Checkmate: Checkmate, #8

by Finn, Emilia

  “It’s going to be okay.” Lib looks away from Checkmate’s front entrance and lays her hand over mine. We went back to her apartment so she could change her outfit, but no shower, amount of makeup, or new clothes will hide the damage to her face.

  It enrages me to see her hurt. It’s a thousand times worse than it ever was back in Abel’s club two decades ago, but it still makes me go back there in my mind. It lays down a sense of foreboding, and the fact I’m willingly walking toward Bishops today does nothing for my heart.

  “If shit gets messy, I need you to stay back.”

  “It won’t get messy.” She squeezes my hand, then looks out the windshield toward the building ahead and draws in a deep breath. She was hiding me last night, but today, she walks to the front line beside me. She’s making a huge sacrifice, selflessly blowing whatever cover she had in my absence, and showing the Bishops her connection. “It’s going to be okay. They don’t shoot first and ask questions later. It might feel that way, but it’s not. My chief trusts them, so that means something.”

  “And you? Do you trust them?”

  She continues to stare at the entrance. “I don’t know them. I know you don’t believe me, but I truly don’t. I know who they are, of course. I know whose sons they are, I know their dad’s connection with mine. I know they were federal agents until a year or so ago. I know they have a reputation around town as the enforcers around here. They run a security company where regular folks come in and order security cameras or whatever for their homes. But I also know that people go to them for much more serious reasons.”

  “Serious?”

  She nods. “Like, there was this guy a couple months back that was beating on his girlfriend. She wanted out, but she was terrified of what he might do about it. Word spreads in small towns, and when she heard that someone might be able to help, she hired a couple Checkmate men to escort her in and out of the home she shared with the dude. He got mouthy about it,” she grins, “allegedly. And because of his big mouth, he ended up in a dentist’s chair, needing a new set of teeth.”

  “And you don’t call that criminal behavior?” I sit back to rest against the door. She stares at the Checkmate office with fear in her eyes. She’s facing her demons today too. “You’re a cop, you swear your squad is clean, but your chief allows this vigilante justice in his own town and no one is being arrested?”

  “Oh, someone was arrested,” she snickers. “Oz stood with him while the dentist worked on him, and made sex jokes the whole time, because they were connected with a pair of cuffs, and the dude’s mouth was open for two hours straight.”

  “Real mature.”

  She snorts. “I’m just saying that these guys might be rough and a little scary, but they look after the underdog, they help empower people. They made it so that scared woman could collect the album with photos of her deceased brother. They make it so a single mom has a secure home because her ex had a habit of kicking doors in.”

  “Why do you drive your own car to work?”

  Finally, she breaks her stare with the office. “Huh?”

  “Why do all of your other colleagues drive department-supplied cruisers, but you drive a personal car?”

  Her non-swollen eye narrows. “You ran my information enough to know that the piece of shit car I drive is registered in my own name?”

  I nod. “Why does Oz get a shiny truck? Why does Alex get a current year SUV? Why does everyone get something shiny and new, but not you?”

  “Because I don’t want anything.” She climbs out of the car and forces me to follow. I slam my door and meet her at the hood, but before she takes off, I yank her back and hold her face.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want any perks. I don’t want to drive a fancy car when there are people in town who have no car at all. I don’t want anyone to claim their tax dollars are paying for me to be fancy.”

  “Why not? The point of tax dollars is for the police to have resources that make their job easier.”

  “Because it’s a short leap from tax-funded town employees to mooching, thieving, or racketeering. So I drive my own junker, and then no one can ever say I accept anything from anyone. I do my job, Theo. I do it well. I uphold the law and keep people safe.”

  She called me Theo. We’re standing outside Checkmate, and she’s finally using the name I begged her to use.

  “You uphold the law and keep people safe… Except for women beaters.”

  She scoffs. “They don’t count. I’d sooner save a raccoon from the streets and let him sleep in my bed.”

  I hold her face and bring her back when she tries to turn away. I’m standing merely twenty feet from the people who might want to kill me. I know a large part of me wants to kill them. But here I stand, thinking about Libby’s bed. “Am I the raccoon, Lib? Am I the rabid animal that you take pity on?”

