The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games Book 3)

I barreled through the water with my eyes open. The blue-green mosaic at the bottom of the pool beckoned me, illuminated by the lights I’d turned on. I swam closer, then ran my hand over the tiles, taking everything in: that color, the smoothness, the variation in the cut and size of the tiny tiles, the way they’d been laid, almost in a swirl.

I kicked off the bottom, and when I broke the surface, I paddled to the side. Taking the glass circle in one hand, I pulled myself along the edge to the shallow end with the other. Standing, I submerged the glass, then went under myself. Don’t breathe.

Filtered through the glass, the blue-green tiles disappeared. Beneath them, I could see a simpler design: squares, some of them light, some dark. A chessboard.

There was always a moment in these games when I was hit with the almost physical realization that nothing Tobias Hawthorne had ever done had been without layers of purpose. All those additions to Hawthorne House, and how many of them contained one of his tricks just waiting for the right game?

Traps upon traps, Jameson had told me once. And riddles upon riddles.

I came back up for air, the image of the chessboard burned into my mind. I thought about Grayson telling me not to play, about Jameson, who should have been playing alongside me. And then I cleared my mind of all of that. I thought about the clues that had preceded this one: the Queen’s Gambit, leading to the royal chess set to Don’t breathe. I went down again, held up the glass again, and mentally populated the squares with pieces.

I played out the Queen’s Gambit in my mind. P-Q4. P-Q4. P-QB4.

Refusing to blink, I memorized the locations of the squares involved in those moves, then came up for air. Setting the glass back on the side of the pool, I pulled myself out, the night air a brutal shock to my system.

P-Q4, I thought. With single-minded purpose, I dove for the bottom. No matter how I pushed or prodded at the mosaic of tiles that made up the first square, nothing happened. I swam to the second—still nothing, then went up for air again, swam to the side again, pulled myself out again, shivering, shaking, ready.

I drew in air, then dove again. P-QB4. The location of the last move in the Queen’s Gambit. This time, when I pushed against the tiles, one turned, hitting the next and the next, like some kind of clockwork marvel.

I watched the chain reaction go, piece by piece, afraid to even blink, terrified that whatever this was, it would only last a moment. A final tile turned, and the entire section—the square I’d seen through the glass—popped up. My lungs starting to burn, I wedged my fingers underneath. They brushed something.

Almost. Almost.

My body was telling me to go to the surface—screaming at me to go to the surface—but I shoved my fingers under the tile again. This time, I managed to pull a flat package out, an instant before the compartment began to close.

I pushed off, kicked, then exploded past the surface of the water. I gasped and couldn’t stop gasping, sucking in the night air again and again. I swam for the side of the pool. This time, when my hand reached for the edge, another hand grabbed mine.

Jameson pulled me out of the water. “Don’t breathe,” he murmured.

I didn’t ask him where he’d been or even if he was okay. I just held up the package I’d retrieved from the bottom of the pool.

Jameson bent to pick up the beach towel and wrapped it around me. “Well done, Heiress.” His lips brushed mine, and the world felt charged, brimming with anticipation and the thrill of the chase. This was the way he and I were supposed to be: no running, no hiding, no recriminations, no regrets.

Just us, questions and answers and what we could do when we were together.

I went to open the package and found it vacuum sealed. Jameson held out a knife. I recognized it. The knife—from the shattered glass game.

Taking it from him, I sliced the package open. Inside, there was a fireproof pouch. I unzipped it and found a faded photograph. Three figures—all women—stood in front of an enormous stone church.

“Do you recognize them?” I asked Jameson.

He shook his head, and I turned the photograph over. On the back, written in Tobias Hawthorne’s familiar scrawl, was a place and a date. Margaux, France, December 19, 1973.

I’d been playing the billionaire’s games long enough for my brain to latch immediately onto the date. 12/19/1973. And then there was the location. “Margaux?” I said out loud. “Pronounced like Margo?”

That could mean we were looking for a person with that name—but in a Hawthorne game, it could also mean so many other things.