The Inheritance Games, #4
The Brothers Hawthorne
by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Contents
CHAPTER 86: GRAYSON
Overview
Grayson tries to leave Phoenix by reducing everything to logistics: evidence secured, secrets protected, and emotional attachments cut off. But reminders of Gigi, Sheffield’s surveillance, and Eve’s desperate call expose how fragile Grayson’s isolation really is.
The chapter marks a shift in Grayson’s arc: instead of continuing to handle pain alone, he recognizes his old pattern of repression and reaches out to his brothers for help.
Summary
After Gigi and Savannah leave, Grayson is alone in his hotel room and insists to himself that this should not matter. He tells himself his Phoenix mission is complete: Gigi is out of jail, the safe-deposit-box crisis is defused, his sisters will not read Sheffield Grayson’s real journal, and Avery is safe. Grayson begins packing and tries to retreat into work, but seeing the off-center photos Gigi took of them forces him to confront how often his mistakes have cost him people he cared about.
Grayson focuses on cleanup because the FBI remains a risk. He places the withdrawal slips with the fake journal inside the puzzle box, orders additional luggage, and starts stacking the photographs from the bank without looking at them. One picture from his gap year breaks through his detachment because it proves Sheffield was still having Grayson watched even when Grayson was grown and traveling; Grayson also notices that the date on the back is wrong.
An unknown-number call interrupts him. A girl asks whether Grayson has answers for her, but Grayson shuts the conversation down and tells her to stop calling. On the way to the airport, Eve calls. Grayson accuses Eve of following through on her threats by sending the FBI after his sisters’ mother, but Eve says Vincent Blake is still in surgery and may die, denies doing anything to Grayson’s sisters, and admits she does not want to be alone.
Grayson refuses to become Eve’s emotional refuge again. When Eve says Toby wishes she were Avery, Grayson still tells Eve that he is not her person and that Eve cannot call him for anything. Eve responds that if she does not matter to Grayson now, she will. After the call ends, Grayson cannot shake the fear that he has made another costly mistake.
At the airport, Grayson returns the borrowed Ferrari and reflects on where repressing his emotions has led him before. He recognizes that he may not be able to avoid every mistake, but he can stop repeating the same ones. Admitting that he does not want to be alone, Grayson texts his brothers a wordless emergency signal: 911.
Who Appears
- Grayson Davenport HawthorneAlone after the Phoenix crisis; secures evidence, resists emotional appeals, then asks his brothers for help.
- EveCalls from the hospital, fears Vincent Blake may die, and demands that Grayson acknowledge her pain.
- GigiAbsent but central to Grayson’s regret; her photos and lost trust deepen his isolation.
- Vincent BlakeOffstage in surgery; his possible death heightens Eve’s desperation and threat level.
- Toby HawthorneMentioned as Eve’s father, whose attachment to Avery intensifies Eve’s sense of rejection.