Rise Of The King: Checkmate, #5

by Finn, Emilia

  “Do you have any imperfections?” His playful eyes come down to mine. “Seriously. You can’t be hot, smart, and let me touch your butthole in bed. It’s just…” He lets out a sigh of contentment. “It’s too much.”

  Crossing into the street, I smack his ribs and laugh when he chokes in surprise. “Shut up! Don’t talk about touching my ass in public. I just finished telling you about the security in this town. What the hell is the matter with you?”

  “But seriously,” he laughs. “You dance like an angel; you swear like a sailor; you outsmart me every time we turn around; you… use computers the way you do. Your loyalty is so intense, you do things that others wouldn’t dream about. You cook a decent steak, and you suck my cock like a high-priced hooker. That’s a lot of value I’m getting in my Happy Meal.”

  “I hate you.”

  “That’s a shame, because I kinda fell in love with you.”

  Ugh.

  He kills me.

  “I don’t see colors the way you do.”

  “You… What?” He stops just twenty feet from the back entrance to Kane’s building. “You mean, you’re colorblind?”

  “No. I have color vision deficiency.”

  “So… you’re colorblind.”

  “Color vision deficiency. Be sensitive to my condition, dammit!”

  Laughing much too loud considering our location, he pulls me in and squishes until the oxygen leaves my lungs. “Wow, Soph. How do you hide something like that? I asked you last week to get me the socks with the red stripes. How did you do that?”

  “I see colors in my own way,” I huff. “It’s different than how you see them, but I still know what I see.”

  “What color shirt am I wearing right now?”

  This is why I don’t bring it up often, because it’s literally the first question everyone asks. “It’s navy blue.”

  He glances down at his shirt. “What color are my eyes?”

  “Black, like the devil.”

  He flashes a boyish grin. “What color is the stitching in your shorts?”

  “Um…” I look down and panic. “Uh…”

  “Oh my God! You can’t answer. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” He pushes me back and drops his hands to his knees the way he did in an old railroad tunnel so long ago. “I’m finally smarter than you.”

  “You’re not smarter than me! Nobody is smarter than me. And the thread is gray. Light gray.”

  “No it’s not,” he squeaks. “Oh my shit, it’s not gray, Soph. You’re wrong. You’re finally wrong about something!”

  “I’m done.” Turning, I continue walking forward, only to swing around again when he snags my arm. “Soph, what color is grass?”

  “Oh, Jesus. You’re so stupid. Shut up.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “It’s green. Everybody knows grass is green.”

  “What color is the sky?”

  “Right now?” I shoot my eyes skyward. “It’s blue. It’s kinda a standard answer to a standard question. I can see colors, Jay. I just see them differently than you.”

  “You said ‘Jay’! Oh shit.” He grabs me and drags me toward the wall of the parking garage. He was playing, laughing, and cupping my boob, but then it’s gone when a man dashes across the street we just crossed and pulls a small handgun from the harness on his hip.

  Silent as a panther, the jokester is gone, and in his place is the deadly assassin I’ve known for more than two years as Jay drags me around the corner of the building and presses me against the wall.

  “Shh.” He presses a finger to his lips and stares into my eyes. “Don’t move.” He turns to dash away, only to come to a screeching halt when I refuse to release the loop of his jeans. “Sophia!” My name comes out on a barely-there hiss, but his intent remains. “You’re not coming with me.”

  “And you’re not going alone. We’re a team. We don’t split up anymore.”

  “I can’t take you in there, Soph!”

  “And I can’t stand here and watch you run toward that gun. So we’re all in, or we’re all out.”

  “Kane’s in there, woman!”

  “So we’re all in.”

  A car pulls into the parking spaces outside the garage, then a trim woman with shoulder-length black hair and a ghostly white face tosses a satchel over her shoulder and slams her car door. Peeking around to the entrance of the garage, I look back to the woman, then the entrance.

  “That dude is in there.”

