Sacrifice The Knight: Checkmate, #6

by Finn, Emilia

  Stopping in front of me, he flashes a grin identical to my son’s and pulls me in for a hug that feels awfully the same. “You look beautiful, sweetheart. Happy birthday.” Pulling back, he reaches into his back pocket and takes out an envelope that instantly sets me on edge. “Your gift.”

  “Daddy…”

  “It’s not cash. It’s something else. Come on.” He grabs my hand and slaps the envelope down until I grunt. “Open it up. Then I want to see pictures when you go.”

  “Go?” I can’t stop the smile that stretches across my face. “What did you do? Daddy… I dunno.”

  “Just open it, Mom!” Mac moves by as fast as the wind and takes my envelope like maybe his Douglas genes are a little more prevalent than I’d like. He tears the envelope open with a smile and flashes a set of tickets. “Bon Jovi?” He scrunches his nose with distaste. “Isn’t he old?”

  “Bon Jovi?” I squeak. Whipping back around to my dad, I jump on the balls of my feet and squeal a little more than a woman who just turned thirty should. “You got me tickets to see Bon Jovi?”

  “Next month.” Dropping a kiss on my forehead, he walks to my fridge and snatches a diet soda – he doesn’t want the diet, but in this house, he doesn’t get a choice. Walking away from us, he drops into the end recliner with a grunt and a soft smile, and when he refocuses on my staring eyes, he shrugs. “Yes, Jovi, next month. And I already talked to Franky about it. You have the whole weekend off, and I was thinking of taking Mac away for the weekend.”

  “Oh.” And just like that, my happiness deflates. “You don’t have to do that, Daddy. Maybe just sit with him a couple hours while I’m gone.”

  “Or, ya know, I’m not a baby anymore. I can just stay here alone for a couple hours,” Mac tries. “I won’t set the place on fire.”

  “No.” I thrust my ticket-holding hand toward my son. “Forty-five, and thirty consecutive days of no trouble, then I’ll trust you, but until then, you don’t get shit from me.”

  “Harsh.” Walking away, though with a smile, Mac carries a diet soda in one hand and digs the other into his jeans pocket. His grandpa’s twin in many ways, he flops onto the end of the long couch with a grunt and lifts his achy leg until his bare foot plonks on the table. “Go shower. Screech about the old singer, then come back. Dinner will be here when you’re done.”

  “Fine. Order Chinese. My purse is on the table.” Tucking my beloved concert tickets back into the now torn envelope, I carefully set them on top of the fridge so I’ll know exactly where to find them a month from now. “If anyone touches these, you’re dead to me. I’m not playing.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Dad’s already making himself at home with my TV remote in hand. “We got it, sweetheart. You don’t have to micromanage everything in the world, you know? You’re allowed to relax on your own birthday.”

  “Really?” I turn back and smile. “Can you talk to my naïve child about stranger danger while I’m gone? You be the serious, and I’ll wash my hair.”

  “Stranger danger?”

  “Uh-huh. He sat with a strange man today and let the dude get too damn close.”

  “What?” Dad snaps a dangerous glare toward my son. “Who’s the dude, and what the fuck did he want?”

  There he is.

  You can take the delinquent out of the hood, but you can’t take the hood out of the delinquent, even when he’s sixty years old and retired from illegal car racing decades ago.

  9

  Eric

  With a to-go cup of coffee in my hand that a waitress not named Katrina poured for me, I pocket my car keys and swing into the Checkmate Security offices with a smile for another sunny day and a wish the fall could last longer. Summer around here is hot as Hades, and the winter hurts my balls, so I enjoy the in-between seasons. I don’t wish a single second of them away, and I almost always have a smile, because for a short while each year, I’m neither melting or frozen.

  Stepping past the six-foot-tall plastic ice cream statue tucked into the corner with a chuckle, I shake my head because the women attached to my co-workers, my brothers, are a bunch of devils in angels’ clothes. They steal, fight, cheat, cuss, and never do as they’re told, and despite the fact a couple of them are sisters to the law, they still loaded up into a family car, drove their asses across town and stole that ice cream statue because of a two-decade-long grudge against unfair working conditions and an old lady who was mean to them way back in high school.