  She leans into my hand and grins. “Guess so. Not sure how I feel about it. I’ve avoided the car thing for a decade, but now I have you in my bed, and no matter which name you choose to go by, that shit looks bad for me either way.”

  “Maybe you should stop caring about what people think of you?”

  “Says the guy who won’t admit his surname isn’t Griffin.”

  She throws these words around so easily, when for the past twenty years, Bishop has been a dirty word in my world. Nobody has spoken to me as flippantly as she does, and not once has the thought of danger entered her mind.

  In my world, I’m formidable, a dangerous animal few cross, and fewer yet live to tell the tale. But it’s like Libby didn’t get the memo. She doesn’t give a fuck that I prefer not to speak; she hasn’t even noticed. She doesn’t give a damn that my stomach drops every time she says Gunner and Bishop in the same sentence, or the hatred I feel for people I literally do not know.

  She’s hit the nail on the head; I want to punish them for the crimes their father committed.

  “Come on.” She twines her fingers with mine and slowly begins in the direction of the front doors. “They already know we’re here. It’s not like their receptionist didn’t already round up the troops.”

  “You won’t reconsider staying out here?”

  “No.” She stops at the glass front door and turns back, giving the voluptuous Dolly her back. “I was a little girl once, and I wanted to come with you. I wanted to run away and go wherever you went. I didn’t, and I spent the next two decades regretting that decision.”

  “You were only nine, Lib.” I bring our joined hands up and press a kiss to her knuckles. “You didn’t have a whole lot of choice.”

  “I do now.” She gives a small smile. “I make all of my own choices now, and that includes no more ground turkey in my diet.”

  “Turkey is cheap, Elizabeth. Fuck! Stop being so high-maintenance.”

  The door whizzes open at Libby’s back, revealing Dolly in her chaotic outfit of satiny black, leopard print heels, and bright red lipstick. “I’m gonna need you folks to get inside and put me out of my misery. I’m dying to know what’s going on; the guys have raided the weapons cabinet, they hid grenades in the conference room, and then the dumbasses tried to tie Jessie to the bathroom heater. The boss ain’t sharing why we’ve gone into lockdown, but it happened right after the chick cop called, so I’m gonna need you to give me answers.”

  “There are grenades in the boardroom?” Lib asks. “Are you serious right now?”

  “Pins are still in.” Dolly pulls a lock of hair around her shoulder and studies the ends. “You have nothing to worry about. But seriously, tell me why everyone is panicking. I have the right to know why Kane was carrying away a screaming and biting Jessie.”

  “The pregnant one?” I ask.

  Dolly nods.

  “She was screaming? Why?”

  “Oh,” Dolly waves me off. “Not screaming like, ‘Help me, help me!’ But the kind like, ‘I’m going to tear your balls out through your asshole and make you eat them for dinner. Put me down before I sm
ash you with a brick while you sleep!’ Our little Jessie ain’t a damsel. She’s got a problem with Kane never listening to her.”

  “That’s enough now, Dolly.” A man in jeans and a flannel shirt steps up behind the receptionist with tight lips and dark eyes.

  Eric DeWhit; former agent, retired now. Turned in his papers within hours of Kane doing the same. They were in together, and then they got out together.

  “Theo Griffin.” His eyes scour me from my shoes to my hair, and with a twitch of his nose, his gaze goes to Libby and he does the same to her.

  I pull her closer, almost stuffing her behind my back by the time he’s done studying her.

  “Libby Tate.” He puckers his lips in thought, then pulls them in with a click. “Is this official business, or are we pals?”

  Libby steps out from my shield and stops only when I wrap my arm over her shoulder and force her to. Her knees almost buckle from my weight, but I’m not letting her go, and I sure as hell am not letting her stand in front of me. “I’m not here in an official capacity, Cap. I have someone here who’d like a meet with the guys. I’m kinda the…” She considers her words, then shrugs. “The middle man, I guess. I know both parties, so I made the connect.”

