Never let me go by Taylor Swift

(Never let me go) But i'm not giving up, I'm just giving in.

Eve and Toby played each other first. Blake let me step aside and have a moment to discuss tactics, otherwise known as learn how to even play. He didn't let Grayson join, only Avery and I.

"You've seen me play enough to know the basics, right?" She asks, her eyes not looking at me as she observes the game from a distance.

"I mean sure, I know where all the characters move and stuff but I don't know anything about tactics or how to win." I panic.

"Characters? Holy shit, you're gonna get Grayson kidnapped for life." She scoffs in more of a grimace than humour. 

"I need to win at least one game." I state, more so a reminder to myself. "You just need to listen carefully to everything I tell you, I promise you I can help you beat Eve. Toby is hard to beat so-" Avery explains before her jaw falls open a little and no more sound comes out.

"What?" I demand, watching the same game without understanding, Grayson's brows twitch a little from the other side of the board, clearly noticing the same thing.

"He's throwing the game. Letting her win." Avery informs me. I start to notice it, he is doing it on purpose.

I lock eyes with Grayson from afar, his eyes soften every time he sees me. 

Avery begins explaining every little detail to me that I'll hopefully remember. She tells me all she can cram in, until—

"Checkmate." Eve grins proudly, taking my Father's king.

I zone out for so long that Avery has to physically push my body forward. On my way over Grayson grabs me and pulls me in, he lowers his head and whispers in my ear. "Just do your best. Don't think of the consequences, it's just a game of chess with your dad." He whispers softly, kissing my forehead as he pulls back.

"But it's not just a game Gray, it's your life." I say seriously.

"P, listen to me. It's just a game with your Dad. You haven't made any deals. I'm gonna be right here behind you." He assures me.

He takes my hand and places it over his heart, the thing he always does to help me with my panic attacks to remind me this is all real and he is real.

"I trust you." He finalises. Normally those words would pressure me, but right now they're all I could ask for.

"I'll see to it that our guest receives the best quality treatment whilst you cannot accommodate him." Blake says cunningly, three of his men grabbing Grayson from either side and pulling him away across the courtyard, still in earshot and eyesight. 

"Stop it!" I yell, trying to chase after them before I run straight into another security guard, pushing me back until I stumble into my seat.

"If you leave this seat before the game is over, you will automatically lose both games." Blake decides.

I clench my jaw as I stare over my shoulder. They start beating Grayson again, holding him back so he can't defend himself. I see even more blood pour down him and his groans of pain get louder and more strained each hit.

I make my first move, every chance I get looking back to Grayson.

About half way through the game Toby regains my attention, "Just look at me, Princess." Toby whispers, sympathy in his eyes as he watches mine fog up with tears and unwilling whimpers as I hear Grayson's screams.

So I keep my eyes glued on the board, and on his face. Every groan and yell of pain makes me flinch.

I now realize what Toby is doing. He's letting me win. He's making the moves he knows I can counter. He's down to just his king and I have 5 pieces still.

My hands tremble as I reach out for my pieces. Every load groan and squeal of pain makes my stomach fill more with dread. It's like a tingly roaring pain like i've been kicked in the gut.

The pained whines were excruciating to listen to. But the more daunting sound is the silence that suddenly consumes me.

I rush the last moves. Speeding up as tears fall down my whole, mascara slipping down my blush cheeks. 

He's in check. He nods for me to go ahead, so with a choked sob I take his king. Even though I know this means my Father is now trapped.

"Done. I won. You have to let him go now. That was the deal." I fumble, pushing myself to my feet immediately.

"Very well. A deal is a deal. Boys?" Blake calls plainly. The three bodyguards drag Grayson's limp body towards me, his legs scraping on the stone floor. They drop him and his body falls to the ground.

He isn't moving. I run over and pull him onto my lap. He's alive. His heartbeat is there. But his face is hard to even see with all the deep red blood. 

"You have your next game." Blake informs me reminding.

I look up at him sobbing, my face a mess as I position Grayson's head in my lap.

"I won't play if he isn't awake and okay." I say firmly, not even looking at him.

I brush Grayson's towhead hair off his face to examine his bleeding face. I stroke his cheek to get rid of the blood.

"Gray?" I ask softly, comforting his limp body. His eyes blink open and adjust to the light of the bright sun. I block the sun with my body so that he can see. He groans and rolls his head onto my chest in attempts to block out everything else except my breathing.

The blood on his face seeps through my dress but I go uncaring, simply stroking his hair and squeezing his shoulder.

He rolls over into a press-up position and pushes himself to his feet. He reaches a hand out to help me up now as if nothing happened. 

