The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Barnes, Jennifer. The Final Gambit. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, August 30, 2022.

In The Final Gambit by Jennifer Barnes, the third installment in The Inheritance Games trilogy, Avery Kylie Grambs finally earned Tobias Hawthorne’s fortune. However, Avery's win was not without a fight. When Toby Hawthorne, Tobias Hawthorne’s adopted son, was kidnapped, Toby’s biological daughter, Eve, came to Avery for help saving her father. Meanwhile, Avery began to receive clues from the man who she believed had Toby, inviting her to play a game with life-or-death consequences.

Avery told only her boyfriend, Jameson Hawthorne, that Toby had a biological daughter. Nash, Grayson, and Xander were all shocked when Eve showed up at Hawthorne House saying that her father, Toby, had been kidnapped and that he had told her to go to Avery if she ever needed help. Avery wondered if she could trust Eve, but Avery remembered how the Hawthorne brothers had taken her under their wings when she was named sole benefactor of their grandfather’s estate.

About the same time Eve arrived, Avery began receiving letters and packages with what appeared to be clues inside. One included a gold disk Avery believed was why Toby had been abducted. Another package held a proof of life picture of Toby. A third package contained a cell phone the man used to convey the idea that Toby’s kidnapping was in some way related to the Biblical parable of the prodigal son, an analogy that made no sense to Avery or the Hawthorne brothers.

More clues led Avery and the others to realize that Avery was being targeted by Vincent Blake, a man whom Tobias had once cheated out of a fortune. It is not until later that they realize that Blake has kidnapped Toby because he wants the remains of his own son, William “Liam” Blake, who was killed on Hawthorne property, returned to him. Liam had befriended Mallory Laughlin, the daughter of the caretakers of Hawthorne House, in an attempt to gain access to Tobias and get revenge on him for cheating his father.

In the meanwhile, Liam got Mallory pregnant. When Mallory learned that Liam had just been using her, she attacked him with a brick and left him with life-threatening injuries. Tobias and Mr. Laughlin witnessed the attack but did not get Liam the medical attention he needed because they had seen him hit Mallory when she told him about the baby. The baby born to Mallory and Liam was Toby, who was adopted by Tobias to keep him hidden from Blake.

In the present, Avery located Liam’s remains on the estate and paid a visit to Blake, presumably, to pay her respects to the family. Instead, Avery was challenged to play a chess tournament against Eve and Toby for the freedom of everyone Avery loved. Avery threw the tournament when she lost to Eve and begged Blake to give her the chance to play against him for even higher stakes.

Avery won her game and Blake’s promise to leave her and her family members alone. Because Toby lost both his matches to protect his daughters, Toby had to stay with Blake and take Blake’s last name.

Weeks later when Avery officially inherited Tobias’s money, she gave 94 percent of it away, reasoning that no one needed that much money or power.