  “And she’s going straight in,” Jay grinds out. “Fuck. What do we do? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Lemme think.”

  “Hold on.” I yank my phone out and open it to security footage of the very building we lean against. I scan each small square in search of our main players, but my screen is small, and my heart is racing. “There.” I tap the screen and enlarge the picture as Kane and his men catch sight of the woman in their garage security feed.

  They were alerted by something – by the man in the mask – but now they see the woman I know to be Andi Conner, girlfriend to former policeman Riley Cruz. “They’re coming this way,” I whisper to Jay. “Jesus, they’re all coming this way.”

  “They’re walking into an ambush,” Jay hisses. “I gotta stop them.”

  “No, hold on. She’s already in there, and they’re about three, two, one…”

  An internal door slams open, the door that leads into the secure offices, and five large men crowd the doorway while Andi stops in the center of the twelve-car garage. Despite the fact we’ve watched Kane through our front window for months, Jay still gasps when his brother steps up to the door with the same face Jay now wears.

  We’ve seen playful and free Kane.

  But now we see the killer, the protector, outshone only by Andi’s man as he steps forward.

  “Um…” Unaware that another man has entered the garage just before her, I watch my screen as Andi steps back in defense of the group. “I went home because I forgot my stretch bands.” Jay and I lean close to my phone and hear the way Andi’s voice shakes. “Someone was in our house, Riley. It’s completely trashed.”

  Jay’s eyes meet mine for a beat. Someone was in Kane’s home, too. I can tell that’s what Jay is thinking because it’s also what I’m thinking.

  Scowling, Riley turns back to Kane. “Yours wasn’t trashed. Spence’s wasn’t trashed.” He turns back to Andi when her bag starts screeching.

  It takes me only a moment to realize that she has a pet tucked away in that satchel, then another to catch sight of the man in the ski mask ducking from a dark corner of the garage and heading straight for Andi while the men at the door are distracted with each other.

  “Go.” I shove Jay’s shoulder. “Go now. Fast.”

  19

  Reunion

  Jay

  I run.

  I turn away from the woman I love and pray no one is out here watching us, because if there is, they’ll see me, they’ll see Soph, and they’ll alert their man.

  Whipping my nine-millimeter from the back of my jeans, I come to a screeching stop at the door and wait a beat. Running in without assessing the situation helps no one. For only ten more seconds, I can be a ghost.

  “Let her go, motherfucker.” I don’t see him, but I hear the voice from my past, the man who allowed me to sleep on his couch while I was dying from a dirty batch of cocaine. I was too afraid to go home to Kane, too ashamed to let him see me so weak, so I hid out in Officer Riley Cruz’s home, and I paid the price in the end when I was too slow in a club named Infernos.

  Glancing back to Sophia, I bite off a bunch of fucking curse words when she pokes her head around the corner to watch me. “Get back!” I hiss. “Move!” Reaching up as Riley’s booming voice inside makes my heart race, I yank the front of my beanie down so it covers my face and hides my identity.

  “It’s five against one,” Riley bites out. “Step the fuck down.”

  I peek inside the dark garage and catch a glimpse of one man in the middle of the hud
dle clutching the girl to his chest. Riley stands with the barrel of his gun almost touching the dude’s forehead; Kane circles the prick, and his men – Spence, Eric, and Angelo – fan out to surround them.

  Kane’s not in danger. The only man in trouble today is the dumb fuck who never expected five guns to come down on him so swiftly.

  Six, if he turned around and noticed me.

  “I’m looking for Kane Bishop.”

  “Well, she ain’t him,” Riley spits out angrily, “and she lacks self-preservation skills. Using her was your first mistake.” He lifts his gun just a little higher when the guy starts to back up. “Let her go, then die like a man.”

  He doesn’t release her. He takes a step back, then another. The satchel pulled over her shoulder squeals, and she, the girl, declares war on the fuckwit who makes her roll her ankle.

