The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games, #3)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“The world is the board, Heiress. We just have to keep rolling the dice.”

Jameson Winchester Hawthorne. I ran like the ball gown wasn’t weighing me down, like I didn’t have a knife strapped to my thigh.

Jameson caught me, our bodies colliding. “Happy birthday, Heiress.” Some kisses were soft and gentle—and some were like fire.

“Sometimes, Heiress, all you can do is recognize which way the wind is blowing and plot a course.”

Sensed him. Clad entirely in black, wearing a ten-thousand-dollar tuxedo the way other guys wore ratty sweatshirts, Grayson Hawthorne stepped onto the dance floor.

“The only person I trust with all that I am and all that could be, Heiress, is you.”

“I love you. I would die to protect you. I would make you hate me to keep you safe because damn it, Avery—some things are too precious to gamble.”

“You’re honorable, Avery Kylie Grambs. Once you were with me, you were with me. You love me, scars and all. I know that, Heiress. I do.”

“It was always going to be you,” I told Jameson. He needed to hear it. I needed to say it, even though always painted over so much. In response, Jameson gave me another crooked smile. “It’s times like this, Heiress, that I wish I’d fallen in love with a girl who wasn’t quite so good at bluffing.”

Traps upon traps. And riddles upon riddles. Even if you thought that you’d manipulated our grandfather into this, I guarantee that he’d be the one manipulating you. This family—we destroy everything we touch. You’re not a player, kid. You’re the glass ballerina—or the knife.