Oren and two of his men drove Jameson and me to Wayback Cottage. Rebecca didn’t come with us, didn’t want to come with us. Thea and Xander stayed with her.
I rang the bell—again and again until Mrs. Laughlin answered.
“Grayson and Eve,” I said, trying to sound calmer than I felt. “Are they here?”
Mrs. Laughlin pinned me with a look that had probably been used on generations of Hawthorne children. “They’re in the kitchen with my daughter.”
I made my way there, Jameson on my heels, Oren directly to my left, his men only steps behind him. We found Eve sitting across a worn wooden table from Mallory. Grayson stood behind Eve like a wayward angel keeping watch.
Eve swiveled her gaze toward us, and I wondered if I was imagining the canny look in her eyes, imagining her assessing the situation, assessing me, before speaking. “Any updates?”
One, I thought. I know that you’re related to Vincent Blake.
“I tried to get to Toby,” Eve continued intently, “but I couldn’t. Someone brought me back.”
That someone was standing so close to her now.
“Grayson,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”
Eve turned to look at him. There was something delicate about the way her hair fell off her shoulder, something almost mesmerizing about the way she lifted her eyes to his.
“Grayson,” I said again, my voice urgent and low.
Jameson didn’t give me the opportunity to say his brother’s name a third time. “Avery found out something that you need to know. Outside, Gray. Now.”
Grayson walked toward us. Eve came, too. “What did you find out?” she asked.
“What is it you’re hoping I’ll find out—or hoping I won’t?” I hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but now that I had, I marked her reaction.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Eve snapped, something like hurt flickering over her face.
Was that an act? This whole time—has it all been an act? My gaze landed on the chain around her neck, and I flashed back to the moment she’d stepped out of my bathroom wearing nothing but a towel and a locket. Why would Eve, who’d insisted she’d spent her whole life with no one, wear a locket?
What was inside?
A small metal disk. Isaiah had said that there were five, that Vincent Blake gave them exclusively to family—and Eve was family.
“Open your locket,” I said sharply. “Show me what’s inside.”
Eve stood very still. I moved, reaching for it—but Grayson caught my hand. He gave me a look like a shard of ice. “What are you doing, Avery?”
“Vincent Blake had a son,” I said. I hadn’t wanted to do this here, in front of Mallory and Mrs. Laughlin, but so be it. “His name was Will. I think he was Toby’s father. And this?” I withdrew the Blake family seal, the one that had been in Toby’s possession when he disappeared. “It was almost certainly Will’s. Blake gave them to family members who held his favor.” I could feel Eve watching me. Her face was blank—so carefully blank. “Isn’t that right, Eve?”
“You have no right,” Mallory Laughlin snapped shrilly, “to come in here and say any of this. Any of it.” She looked past me to Mrs. Laughlin. “Are you going to just stand there and let her do this?” she demanded, her voice going up an octave. “This is your home!”
“I think it would be best,” Mrs. Laughlin told me stiffly, “if you left.”
I’d spent a year making inroads with her and the rest of the staff. I’d gone from being an outsider and an enemy to being accepted. I didn’t want to lose that, but I couldn’t back down.
“He called himself Liam,” I said quietly, my gaze going to Mallory’s. “He didn’t tell you who he really was—or why he was here.”
Mrs. Laughlin took a step toward me. “You need to go.”
“Will Blake sought out your daughter,” I said, turning back toward the woman who’d served as a steward of the Hawthorne estate for most of her life. “He would have been in his twenties. She was only sixteen. She snuck him onto the estate—up to Hawthorne House, even.” I didn’t stop. “It was probably his idea.”
A pained expression forced Mrs. Laughlin’s eyes closed. “Stop this,” she begged me. “Please.”
“I don’t know what happened,” I said, “but I do know that Will Blake hasn’t been seen since. And for some reason, you and your husband let the Hawthornes adopt your grandson and pass him off as their own flesh and blood, even to the baby’s mother.”
A high-pitched mewling sound escaped Mallory’s throat.
“You were trying to protect them, weren’t you?” I asked Mrs. Laughlin softly. “Your daughter and Toby. You were trying to protect them from Vincent Blake.”
“What is she talking about?” Eve glided back toward Mallory, then ducked down, angling her head so that her eyes were looking directly into Mallory’s. “You have to tell me the truth,” she continued. “All of it. Your Liam… he didn’t leave, did he?”
I saw then what she was doing—what she had been doing. “That’s why you’re here,” I realized. “What did Vincent Blake offer you if you brought him answers?”
“That’s enough,” Grayson told me sharply.
“It really, really isn’t,” Jameson replied, blazing by my side.
“You know what this necklace means to me, Grayson,” Eve said, her fist covering the locket. “You know why I wear it. You know, Grayson.”
“Don’t trust anyone,” I said, my tone a match for hers. “That was the old man’s message. His final message, Gray. Because if Eve’s here, Vincent Blake might not be far behind.”
Eve turned her body into Grayson’s, her every movement a study in grace and fury. “Who cares about Tobias Hawthorne’s final message?” she asked, her voice shattering at the end of that question. “He didn’t want me, Grayson. He chose Avery. I was never going to be enough for him. You know what that’s like, Gray. Better than anyone—you know.”
I could feel him slipping through my fingers, but I couldn’t stop fighting. “You pushed us to ask Skye about the seal,” I said, staring Eve down. “You’ve been asking around about deep, dark Hawthorne family secrets. You pressed and pressed for answers on Toby’s father—”
A single tear rolled down Eve’s cheek.
“Avery.” Grayson’s tone was one I recognized. This was the boy who’d been raised as the heir apparent. The one who didn’t have to dirty his hands to put an adversary in their place.
Am I the enemy again, Gray?
“Eve has done nothing to you.” Grayson’s voice cut into me like a surgeon’s knife. “Even if what you’re saying about Toby’s parentage is true, Eve is not to blame for her family.”
“Then get her to open the locket,” I said, my mouth dry.
Eve walked toward me. When she got within three feet, Oren shifted. “That’s close enough.”
Without a word to him, or to anyone, Eve opened her locket. Inside, there was a picture of a little girl. Eve, I realized. Her hair was cut short and uneven, her little cheeks gaunt. “No one ever cherished her. No one ever would have put her picture in a locket.” Eve met my gaze, and though she looked vulnerable, I thought I saw something else underneath that vulnerability. “So I wear this as a reminder: Even if no one else loves you, you can. Even if no one else ever puts you first, you can.”
She was standing there admitting that she was going to put herself first, but it was like Grayson couldn’t see that. “Enough,” he ordered. “This isn’t you, Avery.”
“Maybe, Gray,” Jameson countered, “you don’t know her as well as you think.”
“Out!” Mrs. Laughlin boomed. “All of you, out!”
Not one of us moved, and the older woman’s eyes narrowed.
“This is my house. Mr. Hawthorne’s will granted us lifelong, rent-free tenancy.” Mrs. Laughlin looked at her daughter, then at Eve, and finally she turned back to me. “You can fire me, but you can’t evict me, and you will leave my home.”
“Lottie,” Oren said quietly.
“Don’t you Lottie me, John Oren.” Mrs. Laughlin glared at him. “You take your girl, you take the boys—and you get out.”