  “I said ‘stop’!” Riley surges forward with barely a tremor in his voice. My eyes come down for a second, drawn to the silver glint of the prosthetic leg he now walks on. I knew it was there. Ace – Soph – had pulled that information for me months ago, but seeing it in real life is entirely different, and it makes my heart ache.

  “Don’t step behind me,” the dude demands. “Give me Bishop, and I’ll leave you be.”

  “I’m Bishop.” Carelessly, Kane steps forward and exposes his broad chest. Loosening his hold on the gun in his hand, he lets it dangle from his finger like a total poser. I know he has about six others loaded and strapped to his body. “What’s your beef with me, soldier?”

  The man turns his body to face Kane and drags his belligerent hostage around with him. The animal in her bag screeches so loudly, it stings my eardrums. The sound flusters the guy, but his gun remains steady. “You’re making waves three thousand miles from here, Bishop. You have a price on your head, and it’s my job to deliver you.”

  “Who sent you?” Kane replies easily.

  Once a thug, always a thug. He doesn’t scare away from the gun or the contract on his head… until his blonde skids to a stop at the door with wide eyes and a heaving chest.

  “What the fuck?” she snaps.

  “Go back inside, Jessica, right now.”

  “What the fuck?” she repeats on a screech that rivals the satchel-pet. Stepping down into the garage and cocking her very own Glock, she bypasses Angelo, then Eric, and stops beside Kane with a steady hand. She attempts to step in front of him, only to be yanked back and stuffed behind Kane’s back.

  “I don’t need all of you,” the man hisses. It’s a hiss, because speaking like a man would reveal the way his voice cracks with nerves. “I need Bishop. There are other, badder men coming down on this town, so come with me, and I’ll make it easier.” He takes a large step back and makes his way toward me. “I just need him. I don’t have a problem with the rest of you.”

  “You’re just plain stupid if you think you’re walking out that door with her.” Spence, all seven feet of brawn and straight-up crazy, shoots off a round at the man’s feet and sends Andi yelping and jumping into the air. She comes down again with a crash and whimper when the man clutches her short hair. “You won’t survive today’s stunt, son. You can only beg for an easy death.”

  “I have the winning card,” the man declares shakily. “I’ve got the girl.” He pulls her back and ignores her cries. “I’m taking her, then you’ll exchange her for Bishop.”

  “Why?” Kane circles around and crosses paths with a stalking Riley. “What did I do that warrants you stepping onto my property and losing your life?”

  “You assassinated Abel Hayes.”

  Kane nods as though killing a man is no big deal. “That’s accurate. I popped him between the eyes and sung him a fuckin’ lullaby.”

  “You took out Trenton Neal. And Stan Corrin.”

  That makes him pause. “I know those motherfucker’s names,” Kane says. “But I didn’t pop them. You dialed the wrong number, boy.”

  “Peter Aguilar.”

  Kane’s thick brow lifts. “You’re throwing names at me, but I don’t know that one.”

  “You were in his club! You slit his throat in March and took off with valuable information.”

  “Ah… I beg to differ. I was here in March.”

  “I saw you, man!”

  One of the soldiers on the stairs. It hits me like a bolt of lightning, this is the asshole who stood outside Pete’s door that night and assumed I was Kane. He’s the guy who snorted blow from a Senator’s daughter’s belly.

  “I’m not sure what you saw, but it wasn’t me. This sounds like a giant misunderstanding, so give me the girl, then stand still so I can end your miserable fucking life.”

  “No!” The soldier backs up until he and Andi stand only three feet from where I do, and the nerves flooding his system waft into the air. “I’m not dying here today.”

  “You kinda are, motherfucker.” Spence lets off a second round and looks almost sorry when the soldier’s hand explodes right beside Andi’s head. His gun flies into the air, and Andi screams, grabs her ears, and drops to the ground to take cover.

  The soldier turns with his shattered hand pressed to his chest and cries out when a second bullet pierces the back of his thigh. He’s determined to run, because he drags his dead leg through the garage door, only to stop again when I step forward and block his way.

