Checkmate: Checkmate, #8

by Finn, Emilia

  Sophia sits beside me in the shortest skirt known to mankind and practically offers herself up, despite telling me earlier she’s in love with her man. She asks about my business, she wants to know what I can offer Checkmate, and she wants to know how our engineers can maintain such intuitive forward thinking. She wants to know why I’m in town doing the rep calls in person, rather than sending a regular division representative like I normally would. She asks questions in such an easy manner, it almost makes me suspicious she’s a genius in a bimbo’s getup, and she does it all with flirty grins and hungry eyes.

  But she holds no allure the way the perpetually scowling Libby does. Her short skirt doesn’t make my heart thump the way Libby’s jeans do. I need to get Libby on the same page as me, and I need to get her here now.

  “I said no!”

  My eyes come away from Sophia and stop on Libby as her drunk companion swings an arm out and smacks her.

  “Go sit somewhere else. I was here first.”

  Libby’s brows furrow when the man’s hand smacks her hard enough that it’s not a slap, but a deep thud. Drake’s brows pop, and I find myself out of my seat before I can control my movements.

  Sophia’s words – something about the Gladiator security system – cut off mid-sentence as I blow out of the booth and inadvertently draw Libby’s eyes.

  My movement distracts her, and the drunk dude is too fucking drunk to control himself.

  When Drake tries to help him stand, and distractedly, Libby takes his other arm to help, but her eyes are on me, the guy swings around fast as a whip in an effort to be set free. His arm is like dead weight, a locomotive that cannot stop on a dime. He swings around fast, and his fist slams against Lib’s face and cheekbone so hard that blood explodes from her nose.

  Drake slams the guy to the floor, but I find myself flying across the twenty or so feet that separate us so the toes of my shoes touch Libby’s, and I end up with one arm around her torso when her legs turn weak.

  “Fuck. Libby?” I hold her up when her eyes roll and her knees buckle. It was more than a tap, and more than anything you get when sparring in a gym. You expect a clip on the jaw when you’re inside a boxing ring, but no one expected the slam that came for Libby’s face. “Lib? Babe? Wake up.” I help her sit on the stool she began in, and accept a tall glass of ice the barmaid drops down by my elbow.

  Tears stream from Libby’s eyes as the right side instantly swells, enraging me as I wipe away blood and find a split lip.

  He backhanded her so hard he split her lip, made her nose bleed, and her eye is swelling.

  “Motherfucker!” I turn with the intention to pick him up and slam his face against the bar, but Sophia pushes into my space and spins me back.

  “Hold her up before she drops.” She reaches out and accepts a hand towel from the barmaid, dumps the glass of ice onto the towel, and bundles it up to make an ice pack. Gently, Sophia pushes the ice against Libby’s face until Lib hisses and her body tenses. “Hold this.” She takes my hand and pushes it forward so I’m holding the ice. “If you go to him, you’ll get your ass arrested. The cop has got it, so now you take care of Libby.”

  “I’m okay.” Libby’s eyes swing around the room as though she’s been spinning, spinning, spinning, then finally stopped and attempted to walk straight. “It’s okay.”

  “Not okay.” Sophia bends to stare into Lib’s uncovered eye. “Can you see me?” She raises three fingers. “How many?”

  Libby stares for the longest minute. The rest of the bar is chaotic shouts and moving people. The music is still playing downstairs, the people are still dancing, but upstairs, Drake is hauling the drunk guy to his feet and reading him his Miranda rights, and Sophia is slowly moving her hand in front of Libby’s face.

  “Tate…? How many fingers?”

  Finally, Libby’s gaze comes up. “Huh?”

  “Fuck.” Sophia tugs a cell from somewhere in her tiny skirt and makes a call. “Luc? I need a house call. Yes now.” She laughs at… Luc? Brother to the twins? “Officer Tate just took a smack to the head. She can’t focus, I think her ears are ringing, her pupils are dilated. He got her good.” She pauses. “Yeah. We’re actually at 188. You’re coming?” She pauses, then nods. “Okay. See you in a bit.” She hangs up and tosses the cell to the bar, then she bends lower to meet Libby’s eyes. “I thought you were tougher than this? One drunk dude cold-cocks you, and you’re out? What the fuck is that?”