"We can schedule time for kissing later. For now we have a chess game to attend to." Blake sneers.

I take a seat once Grayson gestures for me to. Eve and I against each other. Sister versus sister.

"Can I consult with my player?" Avery requests before we start. "Very well." Blake agrees.

Avery takes me to the side. "Throw the game." She tells me. "What?" I ask astonished. "Throw the game. Make him think you're really trying but don't let yourself win. I have an idea. Just trust me." She insists.

"I do trust you Ave, always of course I trust you I just don't know if you've thought about this enough-" I sigh.

"Thinking about it... Yep, throw the game." She says strongly. "Last chance.." Paris sighs. "Do it." Avery confirms with a confident nod.

And then I return to the board, doing as I was told. I played how I had with Toby, only this time I knew Eve wasn't letting me win like Toby had.

I could see the moves ahead of me. So could Eve. She knew if I made a certain move she'd be in check. Grayson seemed to let go of a breath he'd been holding for a while. 

Eve's face drops with horror. I keep a neutral expression pretending not to notice. Instead of putting her into check, I place myself into check.

"Paris!" Grayson speaks up loudly, his voice alarmed and warning as my hand is about to place my piece into check.

"What?" I turn to him. "Look at the board, P. Think about it." He says sternly.

I look to Avery, the two of us sharing a subtle look of approval. "I don't get it." I lie with fear, pretty convincingly.

"Come on Pear." Avery replies. 

"That's just enough. She can make her next moves on her own." Blake says intrigued.

"I don't understand. What move do you want me to make?" I cry out. 

With mock shaky hands I move my piece into check. "What are you doing?" Grayson erupts with worry.

Eve's eyes widen and she looks at me with disbelief. "Checkmate." She utters, stealing my king.

"What? No! I didn't see it! That isn't fair." I call out, tears fogging my eyes. All those years in high school drama club has paid off, because everyone looks genuinely shocked.

"Well done Eve." Blake reaches his hand out to shake hers. "Wait! Give me another chance." Avery bursts.

"Have some dignity child. No-one likes a sore loser." Blake spits.

Shit what if her plan doesn't work.

"You could still have a favour. One last game. Me against you." Avery suggests, pleading and begging in a way i've never seen her.

"I don't need a favour from you girl." He replies.

"Not a favour then. What about the rest of it?" Avery asks.

"Avery." Grayson warns.

"The rest of what exactly?" He asks her with interest.

"The Hawthorne fortune." 

We are surrounded by silence and through my periphery I watch Grayson tense up completely.

"My lawyer has been after me all week to sign these papers. Tobias Hawthorne didn't tie up my fortune in a trust. The fine people at McNamara, Ortega and Jones are nervous about a teenager taking the reins, so Alisa drew up paperwork that would put everything else in a trust until i'm thirty." Avery continues.

"Avery." Toby warns this time. 

"If you play me and you win i'll sign the papers to make you the trustee." She continues.

"Now why would you do something like that?" Blake continues with sharp eyes.

"I don't want anybody finding out a thing about Sheffield Grayson." 

I watch Grayson wince a little at that name. 

"I've read the paperwork. With a trust, the money would still belong to me. I just couldn't control it. You would have to promise me that you would okay every purchase I wanted to make, that you'd let me spend as much money as I wanted, whenever i wanted. But everything I can't spend, you'd be the one making decisions on where it goes." She clarifies boldly.

"Avery." I speak up this time. 

"All of this for double or nothing?" Blake asks.

"No. If you win, you get control of everything free and clear until i'm thirty or six-feet-under. But if I win, you make sure any nasty rumours about Sheffield Grayson stay buried, and you give your word this ends here." 

I stay frozen on the spot, standing before the chair I was once playing in. 

"If I win, the armistice you had with Tobias Hawthorne, you extend that to me. End of hunting season. You let me go, the way you let a young Tobias go back then." She continues.

"How am I to know you'll keep up your end of the deal?" He replies. 

"If you accept the wager, we'll make two calls. One to your lawyer.. and one to mine."

And so it was decided. The deal was made. The calls were made and the two players were playing.

Grayson pulled me into his side at the very beginning of the game. I ignore the way his fingers are digging tightly into my hips, and the way they grip harder every time Avery makes a bad move. I ignore the crimson blood that drips down from his completely destroyed face.

I find myself flinching when I start to recognise the moves. 

But when he's in check I look up to Grayson's barely visible silver eyes to confirm it is in fact over.

"What just happened here?" Eve asks unconvinced. "She just won." Blake confirms.

