Alice boards a train to Rhode Island, heading to her estranged family's island estate after her father Franklin Storm dies.

Alice spends the night with a stranger at a mainland motel before facing her family on Storm Island.

Alice arrives at Storm Island and is greeted coldly by her mother Elisabeth after five years of estrangement from the family.

Jack Dean reveals himself as Franklin's managing director and explains that Franklin left an inheritance game for the family.

Jack delivers personalized tasks to each sibling: Sam gets manual labor, Elisabeth must compliment Franklin daily, and Greta must end her affair.

Alice discovers she has no letter, but Jack tells her the final rule: she must stay on the island or no one wins.

Jack takes Alice sailing on Franklin's boat and Alice escapes by jumping overboard and swimming to a private beach.

Jack swims after Alice to the private beach and they share a passionate kiss, confirming their mutual attraction.

Guests arrive by helicopter for Franklin's memorial service, including Mike Haskins and his wife Twyla, despite Elisabeth's prior objections.

Griffin arrives unexpectedly at the memorial and reveals that Jack paid him money to break off his engagement to Alice.

Jack punches Griffin in the nose; Sam then locks Alice inside the office vault to prevent her from leaving the island.

Alice discovers one of her own paintings hidden in the vault; Jack frees her and they have sex in Franklin's office.

An epic storm knocks out the island's power; Elisabeth shocks the family by revealing Emily's true parentage and Greta's secret abortion.

Franklin's favorite oak tree crashes through the office window, knocking Alice's painting to the floor and revealing a hidden envelope containing her letter.

Jack resigns his position at midnight, giving up his reward; the will is read and each sibling inherits only $1,107.

Franklin Storm's death calls his estranged children back to the family's private island estate, where his managing director Jack Dean delivers the terms of a posthumous inheritance game. Each sibling must complete a personalized emotional task over one week, and Alice, who receives no letter, is told her only task is to remain on the island or no one wins. Alice's growing attraction to Jack deepens as they sail together and share a passionate kiss on a private beach, even as she suspects he was placed in her life by her father. The memorial service erupts when Alice's ex-fiancé Griffin reveals that Jack paid him to break off their engagement, and Sam locks Alice in a vault to stop her from leaving the island. A massive storm traps the family as Elisabeth delivers two devastating revelations about the family's hidden past, and Franklin's letter to Alice is uncovered behind a fallen painting. The game ends with Jack sacrificing his reward to prove his love, and each sibling receives a nearly symbolic inheritance of just over a thousand dollars.

The headline events that drive the inheritance game from start to finish.

Alice spots a headline about her father's death on a fellow passenger's phone while riding the train to Rhode Island.

Reporters swarm Alice at the train station; the stranger defends her against the paparazzi and surrenders the journalists' camera memory cards.

Alice goes to the kitchen and discovers her father's favorite foods in the pantry, silently hiding her grief from her mother.

Sam steals Alice's clothes as a prank, leaving her with no choice but to borrow Jack's shirt and shorts.

Greta visits Tony at his cottage and decides not to tell him about her task; Tony pledges his full loyalty to her.

Claudia secretly puts mushrooms in Elisabeth's tea, leaving her high just as the Secret Service arrives to sweep the island.

Sam cleans his father's fog bell at the lighthouse with his children and then confesses to Sila that Franklin fired him.

Alice confesses to her friend Gabi that she is deeply attracted to Jack but considers him a dangerous decision.

Alice overhears Elisabeth having a heated argument with an unidentified man in the sunroom who refuses to leave the island.

Elisabeth publicly demands Greta end her relationship with Tony; Tony reveals he already quit his position on his own terms and leaves.

Mike Haskins tells Alice that her father knew about her art career and had tried to fund one of her pieces.

Saoirse confesses to Alice that she and her brother Oliver were the ones who stole her clothes and locked her in the pantry.

Alice removes her father's Picasso from above the office mantel and hangs her own painting in its place.

The storm-trapped siblings play their childhood card game together, sharing warm and nostalgic memories of Franklin for the first time.

Tony returns to the island by helicopter and reconciles with Greta; they leave together, and Tony is revealed to have inherited 1% of Storm Inc.

Before Alice even reaches Storm Island, the weight of her father's death follows her, from a stranger's phone on the train to reporters ambushing her at the station. Once on the island, the family's old dynamics reassert themselves through petty pranks, passive aggression, and carefully kept secrets that each sibling carries alone. Greta's private visit to Tony's cottage reveals how much she has sacrificed for family loyalty, while Sam's confession to his wife Sila that Franklin fired him unravels their already fragile marriage. During the memorial service, Alice overhears a heated argument in the sunroom, and Elisabeth's explosive demand that Greta end her relationship with Tony ends when Tony reveals he already quit on his own terms. In the aftermath of the storm, the siblings find a rare moment of warmth playing their childhood card game together, before Tony's return and reconciliation with Greta provides one of the few genuinely hopeful resolutions of the inheritance game.

The supporting moments and character confrontations that shape the family's reckoning.

Alice slips out of bed before dawn and leaves the stranger asleep at the motel, choosing never to reveal her name.

Jack is discovered already living in Alice's bedroom at Storm Island, where he stayed during business visits, catching her after she showers.

Greta reveals to Alice in the kitchen that her inheritance task is to permanently end her long relationship with Tony.

Alice tells Jack the story of how her father secretly donated to her art school to have her scholarship revoked.

Alice explains to Jack how she exposed the Storm Inc. COO for sexual assault and was subsequently exiled from her family.

Jack pulls away from their beach kiss and says he should not have kissed Alice, creating new tension between them.

Jack apologizes for the beach kiss and Alice tells him he reminds her of her father and she cannot fully trust him.

During a family meeting Elisabeth declares that Alice is no longer part of their family, and her siblings remain completely silent.

Sam tells Sila that Franklin fired him months ago and he will never become CEO of Storm Inc.; Sila leaves the island with the children.

Alice realizes that Mike Haskins was the unidentified man her mother was arguing with in the sunroom during the memorial.

Alice asks Mike Haskins if she can leave the island with him and Twyla, intending to abandon the inheritance game entirely.

Greta slaps Elisabeth during the storm after Elisabeth coldly dismisses the pain of Greta's secret pregnancy and abortion with no empathy.

Emily privately tells Alice that Franklin revealed her true parentage years ago, that he was terminally ill, and his death may not have been accidental.

Alice reads Franklin's hidden letter, in which he apologizes for their rift and reveals he sent Jack as his fixer to help her.

The siblings exchange numbers, agree to stay in contact, and create a new family group text titled Storms Inside.

From the moment Alice slips out of the motel before dawn, she is trying to claim her own narrative, but returning to Storm Island means confronting how deeply her father shaped her choices without her knowledge. Key revelations emerge one by one: that Franklin secretly revoked Alice's art school scholarship, that Alice's exposure of a sexual abuse scandal caused her exile, and that Jack was sent to the island as Franklin's fixer with a financial stake in keeping Alice there. Elisabeth's declaration that Alice is no longer part of the family, met with her siblings' silence, crystallizes years of emotional abandonment, while Sam's admission to Sila that he was fired shatters the family's illusions about inheritance and succession. Greta's slap of Elisabeth and Emily's private disclosure that Franklin may have orchestrated his own death mark the emotional climax of the family's reckoning with the truth. Alice finally reads her father's letter in the aftermath of the fallen tree, and the siblings close the novel by creating a new group text together, choosing connection over the legacy that once divided them.

The revelations and turning-point decisions that redefine every relationship on the island.