Page 75 of Glorious Rivals
“You didn’t tell me,” Eve said, her voice going a little quieter, “about her.”
“He kidnapped me,” Gigi volunteered helpfully.“It was a decent kidnapping, all things considered.Three-and-a-half stars.”
Eve looked from Slate to Gigi then back again.“Is she joking?”
“Impossible to tell,” Slate replied, his deadpan impressive.
Even bound, Eve managed to toss her hair.“You’re fired,” she told Slate.
“I’m not fired,” he replied.“I’m the only one you’ve got.”
Gigi wondered if she was imagining the slight softening in Slate’s voice.She didn’t think she was.The only one she’s got.“Oh.”Gigi hadn’t meant to say that out loud.“I see.”
“No you don’t, sunshine.”
“Sunshine?”Eve repeated incredulously.
Gigi resumed scooting her chair.“Look,” she told Eve, “some people choose to be happy, and some people choose to be morally challenged smugweasels.To each their own.Now, if you could just moveyourchair a little to your right—”
“Gigi.”Slate’s use of her actual name gave Gigi just the tiniest bit of pause.“Tackle later.Plot now.We need to get free before whoever put us in this room gets back.”
Chapter 54
LYRA
Lyra couldn’t hear a thing through the marble door.She had no idea what Rohan and Savannah were doing on the other side of it.All she knew was that Grayson had been different from the moment he stepped off the helicopter.There was a look he got when he was deep in a certain kind of thought—features smooth as glass, eyes fixed straight ahead.The smaller his pupils were, the bluer and less gray his irises looked.
“You’ve been quiet,” Lyra commented.“Is it something your uncle said?”
“I rarely even think of him that way,” Grayson told her.“As myuncle.Toby spent most of my life presumed dead.”
Lyra couldn’t help her response: “Like mother, like son.”She wondered if Hawthornes ever stayed dead.“He obviously said something to you.”
Grayson ran his right hand around the edges of the vault door,looking for a weakness.Lyra thought for a moment that he was going to ignore her prodding, but he didn’t.
“Toby is Eve’s father,” Grayson said finally.“He’s also the closest thing that Avery has to one herself.”
Lyra thought back to the mystery that had captivated the world: billionaire Tobias Hawthorne leaving his entire fortune to a seemingly random teenage girl from Connecticut.
“Let me guess,” Lyra said.“It’s complicated?”
“In some families, complications are par for the course.”
There was a rumbling sound from behind the marble vault door then, followed by the audible flipping of a bolt.Lyra beat Grayson to the vault dial by a fraction of a second.
This time, when they entered the combination, the vault door opened.
Rohan was holding the ledger.Lyra stared him down.Just try messing with me again.
Rohan held out the ledger and shot her a roguish smile.Ignoring it, Lyra took the book from him, then scanned the rest of the room.
“We need to talk,” Grayson told Savannah.
“I’ll see if I can pencil you in after I win this.”Savannah started to stalk past him.To Lyra’s surprise, Grayson caught his sister by the elbow.
“I saidwe need to talk, Savannah.”
“I would suggest you remove your hand from her arm.”Rohan smiled.“With haste.”