  The stealing wasn’t the issue, really, but shit heated up fast when Miss Dixie, the owner, dragged her sobbing self in here to hire our services to help her find the damn thing. I had to keep a straight face and talk the woman though the paperwork when our office went into full frenzy mode while the heathens hid the statue and giggled about it the whole time.

  I consider this place my home away from home. It’s the place I’d honestly rather be, except perhaps sitting in an old diner watching a certain waitress walk. For eighteen months, I was working an undercover case and handled Jay and Kane Bishop while they worked. I was kind of the home base, the father figure, in a sense, and living with these guys on a semi-regular basis. But ten months ago, our case blew open; everyone was pulled back, and the home base we’d made became something else.

  Kane Bishop is now living in that home with the woman he declares his whole existence for. Jessica Lenaghan will become Jessica Bishop before we know it, and though I stayed in that house with them for a little while, nobody wants to be the third wheel or lying in bed all alone while Jess and Kane’s headboard rhythmically slams against the wall.

  It was a reminder of what I didn’t have, and too often, it tempted me to go out and find my own companion to spend a little time with. Which is how I ended up in the diner so often; I’d rather watch Katrina walk than any other woman doing anything else.

  I seriously need help.

  I’m no longer a Fed, but a civilian with too much alone time in the apartment above Ang’s garage and little direction in where I want my life to go. I lived and breathed the job for all of my adult life; I adopted new identities while I worked undercover, and kept busy watching Bishop backs. But now we’re out; the guys are in love, and the most excitement I see comes from cheating women and baseball bats in the dead of night.

  But still, I take pleasure in my new job at the security company. Of all the jobs I could have considered once I became a civilian, doing this with my best friends is kind of the best-case scenario, even if I take a baseball bat to my shoulder sometimes. I’m in here from eight in the morning, and I don’t leave until after six in the afternoon, and during those hours, my time is filled with purpose.

  I have something to do. A goal, a case, a mission.

  I’m the first to offer myself up for extra time and surveillance work, and though the guys know what I’m doing and why, they allow it, because they know as soon as I clock out and everyone goes home, I’m left standing in the parking lot with a big fat question mark hanging over my head.

  Where to now? What do I do? Where do I go?

  I’ve tried to stay away from the woman who throws out the biggest neon rejections I’ve ever seen, but I can’t. Every time I stop in the parking lot and ask myself what next, I see her.

  I don’t even know her! I shouldn’t think of her late at night when I’m all alone, but I can’t stop. So I inevitably find myself sitting in a booth in Franky’s for a couple hours while I watch the beautiful succubus work, and when she takes her twenty minutes for dinner, I try to mind my own damn business and not listen to her talk with her son.

  I just want a minute of her time. But I’d rather it wasn’t through a video conference during stalker mediation.

  “Eric!” Amid girly screams and stomping feet, one of my favorite blondes races through the office in tiny shorts and flying hair as she grabs my arm and swings behind me. Jess uses me as a shield despite my aching shoulder, until all formidable and shit, Sophia Solomon steps into the room with a fully automatic Nerf gun and point
s it right at my face. “Give her up, Cap, or you both die today.”

  “What did you do to her? Jess?” I grab her arm and swing her giggling self around until she shields me. “What did you do to bring the wrath of a ballerina down on you?”

  “She ate my Snickers.” Soph cocks her weapon and brings it higher. “She knows better.”

  With a loud mock gasp, I shake the blonde twin and bite my smile when she collapses in a fit of laugher. “Why would you do that? Why would you steal food from her?”

  “I didn’t know it was hers!”

  “She knew, Cap.” Soph steps closer and brings the not-at-all-standard scope mounted to the top of the plastic rifle up to her eyes. “I have you both in my sight, and I’ve rigged this machine up to be powerful enough to take you both out.”

  “Sophia!” Jay Bishop’s voice echoes from the back garage. It sounds almost concerned, but I don’t think it’s for the ballerina’s safety. “Sophia Solomon!” His voice comes closer until he and his brother stop at the doorway with wide eyes and shocked expressions. “What happened?”

  “She ate my candy bar, babe.”