Grayson smirks with relief, his nervous grip immediately letting go of my body and pulling me in for a hug. It's over. It's finally over.

The drive home is quiet. We had to hide Grayson on the way out so paparazzi didn't see his face.

"Escort Mr Hawthorne, Miss Grambs, Ms Ortega and Miss Blake to the gates." Blake says.

I can't help but have a physical reaction to the way he addressed me as Miss Blake, just another name to add to the collection I guess.

"It's Rooney." I bark, I notice the way Toby's lips curve up with pride as he lowers his head to hide it.

"I'll do it." Toby decides. "Very well Toby Blake." Vincent Blake takes pleasure in tormenting us.

So with a hand on my back he leads us back. 

Eve stops us when we're walking out the property. "Wait!" She calls.

"You let me win." She determines. "You through our game too didn't you?" She accuses Toby.

"Does it really matter? We all got what we wanted. You got what you wanted." I snarl.

"I wanted, for once in my life to prove to someone I was good enough. I wanted Blake to see me." Her eyes drift to Grayson, who refuses to turn around.

"But now every time he looks at me all he'll think of is you." Her eyes pierce me firmly.

"You're not going to win our sympathy now. I don't care how shit your life is. We offered you everything you claim you wanted but you were behind our back the whole time. As if you aren't an awful enough person you also completely abused the vulnerability of Grayson. You manipulated him just like you manipulated the rest of us." I speak with confidence.

Grayson's fingers reach to mine and intertwine, gripping onto me for dear life.

"I saw you Eve. I saw you. You could have been one of us." Grayson speaks quietly but bravely.

"But you didn't. You only saw Paris and Emily. You didn't love me. You couldn't love anyone the way you love her. Even when you look at Paris all you see is Emily. You can't love anyone the way you loved her." Eve fires.

I feel my stomach clench and knot. I've known that for a while, but hearing the words aloud makes them real.

"Don't you dare. I've never loved anyone the way I love Paris!" He yells furiously.

My heart plummets at those words. My eyes water and the knots in my stomach unravel and implode into the most beautiful of butterflies.

Maybe it was an accident. Maybe he didn't mean it. Maybe he just said it to get to her. But those words. I can't deny that they were said. 'I love Paris' I am the only Paris he knows, right?

I drop his hand out of nerves and he glances at me for a moment before realizing what he just said. Then he goes quiet.

"I think we should go." Toby dictates, subtly telling Eve to stop following us.

The rest of the walk is in silence. 

"What happens next?" I ask Toby with a shaky voice when we arrive at the cars. "I become Tobias Blake."

I look up to his eyes, my eyes, with a glimmer of hope. "You don't have to. Just run. Run away." I beg him.

"And give the man justification to renege his deal? Invalidate one wager and he could easily argue you've invalidated all." Alisa turns down.

"I'm not running this time." Toby says to me.

"You're staying for her." I determine.

"I'm staying for both of you." He assures me.

"She helped kidnap you. She tricked us- she tricked all of us!" I say with a quivering lip like a little girl.

"And when I was her age, I killed your mother's sister." He tells me in a very fatherly way.

"Hannah thought I was redeemable. Do you really think she'd want me to walk away from Eve?" He asks me knowledgeably. 

"If she knew the things she'd done to me and my friends i'm sure she'd despise the bitch." I reply defensively.

Toby gives me a stern look, "Your Mother helped people. Even if others couldn't see that person as redeemable." He reminds me. I sigh and nod in agreement. 

"You could have told me. About Blake, about the body. About why you stayed in the shadows for so long." I say, a tear dripping down my cheek.

"There are a lot of things I would do differently if I could live this life again." He tells me honestly.

"Will I ever see you again dad?" My voice cracks.

He laughs a little, pulling me into a hug, wiping away my tear and holding me tight.

"He won't be keeping me under a lock and key. And Massachusetts really isn't that far away, 5 hour flight? I'm sure we can make it." He winks.

"I'm not going back." I shake my head with a somber smile.

His eyebrows knit together. "Why not?" He asks me.

"I dunno, I guess it's just not my thing." I lie. I do know. Every single time I go there I end up ruining things more. Every time I leave, everything goes to shit.

"Well wherever you end up, just know, i'm always only a phone call away, or a drive away, or even a flight away. I want to change. I want to be your Dad, not your Father." He tells me.

I smile a little, "You're already ten times better than the last guy." I wink through tears. 

He laughs a little and gives me one last forehead kiss goodbye. 

Avery gets in the car with Alisa. Grayson and I go together, him taking the wheel and the security guard originally driving it goes with Avery, Oren and Alisa for ultimate protection of the heiress.