  Lifting my Glock and pressing it to his forehead, I take sick pleasure in the way he automatically drops to his knees and prays to whoever the fuck is listening to save his miserable life. “I believe I’m the man you’re looking for.” Pulling my beanie up and revealing my face, I smile when his eyes roll into the back of his head. “Guess he forgot there are two of us.”

  “What the fuck?” Racing to the garage door where I stand, Eric’s light eyes flick from my face back to Kane’s. To mine. Then back to Kane’s.

  If there are any men watching us right now with our heads in their scopes, we’re all dead, because no one pays attention to anything outside the bubble Kane and I create despite the twenty feet of dead space between us.

  Spence steps forward with squinted eyes as though he can’t bring me into focus. “Am I high?”

  I jump when a gentle hand presses to my back. Without looking, I bring Soph close but hold her behind me.

  “I don’t understand.” Jess fights against my brother’s tight hold. His muscles bulge as he watches me. His jaw ticks, and his eyes glitter with something that isn’t happiness. “Kane, let me go.” She pushes at his hands, grunts when he holds tight, and finally breaks free with a huff. Walking forward slowly, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed bombshell stares into my eyes, but mine remain on my deathly still brother.

  Say something. Put me out of my misery!

  “I don’t understand what’s going on right now.” Jess walks around Spence’s massive frame, then ducks under Eric’s arm to get closer. Andi is helped from the concrete floor and thrust into Cruz’s waiting arms as the other twin emerges into the fray and jumps forward to rescue her sister, only to be pulled back by an unrelenting Angelo.

  Stopping in front of me, Jess arches her neck back and squints her eyes. Licking her lips, her hand comes out to touch, but she pulls it back time and time again. “What’s… what’s…” She shakes her head. “What the fuck?”

  Clearing my throat, I choke out a nervous, “Jess?”

  Eric’s suspicious eyes snap wide when I speak. Like he’s never heard me speak before, or maybe it’s just that he hasn’t heard me sober in so long…

  Instead of words, Jess steps onto her tiptoes and reaches forward with a shaking hand. I don’t stop her. She won’t hurt me, and I won’t hurt her, and right now, of the ten or more people standing in this dark garage, she’s the only one brave enough to step forward.

  Gently, with a feather-light touch, she fingers my beanie back until she uncovers the star-shaped scar, then she snatches her hand back and clutches them both to her chest. “Is this a dream?” She turns to Spence, then to Eric. And all the while, K
ane stands back as though I am a stranger, a dangerous stranger he has no intention of approaching. “Is Kane still dead, guys? Was this all a dream?”

  “Not a dream.” Clearing my throat, I wipe a hand over my top lip and try again. “Ah… This is… I guess it’s kinda awkward.” Slowly extending a hand and going slower yet when Spence’s gun rises, I meet Jess’ eyes and nod. “My name is Jay Bishop. We met once before.”

  She doesn’t take my hand. She doesn’t even pretend to take my hand. Instead, she tugs my shirt and has Spence shooting wary glances back to my brother. Stepping closer and pushing my shirt up, she runs a gentle hand over the scar on the front of my stomach where a bullet pierced my lung and kept going. When she can’t find the second, she grabs the loops of my jeans and spins me so she can study my back.

  A man who has lived the life I have wouldn’t normally turn their back to the enemy, and right now, they feel like the enemy. They’re not on my side, that’s for fucking sure.

  Soft fingers stroke my back, passing over the two scars the way Sophia’s do when we’re lying in bed, but when I look down and meet Soph’s eyes, I’m met with something similar to that in Kane’s.

  No one is on my side right in this minute.

  And the young goofball in me doesn’t understand it.

  Jess spins me back so I lose sight of Soph, then her blue eyes meet mine with heavy tears sitting in her lashes. “I’m so fucking confused right now.”

  “I’m sorry about that. I’m not trying to scare you or anything.”

  “Are you really Jay? Is there a third Bishop we don’t know about?”