook his head. He wasn’t talking about this. There was nothing to talk about. He focused instead on finishing what he’d set out to do. There were exactly three more entries in the journal. Grayson made his way through them with military precision and merciless speed. After the night of the interview, Sheffield Grayson had returned to the detached record-keeping style of his earlier entries.

The first of the three entries documented a cryptocurrency payment to a “specialist.” The second included payment information for a Texas storage unit. The third simply had a list of supplies that Sheffield Grayson anticipated needing.Chloroform. Zip ties. Accelerant. A gun.

And that was it, the end of his records.

Grayson stopped writing. He dropped the pen, allowed the journal in which he’d written the translation to close.

“Reckon I know better than to ask if you’re okay,” Nash said quietly.

“I ate the rest of the Oreos,” Xander announced gravely. “Here, Gray. Have some pie!”

Grayson seized on the distraction his younger brother had offered. “When did you stop for pie?”

“Whendidn’tI stop for pie?” Xander replied philosophically.