The private jet wasn't the most lively place on earth as we took off at dawn.
"What did Eli mean, a professional?" Avery asked aloud, "A professional what?" She was talking to Max, she wasn't speaking loudly, but when a plane is quiet, noise travels far.
"A private detective? A spy? An assassin!" Max gets slightly excited about her guesses.
"Lets not guess he's an assassin" I retort from my seat, battling Xander in connect four once more.
"Sorry. Assassins bad. I'm sure the man in the woods wasn't a deadly assassin from an ancient league of deadly assassins. Probably" Max shrugs.
I know Max is reaching, that she's just using her imagination.
But it's completely possible.
The person could have been a professional assassin hired to kill Avery, to kill me, to kill any of the Hawthorns or anyone from the house.
I know it's completely possible but I don't say a word.
"No one is going to hurt you" Grayson was sat opposite Avery, next to Jameson.
"Isn't that right Jamie?" He asks, his voice cold as he looked over to his brother briefly.
"If I weren't so confident in our brotherly affection for each other, I would find that comment a bit pointed." Jameson replied, raising his brows slightly.
"Pointed?" Xander replied, a look of horror sitting on his his face, "Gray? Never."
I have to hold back a small laugh as he does so.
As the others decide to play poker Xander and I continue our little tournament.
Xander beat me, only by three games before Jameson brought up the ring and the plan on how we get it.
Avery went to the Hawthorne Vault, the one that contained everything that she and I inherited that's worth keeping in a vault but is worth less than two million dollars.
Alisa sent me off to have a meeting with Landon.
After the meeting with Landon Xander got me to meet them all outside of Zara's wing.
"Five million dollars?" Avery spoke as I quickly walked up to the five of them and Eli.
"A million for each person in her wing I assume" I shrug, joining them in their walk.
"Five. Million. Dollars. Does Zara honestly think that Alisa is just going to agree to cut that kind of check?" She asks, shrugging at me.
"She's playing with us" Jameson quickly says.
"Perhaps it would be wise to-" Grayson tilted his head slightly before getting cut off.
"I can get the money" Xander quickly says.
Both Jameson and Grayson's head whipped toward their younger brother, staring at him.
"Wait, you have five million dollars?" Grayson quickly asks.
Xander told me about how each year on his and his brothers birthday they would be given ten thousand dollars to invest. Xander happened to have spent years investing into cryptocurrency, pulling out at the perfect time.
"Look, ash-hole," Max started, pointing her finger at Xander, "Nothing against you Ash" She ads on, glancing at me before pointing at Xander once more.
"Nobody is giving anybody five million dollars. We'll just have to find another way to get the ring." Max quickly says.
Both Grayson and Jameson are still staring at their youngest brother.
"You're still a minor. If Skye finds out you have that kind of money.." Grayson spoke, his voice low.
"It's in a trust, Nash is the trustee. Skye isn't getting near it" Xander assured his brother.
"And you think Nash is going to let you write Zara a check for five million dollars?" Avery asks him, raising her brows at the younger.
"I can be very persuasive" Xander smiles, "I mean I persuaded Ash to cut their hair."
"You asked if I wanted to and I agreed right away. There was no persuading into anything" I quickly retort, my brows raising as he scoffs.
"There's another way" Jameson spoke, his voice low, almost a mutter, "We'll set up a trade."
"And what, precisely, do you thing our aunt would trade for her father's wedding ring?" Grayson asks, his eyes narrowing at Jameson.
Jameson smiled, as though he had planned this all along and his plan was finally falling into place, "Her mothers."
By the time we had managed to persuade Nan into transferring the ownership of her daughters wedding ring to Zara we all got to work on trying to figure out what the date on the inside of Alice's ring meant while Avery made the swap.
8-3-75
A date.
We all set to work, researching everything we could about the date so we could have something, anything, by the time Avery returned.
Even with five of us there, we found nothing.
So, when Avery returned, Tobias Hawthornes ring not there, she told us the date that she saw, we still tried, we searched everything we could to try to find anything to do with that date but we found nothing.
A little after midnight Avery got a call from Libby.
Libby and Nash had gone back to New Castle to try to find Harry.
I looked over Avery's shoulder as Libby sent her a photo of the envelope and message.
STOP LOOKING.
I could tell Avery wasn't okay from that, this was the man that had been a father figure for her the past few years, this was the man that she- that we thought might be our father.
But he wanted us to stop looking.
YOU ARE READING
Fame//Grayson Hawthorne
Fanfiction//Book two in the paparazzi series. Ash Grambs had been sucked into a lifechanging series of events, meeting new people and having experiences they never dreamt of. Its been a few weeks since their life got switched upside down but now, there's a n...