  “You unarmed?”

  He’s asking me, I’m certain, but it’s Libby who shakes her head. “I’m a cop. I’m never unarmed.”

  He thinks about it for a moment. Studies her battered face, and the arm that I have slung around her neck to the point of almost choking her. Then he looks to me. “You?”

  I shake my head. “I grew up on the streets. I’m never unarmed.”

  “You’re carrying?” Libby spins with a gasp. “What?”

  “I’m very discreet about it. You spent the whole night with me, and you’ve yet to see a weapon.”

  “Mm. That answers that, then.” Eric rubs a hand over his stubbled jaw and continues to study me. “Walked into an office with him – or, well,” he chuckles. “Was carried in by him. But he wasn’t there when you came out. Now you’re saying you stayed together all night…” He lifts a brow. “You have a story to tell us, no?” He looks me up and down once more. “I won’t take your weapons, Griffin. You were in yesterday, you were surely packing, and you managed to keep your cool. But you should know this building is secure. Every man inside has half a dozen pieces on his body at every minute, and we outnumber you five to one. Don’t make us take you out.”

  “We’re not here to cause trouble,” Libby insists. “I belong to Alex, right?”

  Eric nods. “Yeah.”

  “So you know I’m not here to make trouble. Alex trusts me, you guys trust Alex. We just want to talk.”

  “Alright.” He slowly backs up, taking his receptionist with him and jockeying her back as though worried she might be a target.

  When I came in yesterday, everyone inside was laughing and loud. There was joking and muffled crashes. But today, it’s deathly silent.

  Dolly moves back to her desk when Eric gives her the eyes, but her phones remain quiet.

  This almost feels like a funeral. A moment of silence for the fallen.

  I let naked legs talk me into walking toward my death.

  Libby walks faster than me, more eager than I am to face them, and when we leave the reception area and enter a much larger space full of desks, we’re met with loaded silence. A dude with long hair that stretches to his jaw sits at a desk with his fingers steepled and resting against his chin.

  Another guy, seven feet of muscle I know to be Spencer Serrano, rests with his back against the wall, a foot lifted behind him, and his arms folded. He watches us with an intensity in his eyes, and about five guns strapped to his legs. He’s massive, and he’s not playing.

  “Cruz.” Libby steps up to another guy who rests against a walking cane. He’s young, no older than me or anyone else in this room. His jaw is square and ticking, his chest broad.

  He steps forward in a black shirt and camo pants, but his glower turns to a small grin when Libby offers a fist, and he bumps it.

  My brow shoots high at their familiarity.

  This all seems too fucking friendly for her. Has this been a game all along? Draw me in, fuck me, bring me here, and flip the script to reveal she’s a Bishop soldier after all?

  “Calm yourself.” Spencer’s eyes remain on my twitching hands. “Don’t be dumb, Griffin. We don’t have to have beef.”

  “Where are they?” Libby asks. She stops beside me in the center of the room and steps closer when I pull her in.

  She might cross me. She might be the very cause of my demise, but I still pull her closer so I can protect her.

  What can I say; women control me. First my mom, and now Libby.

  “In the boardroom,” Eric says. “Four of them.”

  “Four?” I look from face to face. “Four Bishops?”

  Eric smiles. “No, two Bishops, and two women who don’t know how to mind their own business. One of those women is set to become a Bishop soon. I sure hope you’re not going to fuck with those plans.”

  “Come on.” Libby slips out of my hold, but takes my hand. “Everybody needs to take a breath. This doesn’t have to be so friggin’ tense.”

  “Easy for you to say.” Spencer watches every step we take. “You guys have the information. We have a blind date and no clue if the person turning up weighs five hundred pounds and has boils all over her face. Is my date gonna fuck me, Tate? Or fuck with me?”

  “Neither.” She pats his chest as we come to stop by the very door he’s guarding. “You’re handsome, Spence. But I’m not interested in fucking vigilantism.”

  “And yet, you walk in with this dude.” His dark eyes study my face and chest. “The women in there aren’t a weakness for us, Griffin. They’re armed and capable.”

