Page 14 of The Brothers Hawthorne

Grayson calmly met her gaze. “What would it take for it not to be?”

Swimming, like the violin, longsword, knife fighting, and photography, had been one of Grayson’s selections in their grandfather’s yearly birthday ritual. He’d been on the track for the Olympics once. Now all he wanted was to swim until his body gave in—faster, harder, cutting through the water, his pace punishing, unsustainable.

He sustained it.

With his lungs and muscles burning, Grayson didn’t have to think about Gigi, about hospital rooms full of balloons and fathers who sat in the front row at games. About the safe-deposit box. About the key Gigi wore around her neck.

Most people considered power and weakness opposites, but Grayson had learned early in life that the real opposite of weakness wascontrol.

He wasn’t sure how many times his phone rang before he heard it. His body screaming, he swam to the side of the pool and checked his messages. He had three new voicemails and two texts from Xander. The first text said:Call me back in ten minutes, or I’m going to fill your voicemail with yodeling.

The second text was a reminder:I do not excel at yodeling.

In the black-card suite, Grayson took a brief, scalding shower. He wrapped a towel around his body, then bit the bullet.

“I’m fine,” he said immediately, once Xander had picked up the call.

“You’re in Phoenix,” Xander replied cheerfully.

Grayson made a mental note to scan his electronics for tracking software.

“You know that I know who lives in Phoenix, right?” Xander prodded. “Allow me to remind you that I am a good listener. A very good listener who has not told Jameson, Avery, or Nash where you are. Yet.”

Theyetwas as much of a threat as the yodeling had been. Grayson knew that neither would have been effective if he hadn’t, on some level, wanted to talk.

“Sheffield Grayson was married when I was conceived.” Grayson started with facts, the obvious ones. “He slept with Skye to spite our grandfather, whom he blamed for the death of his nephew Colin.”

“The fire on Hawthorne Island,” Xander said quietly.

Grayson bowed his neck. “The fire on Hawthorne Island,” he confirmed. Grayson had never held any illusions that, if only his mystery father knew about his existence, he would be wanted. But he hadn’t expected to behated, either.

“Several years after Colin’s death,” Grayson told Xander calmly, “my father and his wife had twins. Girls.”

“You have sisters,” Xander said cheerily. The twins’ existence wasn’t news to him. None of this was.

“I have responsibilities,” Grayson corrected. “Their father is dead.” In the mirror, the muscles over his collarbone had gone tight. “The twins don’t know what kind of man he really was or what happened to him.” Grayson swallowed. “They can never know.”

“Why are you in Phoenix, Gray?” Xander said softly.

“One of the girls ran into trouble. I was tipped off about the issue and came here to resolve it.”

He could practically hear Xander turning that information over. “And did you?”

Grayson’s entire body ached. “No.”

Gigi was no longer in police custody. Given the way Grayson had been allowed to walk out of the precinct with her, he doubted paperwork would ever be filed. But the true situation? That was far from resolved.

Grayson told Xander what he had learned. “I don’t know what’s inside that safe-deposit box,” he finished, “but if there isanychance it implicates Sheffield Grayson in the bombing of Avery’s plane or her kidnapping…”

“That could then implicate Avery,” Xander filled in, “in his disappearance.”

“I can’t let Gigi open that box,” Grayson said, the words coming out with the force of a vow. He’d failed to protect Avery once.More than once.He wouldn’t fail her again.

“So what’s our play?” Xander asked.

“There’s nowehere, Xan.” Grayson turned away from the mirror. “Just me.”

“Just you.” Xander was being far too agreeable. “And your sisters.”