  “Jessica!” Jay scolds, though he can’t hide the way his lips twitch. “We talked about this, dammit. She needs to eat, or we’re all in her scope. Sophia, beautiful, I got some gummies that’ll take the sting away. You just gotta put down your weapon.”

  “No, I wanted the Snickers.” She doesn’t lower her piece a single hair. It’s all fun and games, and no one will die today, but not a single person in this room fools themselves into thinking she won’t make the shot and drop us both to our asses. “Why’d you take my candy, Jessica? You have three seconds to explain yourself, then you gotta make peace with your maker.”

  “I was hungry!” Jess continues giggling. “I was so friggin’ hungry, I was gonna eat the fridge door. Instead I found an almost frozen chocolate bar and considered it the universe rewarding me.”

  “Rewarding you for what?” Soph asks in a serious tone. “You didn’t do shit to earn my candy bar.”

  “Sophia,” Jay rumbles. “Ease it back.”

  Fast as a whip, she comes around and pops the illustrious Bishop brothers with such precision, if they were real bullets, the guys would be toast. Kane takes a rubber bullet between the eyes, and Jay in the solar plexus, only for her to swing back and pin me and Jess again. “Three.”

  “Sophia.”

  “Two.”

  “Sophia!”

  “One!”

  “I was hungry!” Jess bounds behind me and presses herself close to my back. “I’m so starving it hurts, so I stole. I’m weak, okay! It’s not my fault.”

  “It was somebody’s fault, Jessica Lenaghan.” Sophia Solomon is… a unique creature. She was once a classically trained ballerina, one who was destined to become famous and wealthy, but a cruel twist of fate led her elsewhere, so now she can handle guns, even the real kind, and hack twisted and well-protected firewalls created to keep people like her out.

  Sophia founded a school for dancers in honor of a lost loved one, and though she teaches preschoolers every single day, she’s also here, a strangely perfect fixture in an office full of hardened men, criminals, spies, as she stands at her man’s side and hacks the accounts of whoever’s file we put in front of her. She helps us do our job, and doesn’t take a single cent in salary for her hours put in here—something about how she’s self-funded and doing just fine for money. She’s our self-appointed head of cybersecurity – self-appointed, because when Kane Bishop proudly said he didn’t need her help, she hacked his life and company and locked him out until he handwrote an apology letter and delivered candy bars right to her front door.

  An unorthodox approach, but effective as fuck and convincing as well.

  So we took her.

  We keep her.

  But now she’s got the Checkmate queen bee in her sights.

  “I feel like we have pretty strict rules set in place for a reason.” Soph begins to circle as the office fills with more of our staff. Riley, our bionic leg ex-cop steps in and rests against his cane. Spence, our seven feet of Army Ranger finds the girls ridiculously cute. Soph could be holding a real gun, and he’d still smile and call her cute. Angelo, my landlord, who’s not employed here at all but hangs out more these days than ever before, tilts his head and watches his girlfriend’s twin sister quiver behind my back.

  “The only thing I ask of you people is that you don’t touch my food,” Soph continues. “I need to eat. I like to eat. Food is really important to me, and I’ve been known to torture a man for less.” She shoots off a round and nails me in the center of my chest. “Do you think that being royalty gives you freedom to steal?” She stalks closer, slowly, and ridiculously, considering it’s a Nerf gun and not a real weapon, scarily, until Jess is a mixture of shakes and laughter. “Do you think my simple requests are hot air? My threats baseless?”

  “I was just so hungry.” Jess worms her way around my body as Sophia stalks. “I’m sorry I stole. I promise to replace it with ten more. Kane! Run to the store, babe.”

  Soph shakes her head so her long hair sways. “I don’t want your guilty bars. I want the bar I brought in here this morning, and I wanted it ten minutes ago. Now my blood sugar is dipping, and my trigger finger might slip.”

  “Don’t shoot me,” Jess whimpers. She slides around my body as I stand in the middle of the office and remain her bulletproof vest. “Please don’t shoot me. You’d feel bad about it.”

  “Not sure that’s true.” Soph pulls the trigger and hits my jaw with a foam bullet. “I don’t feel bad about that.”

