𝐏𝐔𝐙𝐙𝐋𝐄𝐒 🝮 𝒳𝒶𝓃𝒹ℯ𝓇 ℋ𝒶𝓌𝓉𝒽ℴ𝓇𝓃ℯ

ONE

[y/n]
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All my life, everything has been secrets, lies, and games.

Secrets. Some uncovered, some still waiting to be found. Lies. Masks to hide faults, betrayals, or wrongdoings- and if you tell them correctly, believable. And games.

Really, life is a game in itself. It's up to the players to decide whether or not to roll the dice.

My name is [y/n] Almbeg. Almbeg is an anagram for gamble- predictable, right?

It was chosen for me. An alibi, if you will.

You see, my birth father is Toby Hawthorne. But that isn't the name signed on my birth certificate.

Chris Almbeg is some random fellow, chosen to be my 'father' just because of his last name. Yeah, he's dead. Perished two years before I was even conceived.

Just goes to show how careless the United States government is.

I lived with my mom, Sarah Grambs (her real name is Hannah Rooney. Crazy, right? See, all secrets and lies) and my half sister, Avery, in New Castle, Connecticut, for a majority of my life.

That is, until Mom died.

That was when everything turned upside down. I'd seen it coming. She was sick, and however much she tried to hide it, I could see right through the all the "i'm fine" and "don't worry about me".

After she was gone, Avery and I moved in with Avery's half sister, Libby.

Libby is amazing- but I couldn't say the same for her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Drake. He kind of sucked.

I didn't really have any friends at school- I was way too busy to have a social life.

At least I had Mr. Hawthorne.

Tobias Tattersall Hawthorne met with me in the park every Sunday, and I would spend the day with him. He was Toby's father by adoption, so he was technically my grandfather.

Avery didn't know. I'm still not sure if my mom did. But I loved that old man.

Mr. Hawthorne taught me everything. He told me everything about Toby, how he was still on the run- and everything about the Hawthorne family. I knew the names, but not the faces.

He and I would play games. Chess, checkers, crossword puzzles, sudokus, solving anagrams- we did it all.

He said it was all preparation. I can't remember exactly what he said, but I was like the 'chosen one' of the next generation of Hawthornes. Basically, the Harry Potter of rich people.

Mr. Hawthorne had four grandsons. Nash, Grayson, Jameson, and Xander. He told me they were all older than me, but Xander by only a few months.

He would always say I reminded him of Toby. It was clear that, if I was really related to him, I'd definitely be his favorite grandchild.

I was to inherit the fortune. To take over the Hawthorne Foundation. That's what I was taught to do, anyways. Mr. Hawthorne I was the most like himself, that if anyone had to take his place, it would be me.

But I wasn't even in the will.

𖦷⁂𖦷

When Mr. Hawthorne passed away, it did a number on me. My mom was gone. And now, he was gone.

The only people I had left were Avery and, after moving in, Libby. Oh, and Drake. But he doesn't count.

I didn't go to the funeral. I didn't even know when it was, let alone where. I received a call when he passed- it was his lawyer or something, informing me that he had wished for me to know when he had died.

It wasn't a surprise, honestly. He was old. He had gotten sick. He even told me his time was coming soon.

And I was so broken that I didn't even remember that I should have been summoned for a will reading.