  “Not out.” Libby’s hand comes up and wraps around mine for a brief second. Part of me thinks she wants to hold my hand. Maybe she craves my touch the same way I crave hers. But what she actually does is take hold of the ice pack and pull it all away. “He put stars in my eyes, but I’m good now. Drake?”

  “I’m here, honey.” Drake pushes the drunk’s face against the bar and lets his eyes scan Libby’s busted face. When he’s done taking stock, he crushes the guy’s head until he squeaks. “Scanlon’s gonna spend the weekend in lockup. Fuck him.”

  “Can you take care of the paperwork?” She frowns for no apparent reason. Blinking, blinking, blinking, she smacks her lips and hisses when she remembers it hurts. “I don’t think my brain can write reports tonight.”

  Drake lets his lips curl up into a smile, but it’s fake. He hurts for her. He really does love her. “I’ve got it. I wanted the collar, anyway. We’ve got a bet at my station; most arrests in a month wins. Most arrests in someone else’s town gets a trophy. You know I like them trophies.”

  “Yeah.” Grimacing, Libby pushes me back a step to make space, then she begins to slide off the stool one shaky foot at a time. The stools are too tall for her short legs, so what she intends to be a graceful slide becomes a stumble. Her eyes lock onto mine as though surprised to find me here. She has no clue what’s happening around her, but it clicks, her brows furrow, then she drops.

  “Fuck!” I grab her before she hits the floor, sweep her up to cradle her against my chest, and snarl when Sophia and Drake swoop in thinking they’re going to carry her. “Back the fuck up.”

  “Bring her to the office.” The woman behind the bar, the short one that I know is married to one of the fighters, climbs over the bar like she’s done it a million times in the past. She moves from the bar to the stool, then to the floor as everyone in the booths pauses what they’re doing and watches the commotion in front of them. “You guys can rest in Tina’s office and wait for Luc. She needs dark.” Stopping in front of me, the woman with a pixie haircut frowns. “She needs quiet, too.” Snatching keys from the pockets of her tight jeans, she leads me away from the bar and into a hall not a hell of a lot different from the hall I stood in with Libby twenty-two years ago.

  Switzerland. Safe.

  Sophia follows close behind, and though I should be worried about that, I can’t stop staring at Libby’s busted face. The right side of her lip has already doubled in size, and blood slowly coats her teeth. Her nose isn’t busted, it’s not bent or broken, but it’s bleeding. Her eye is swelling, the purple bruising already stretching across her cheek and cheekbone.

  I should be concerned about the fact I’m standing inside a club that used to belong to Sean Frankston. This club still belongs to his daughter; Evie Kincaid is a rich little girl and barely knows it.

  Her folks have been running the place for more than a decade, keeping the drugs out, keeping the entertainment legitimate, and every unlawful thing that happens in here – according to every scrap of data I can find – has nothing to do with the owners, and everything to do with clubgoers looking for a little extra buzz. The Kincaids are keeping the club clean until, one day, if Evie decides she wants it, I guess they’ll hand it over.

  I should be worried about stepping into an office that technically belongs to a Frankston. I should refuse to let Sophia step in behind me. And I should be triple fucking worried about the fact that Jay Bishop appears and follows us in with a dangerously ticking jaw. But these people aren’t a threat to me the way I am to them. Bishop i
s pissed that I hit on his girl, but he has no clue my true reasons for being here. He’s here to make sure I don’t hit on her again, not to watch me because of the blood that runs in my veins.

  He stands at the door with sparkling black eyes and a ticking jaw. He wears dark jeans, a black shirt, and a black beanie over his head, pulled down to cover his eyebrows. He’s on security detail tonight, and doesn’t like it when I sit at the desk with Libby in my arms, and Soph bends over us to work with the ice pack.

  I can’t see shit, but no doubt Jay sees her goods as she bends and helps me.

  “Hold the ice pack on her face,” Sophia whispers. She’s barely a foot away. “You don’t have to worry about him, okay? He’s super mad and super protective, but he’s not gonna stop you from taking care of her.”

  “I’m not worried about him.” I stare at Libby’s swelling face as Sophia drags her eyelids back with rough movements and studies her pupils. “I didn’t know he was your man when I offered dinner…” I grin. “The first time.”