  “Can we just go in already?” Libby places her hand on the door handle, and takes mine in her left. “We don’t have to do this intimidation game thing. We’re just here to talk.”

  The silence remains for a minute more. Spence’s stare is hot and dangerous, burning my skin with warning, but then he drops his chin and gives us all the permission we’re going to get.

  Libby lets out a deep breath, twists the door handle, then pushes through and brings me into a whole other space of silence.

  The boardroom is large, has a table that seats twenty or so people, and a massive smart board on the wall that remains switched off and void of information. The room is bland, clean, and will not give away any of their secrets.

  Four people sit at one end of the table. Kane and Jay sit side by side with hard faces and angry stares. Jess sits on Kane’s left, and Sophia on Jay’s right.

  I totally fucked up when I hit on Sophia.

  The guys watch us with grinding jaws, rolling muscles, and hard eyes. But the women watch us with curious gazes. They’re not worried about danger; they know the Bishops will take care of anything that needs to be taken care of, so they relax where the guys can’t, and try to figure us out despite our lack of words.

  “Kane.” Libby releases my hand and walks forward to take Kane’s. “Jay. Thanks for seeing us.”

  Jay sits back when Libby drops her hands in her pockets. He appears at ease – sort of. He lifts a leg and rests his ankle on the other. He plays with something between his fingers, a fidget spinner of some sort, and watches us under heavy brows made heavier by a beanie.

  Kane isn’t fidgeting at all. He sits, ready to explode, silently watching Libby as she steps into my side and rests her hand on my hip. He lifts a brow at her ease, or perhaps it’s at her comfort in announcing who she’s with.

  That comfort helps me too. She says she’s not on anyone’s side, but she didn’t rush in here with big smiles and welcoming hugs. She’s standing beside me, touching me, whispering her thoughts to me.

  “Theo Griffin is back in our office,” Kane begins. “Yesterday, you were arrogant and hitting on Soph. Today you stand with the chick cop. I can’t say I understand your angle. Y
ou thought owning Soph would benefit you somehow, but she’s not for sale.” He lifts a brow. “So you acquired a cop instead?”

  Libby’s body tenses against mine as the very thing she didn’t want to happen, happens.

  “She’s not for sale.” I came in here planning to be my silent self, to let them talk their way around to what needed to be said, but I can’t let them think poorly of Libby. “I don’t own her, I didn’t acquire her, I didn’t buy her. She’s just an old friend of mine who decided I wasn’t a total prick.”

  “I’m yet to be convinced,” Jay growls. “How does Libby Tate, chick cop of our small town, know Theo Griffin? How is she your old friend, when I’m almost certain you’ve never set foot in this town before now?”

  “I haven’t.” I take a step forward, nod toward a couple chairs tucked against the table, and when Kane agrees, I pull one out and help Lib sit. The Bishops watch us with dark eyes that speak of danger, a promise to take us out if we move too fast.

  I pull the chair out beside Lib, drop down, then I sit back and fold my ankle over my knee. “I’ve never been to this town before this visit.”

  “When did you arrive?” Jay asks.

  “Little over a week ago.”

  He nods. “So you met her nine days ago and consider that old friends?”

  Libby shakes her head. “G–” She chokes on what I’m certain was going to be the name she once knew me as, and instead swallows down her nerves. “Um… Theo and I met when we were children. A very long time ago.”

  “You met Theo Griffin when he was just a child?” Sophia watches us with narrowed eyes. She has a laptop open in front of her, but her hands remain in Jay’s lap for a moment. Jess is her opposite in some ways. She’s the light to Soph’s dark, the innocent to Soph’s narrowed gaze. She’s also heavily pregnant, and instead of laying her hands in Kane’s lap, she rubs gentle circles against the side of her stomach while she watches us. “You’re gonna have to get to the reason you came in yesterday thinking I could be bought,” Soph continues. “I’ve tried to run you, Griffin. I’ve searched everywhere; she says she met you as a boy, but I can’t seem to find any existence of a child Theo. And I looked.”