The Inheritances Game (Jameson Hawthorne)

Files, Cal And Eve

Jameson and I caught the others up to speed, and Oren had the List delivered to the solarium. The room had glass walls and a glass ceiling, so no matter where you stood, you could feel the sun on your skin. After our near all-nighter, the seven of us were going to need all the help staying awake that we could get. Especially because this was going to take a while. Tobias Hawthorne hadn't just had a list of names. He'd had file folders like the one he'd assembled on me, but for hundreds of people. Hundreds of threats. 

You tracked all these people?" I asked Oren, staring at the stack and stacks of files. 

"It wasn't a matter of actively tracking so much as knowing what they looked like, knowing their names, keeping an eye out." Oren's expression was smooth, unreadable, professional. "The files were Mr. Hawthorne's doing, not mine. I was only allowed to look at them if the person started popping up. "Right now, we didn't have a face. We didn't have a name, so I focused on what we did have. 

"We're looking for an older man," I told the others quietly. "Someone who was bested and betrayed by Tobias Hawthorne." I wanted thereto be more than that for us to go on. "There might be afamily connection or a family-like connection or may be even just a story focused on three people." 

"Three men," Eve said, seeming to have recovered her voice, her grit, and her poise. "In the parable, they're all men. And this guy took Toby, not Zara or Skye. He took the son." She'd clearly been thinking about this. I stole a look at Grayson, and the way he was looking at Eve made me think that she hadn't been thinking alone. 

"Well," Xander said, in an attempt at cheer. "That's not nothing to go on!" 

I turned my attention back to the folders—stacks and stacks of them that left a heavy feeling in my stomach. "Whoever this man is," I said, "whatever his history with Tobias Hawthorne, whatever he lost—he's wealthy, powerful, and connected now."

Jameson's Pov

By the time we'd each made it through three or four folders, even the sunlight streaming in from all sides couldn't banish the dark pall that had settled over the room. I tried my best to focus, but finally gave up. Walking over to Xander, "Xan. Cal, you checked on her?" 

He looked at me before turning back to the folders. "She's tired."

I sighed, glancing at the folders strewn across the table, each one holding secrets and mysteries that seemed to deepen with every passing moment. The weight of the investigation hung heavy in the air, but I couldn't shake off the concern for Cal's well-being. "I'll check on her tonight."

"Leave her alone, let her sleep." 

"I won't disturb her, I just need to check on her."

"She's sleeping I promise, she's fine."

Avery's Pov

This was what I'd known before reading the files: Tobias Hawthorne had filed his first patents in the late sixties and early seventies. At least one had turned out to be valuable, and he'd used the profits from that to fund the land acquisitions that had made him a major player in Texas oil.

 He'd eventually sold his oil company for upward of a hundred million dollars, and after that, he'd diversified with a Midas touch for turning millions to billions. All of that was public information. 

The information in these files told the parts of the story that the myth of Tobias Hawthorne glossed over. Hostile takeovers. Competitors run out of business. Lawsuits filed for the sole purpose of bankrupting the other party. The ruthless billionaire had a habit of zeroing in on a market opportunity and moving into that space with no mercy, buying up patents and smaller corporations, hiring the best and the brightest and using them to destroy the competition—only to pivot to a new industry, a new challenge.