  She snickers. “Nasty little surprise for you, huh? I don’t know your game, Griffin, but I can’t say you don’t intrigue me.”

  “Who says I have a game? I think you’re beautiful, we have mutual interests when it comes to work. Why can’t I just like what I see and not be shy about asking for it?”

  She lowers into a crouch and rests her elbow on my knee to keep her balance, her actions accented by Jay’s growl. With gentle fingers, Sophia strokes Libby’s hair back. “I’d almost believe you. I almost did. Your arrogance game is strong, and you really do have that forty-three floors in Griffin Plaza and enough money to buy almost anyone. But the thing is, you were on a dinner date with me, and this other chick walks into the club, and suddenly, I’m not the most beautiful woman in the room anymore. You don’t hear anything I say from the moment she arrives, and you run so fast when she’s hit that you leave scorch marks on the floor.”

  Her eyes meet mine. “You called her babe, you caught her when she fell.” Then they soften. “And you can’t stop staring at her. Your heart races because she’s hurt; I can see your pulse racing in your throat. Your eyes refuse to stop cataloguing her injuries, and your brain screams of concussion and how you’re not gonna let her sleep alone tonight, for fear she won’t wake up. If it was Jay who caught her, he’d have already laid her on the desk. He’d make sure she’s okay, he wouldn’t walk away, but he’d have put her down by now. But you… you hold on like she’s your floatation device in the sea. I didn’t know you had a thing with the local police, Griffin, but it adds another layer to the puzzle you present me with. That means you’re playing a game, and I like to think I’m smart enough to figure it out.”

  Libby’s eyes flutter open every few seconds. She’s not fully out. She’s mostly just… floating. Can she hear Sophia’s words? Can she hear the way my heart races against her ear?

  “I saw a woman get hit. It’s in my nature to take care of her.”

  Sophia’s lips twitch, but she doesn’t argue. “Okay.”

  The door pushes open again and brings Jay around in protector mode. I know he’s protecting Sophia, but Libby is right here, and the fact he’s on the door at all makes me breathe a little easier. These clubs give me the fucking creeps. Being with Libby in one of these clubs makes me break out in a nervous sweat.

  A blonde EMT moves through the door with a second, darker guy right on his heels. Luc is the third sibling for the Lenaghan family, the one who’s saving all his pennies for what I suspect might be a wedding in the near future. The guy behind him, Mitchell Rosa, is nobody to me. I recall his name from my searches of the Lenaghans in the last week, but it was a relief to finally come across a name that has no connection to the world I escaped. Every name I ran before him popped somehow. Someone knew someone, or someone’s daddy knew someone else’s. But Rosa was just a dude that goes to work and goes home again.

  It’s refreshing to me that not everyone knew Colum Bishop in some way. It’s almost like he made it his life’s business to have a finger in everyone’s pie.

  “What’s happening?” Luc moves around Jay and drops a bag of medical supplies on the desk in front of me.

  Sophia stands with a grunt when Luc needs the space she’s in. Stepping aside, she leans against the desk and grins when Libby snuggles closer to me.

  She’s not knocked out. She’s sleeping.

  “Dude?” Luc asks.

  “Luc Lenaghan,” Soph waves a hand in my direction. “Theo Griffin. Theo, Luc is Jess’ big brother and our local doc. You can trust him.”

  I scoff. “I don’t even trust you, Sophia. What makes you think vouching for him changes shit for me?”

  She shrugs as Luc leans in and takes a look at Lib’s face. “There’s no reason why you can’t trust me. I’ve never hurt you, and you’re the one who came to us, not the other way around. We have no beef with you–”

  “I have beef,” Jay grumbles. He remains on the door, like he knows his job, and no matter how much he wants to get closer to his girl, doing his job is more important. “You and I have a problem.”

  Luc grins as he works. “What did you do to him?”

  “I made a business offer. It’s what we do in the real world.”

  Luc frowns, confused.

  “He offered to buy Soph,” Jay fills in the blanks with snapped words. “Pay her double anything she earns here, put her up in the penthouse right beside him.”

