Page 142 of The Brothers Hawthorne

Gigi drew in a long breath and looked up at the ceiling that soared overhead, doing everything she could not to blink.Not to cry.

“It’s always Colin.” Gigi kept right on staring at the ceiling. “I remember being three years old and knowing that my dad loved me… and that he especially loved the way I looked.” Gigi swallowed. “Because I looked like Colin. And as long as I was happy and bubbly and just a silly little girl who didn’t try to matter too much, that was a good thing.”

Grayson pulled her in, and the next thing he knew, his sister’s head was resting on his chest, his arms enveloping her.

“Grayson?” Gigi said softly. “You saidwanted. Past tense. You said that Dadwantedrevenge. But once he wants something… he doesn’t stop. Ever.”

He didn’t stop with the bomb. He had no intentions of stopping until Toby Hawthorne paid—with Avery’s life and with his own.

Gigi angled her head up toward Grayson. “I guess I’m a lot like Dad that way, with the not stopping.”

Grayson wondered if that was Gigi’s way of telling him that she was going to keep asking questions, keep pushing. He wondered if he’d made a mistake telling her as much as he had.

But all he said in reply was “You are nothing like our father.”

There was a long, painful silence. “He’s not coming back, is he, Grayson?”

No answer would have been an answer, so he gave her what he could. “No.”

“Hecan’tcome back, can he?”

No answer was an answer, the only one he could give her this time.

For more than a minute, Gigi didn’t move. Grayson held her, bracing himself for the moment when she would pull back.

Finally, she did. “You’re going to have to give me the puzzle box back,” she told him. “For Savannah. We’re going to have to make sure there’s something in it, something that gives her an answer she can believe. One that doesn’t involve our dad being an evil mastermind of the non-white-collar variety.”

Grayson stared at her. “What are you saying?”

Gigi stepped back. “My whole life, Savannah has tried to protect me. I mean, she knew about you for years, about Dad’s affair, and she did everything she could to make sure I didn’t have to know. And all of this? With Dad?She doesn’t have to know.” Gigi said those words like an oath. “Savannah loves Dad. She was always closer to him than Mom. She pushed herself so hardfor him.So we’re going to protect her this time. You and me. Because I remember something else about the Hawthorne heiress plane bombing. People died. Our fatherkilledpeople, Grayson. And now he’s…” Gigi didn’t say the worddead.“In Tunisia,” she finished, her tone steely. “And that’s where he needs to stay.”

Grayson could feel her pushing down her pain, and the idea of it almost destroyed him. “I can’t ask you…” he started to say.

“You’re not asking me to do anything,” Gigi told him. “I’m telling you how it’s going to be. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m very good at getting what I want. And I want a happy sister and a big brother who keeps a very open mind about any mysterious, nefarious types I might choose to pursue for brief romantic liaisons.”

Grayson narrowed his eyes at her. “Not funny.”

Gigi smiled, and something about the set of her lips felt like pins through his heart.

“I never meant to hurt you,” Grayson told her.

“I know,” Gigi said simply.

She’s not leaving. I haven’t lost her.Grayson didn’t ignore the emotions twisting in his gut and rising up inside him. For once in his life, he just let them come. “I like my little sister,” he told her.

This time, there was nothing pained about Gigi’s smile. “I know.”

CHAPTER 96

GRAYSON

The next morning, after reassembling the box with the fake journal inside and sending it back with Gigi, Grayson found himself picking up the briefcase of photographs from the safe-deposit box. He made his way through the wing where he and his brothers had spent hours upon hours playing as children, up to their childhood library—the loft library. Behind one of the bookshelves, there was a hidden staircase. At the bottom of the stairs, there was a Davenport desk.

Grayson opened it and found two journals inside: Sheffield Grayson’s original and his translation. Grayson opened the suitcase and methodically began to pull out photographs of himself—nineteen years of photographs, starting the day he was born—and place them in the desk.

Faceup this time.

When he came to the photograph he’d paused on before, he turned it over in his hands, and looked at the date on the back. The wrong date. And then he paused.