  “I see how it is,” I rumble. “I see how I’m just a pawn in your game, Miss Wise and Peaceful.”

  “I told you she was fresh outta the peace, Cap.” Jay steps forward slowly and moves up behind his girlfriend in preparation to disarm our hostile capturer. “You need to chill out, Sophia Solomon. Come to my office so we can… debrief.”

  Everyone’s lips quirk at Jay’s lack of subtlety.

  “Last chance!” Soph snaps. “I want a bar placed in front of me right now, or I want a valid excuse for stealing from me. Men have died for less.”

  “It wasn’t my fault!”

  “Whose fault was it?”

  “It wasn’t mine!” Jess cries out. “I was weak and hungry. I didn’t think anyone would notice.”

  “I noticed! I always notice when people steal from me. Last chance! Whose fault was it?” Soph rushes forward. “Whose fault? Whose fault? Whose fault?”

  “It’s the baby!” Jess gasps when the words slip past her lips. She claps her hands over her mouth and stares wide-eyed when Kane’s head snaps up. Instantly, tears fill her eyes, and her hands begin shaking. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Annnnd, my work is done.” Soph drops her rifle and pulls a new bar from her back pocket. Tearing the wrapper off while the rest of the office remains mute, she walks to the corner of my desk and sits down with an arrogant grin. “You should be more careful about your internet browsing history, Jess. I figured you out within two seconds.”

  “Blondie?” Kane isn’t often struck dumb, but he looks like a guppy fish now as he steps forward and slowly draws his girl from behind me. “What…” His lips flounder. Open. Closed. Open. “What did you just say?”

  “Um…” Jess looks back to me like I might save her again. “So… here’s the thing. Remember on vacation when we didn’t use condoms?”

  “Ew.” Plugging his ears, Angelo turns away and leaves the office on a huff. He grew up with Jess and her sister, so there’s a kind of big brother-little sister relationship going on. Hearing about her condom use is no bueno.

  “It was… uh… the night of Jericho,” she whispers. “The night of Karaoke. We kinda got carried away, but I didn’t think the timing was right, so I told you not to worry about it.”

  Kane’s dark eyes blaze. “That was nearly four months ago.”

  “Right…” She lets the word drag out a minute to
o long. “Then two months ago, remember I got the stomach flu, and you made me eat soup? We were in the deep end of your daddy issues and Soph’s stuff, so still, I didn’t think anything was up. Stress makes a woman forget, okay? Don’t judge me!”

  “Blondie…”

  “Remember how last week I got mad because my jeans didn’t fit?”

  “I remember that,” Jay volunteers. “We heard you screeching from across the street.”

  “We heard you blame us,” Soph adds. Lifting her hand, she makes the beak movements with her fingers. “‘It’s because of Jay and Soph! They’re always eating in front of us, so I grab an extra fry here and there, and now I’m fat.’ You shouldn’t blame others for your lack of willpower, Jess. It’s petty and weak and neither of us held you down while you ate half a cake last night.”

  “Don’t judge me!” Jess storms forward and tugs the half-eaten bar from Soph’s hand, shoves it in her mouth, and turns back to us with a whole lot of crazy in her eyes. “You did this to me, Kane Bishop! You made it so I can barely breathe and my jeans don’t fit anymore.”

  “You’re having my baby?” He steps forward with awe in his eyes and maybe a little shake to his hands. “Are you bullshitting? This can’t be a joke, baby. You’ll kill me if you say this shit and then take it back.”

  “I was gonna tell you soon,” she whimpers. “I was gonna surprise you.”

  “You’re having my baby?” he whispers. “You’re having my fuckin’ baby?” He picks her up and jumps like a little girl.

  Jess’ shaky smile quickly turns to a sickly green tinge. “Nope. Nope. Nope. Put me down, Kane Bishop. You don’t get to toss me around anymore.”

  “You’re having my baby?” Kane is considered our leader, our protector, our alpha, despite the fact there are others here who are older, bigger, badder. We defer to him because size and rank doesn’t make a leader. Heart does. And now our thug leader with a massive heart drops to his knees in front of the woman he loves and presses his face to her stomach. “Oh my God, Jessie. You’re having my baby.”