Toby waves us goodbye, i bite my lip to try and stop the tears. Grayson's hand immediately reaches out and lands on my upper thigh, drawing circles and leaving goosebumps. He smirks a little when he feels the goosebumps he caused.

"You'll see him again." He promises me, keeping his eyes on the road.

"Yeah." I nod, convincing myself. I wipe the tears from my cheeks and listen closely to the silence.

The only sound is the pattering of the rain on the windows. It's relaxing.

That silence lasts until we get to the house. Both of us indulging in it. It's not until he's parked in the dimly lit nighttime driveway that we both really acknowledge his hand on my thigh.

Avery and the others are out of their car and inside already.

Grayson makes a move to get out of the care. I follow him towards the house in a run.

I can't just let him walk away after what he said. And i'm frozen. The cold rain hitting all of me and making me shiver.

"What you said back there.." I call out to him.

He turns around, under the cover of the houses porch.

"Paris get inside! It's freezing." He dismisses with a sigh, fumbling in his pockets to find his keys.

"Not until you tell me. Was it a lie? Did you really mean it?" I cry into the rain.

"Come on Paris, you'll get sick." He continues ignoring my words. His hands take the key and tries to put it in the door but struggles with how wet his hands are

"If you didn't mean it or something you can just tell me. I just.. I need to know. I need to hear you say you don't, or i'll spend my whole life chasing after you for no reason. I swear i'm not gonna be mad just say it straight." I demand.

He clenches his jaw and turns around looking angry, throwing his key to the ground out of frustration.

"Paris I know you aren't the genius of this relationship but are you actually stupid?!" He yells.

I furrow my brows. "You don't need to be so cruel about it. You could've just said you didn't mean it." I say with sadness.

"I did mean it!" He cries out with frustration.

"What about the voicemail?" I recall. "Voicemail?" He asks with confusion. "I called you. I told you I don't care if you love me I just wanted you. You heard the voicemail and ignored it." I remind him.

"I didn't get a voicemail." He assures me. "It was 5am about a week ago." I promise him.

Both our faces drop in sync. "Eve." I vocalise our shared thoughts.

"But I love you Paris." He sighs.

"But you don't want to?" I challenge with anger at how furious he seems to be saying this.

"Of course I want to! I want to love every part of you. I already do! I love you so much Paris. I just.. I couldn't say the words." Grayson admits.

It takes me a moment to register his words. 

"Why not?" I frown. "I don't know. I've just never said it to anyone before. It was scary. But it's not anymore." He says with a smile.

He's never said that to his Mother or Father. He's been raised with his brothers, sharing a mutual understanding that what they have is love but none of them ever say it out loud because they all know. He never told Eve. He never told Emily. But he told me.

"I love you so much Grayson." My voice cracks with the pure joy coursing through my veins.

He runs down the porch steps and into the driveway. 

His lips crash onto mine. My hands on his wet cheeks, his blood dripping down and washing away with the rain. His hands snake around my waist and lift me off my feet.

My lipstick smears all over his busted lip. The rain soaking through both of our clothes and our hair. 

The kiss is passionate and needy but so sweet. So deliciously dangerous but just too sweet to resist. His kiss is as glorious as ever. I've never kissed lips as fierce and pleasurable.

I can't help but sigh into his lips. My hands roam his hair.

I've missed his touch on mine. I've been living without that spark in my life. I never really realized how magnificent everything about him is.

When we separate the kiss, all we can do is stare into one another's eyes, that loving stare accounting to at least a thousand kisses.

"Grayson Hawthorne." I scoff in a whisper, rain on my eyelashes. 

"Paris Rooney." He smirks.

"Let's go inside, i'll clean you up. And remind me once your face is fine that I have to yell at you for handing yourself in like an idiot." I giggle.

I lead him inside, my hand in his. On the way up we see Avery and Jameson talking and I smile. She took my advice and now they're talking again.

Grayson and I get into my bathroom and I produce a clothe, running the bath for him.

I suddenly get flashbacks to Grayson washing all the blood of my hands before the idea of 'us' was even in question.

(a/n. I can only apologise for how long this has taken. And i'm still not entirely happy with how this was written. But it's finally happened!! My little slut has finally chosen a brother to date. So congratulations to all my Grayson girlies out there, Garis is in fact officially endgame. And apologies to all my Jameson girlies, Jamis wasn't endgame this time, but if you are disheartened, I have a fic on my profile titled 1989 which is a Jameson fanfic and only Jameson. Thank you all so much for all your patience on this chapter, I just kept rewriting it. Thanks for reading, see you in the next part — which is so scarily close to being the last chapter)