  Luc grits his teeth and hisses. “Dude… I think you chose the wrong chick to hit on. There’s hitting on a dude’s girl, and then there’s hitting on a Bishop’s girl. I feel like maybe you forgot to pick up the FAQ pamphlet on the way into town.”

  “I didn’t forget shit. I have a company, and that company has positions to fill…” I flash a grin when Soph hides her snicker and Jay growls. “I see someone I think could be a good addition to my team, I make an offer. I don’t take it back; job’s still open.”

  Soph shakes her head and pushes off the desk while Luc cleans Lib’s split lip. Reaching into the desk drawers, Soph hums while she works and makes a happy little grunt in the back of her throat when she finds what she wants. With her discovery clutched tightly in her hand, she moves across the room and doesn’t stop until her toes touch Jay’s. She takes his hand and places a candy bar in the center, then she wraps his fingers around it and pulls his face down so she can whisper sweet nothings into his ear.

  Despite the short skirt, hooker heels, and the bruised Libby in my lap, none of what Sophia does feels cheap or dirty. She whispers to Jay for a minute, talks him down from whatever homicidal thoughts run through his brain. She caresses his face while he pockets the candy bar and holds her trim hips.

  He’s so much bigger than her, but he’s not abnormally large. He and I definitely come from the same gene pool, because all three of Colum’s sons have the same body, same width, same height. But Soph is so delicate, and Libby is shorter than Soph by several inches.

  I can’t stop focusing on Jay’s hands on Soph’s hips, because they make me think of my hands… and Libby’s hips.

  “She’s going to need supervision tonight while she sleeps,” Luc murmurs. His ocean blue eyes come up and meet mine. “I can have her transported to the hospital–”

  “No, I got it. Wake her every two hours?”

  He nods. “Did he hit her with a fucking sledgehammer? He knocked her good.”

  “I can hear you,” Libby mumbles. My eyes snap down and stop on her dirty green eye – singular. One eye, because the other is swollen. “I’m not out, I’m just sleepy.”

  Luc’s lips pull back into a playful grin. “Hey there, officer. You comfy?”

  “Yeah.” She tucks her legs up, frowning when they continue to slip, but she relaxes when I reach around and hug them close. “I don’t wanna talk about my current predicament. For as long as we don’t say the words out loud, it’s not as bad as it seems.”

  “You mean the bit where you got hit?” Luc asks.


  Lib shakes her head. “Nope.”

  “The bit where you’re in my arms?” I whisper. I wait for her eyes. “You have a problem admitting you like it?”

  Her cheek is already covered in blood, her lip cracked open. But beneath that color, a blush still manages to move beneath her skin. “Yeah, that bit. Tomorrow, the reports will say concussion, and you bet your ass I’ll argue I don’t remember this.”

  Luc chuckles, and leans over his bag to take out an antiseptic ointment. “Kari and I play games like this all the time,” he jokes. “Role-playing nurses and doctors is always hot when my thermometer needs to know her internal temperature.”

  “Ew!” Libby smacks him on the shoulder, but quickly rolls back into me while Luc chuckles and turns back with an actual thermometer.

  “Ew? There’s no ew about my job, Tate. Are you being dirty? Because I was talking literals.”

  “You’re a pig,” she grumbles. “And I’m ready to get up now.” Despite my hold and unwillingness to let her go, Libby rolls away from my chest until her feet slap the floor. Her ass remains on my leg for a moment, her elbows on her knees, and her head in her hands. “Jesus, there are bells in my brain. Like those big old church bells of Notre Dame.”

  “It’ll be better tomorrow.” Luc tosses his things onto the desk when Libby stands and sways. He grabs her hands and turns her around so she sits on the desk and her legs dangle between mine.

  I should back away. I should move and let the medic help her, but I don’t. I bring my chair in closer until, just like when she was a child, she rests her foot on my thigh and our eyes meet.

  How have we ended up in one of these offices again all these years later, with her sitting on the desk, her foot on my lap, her face fighting another shiner, and she has no clue who I am?

  It would seem Luc is the most flexible dude on this planet, physically and emotionally, because although I’m in the damn way, he works around me and applies butterfly strips to Libby’s split skin. “This’ll all be gone in a couple weeks. There’s no lasting damage.” He works with a pen light and makes Lib scowl when he flashes it in her eyes. “Do you feel nauseous?”