Checkmate: Checkmate, #8

by Finn, Emilia

  “No. Never. Bishop isn’t a name I’m proud of. It’s not something I toss around.”

  Alex’s eyes widen when my words penetrate his brain. “You’re a Bishop?” He looks to me, then to Kane. “You’re a Bishop… and you’re with Tate.”

  “Don’t do that, Chief.” It burns me up to see his pale face and the judgments being laid down just how Libby always feared. “She is not her father, and I’m not mine. Don’t lump that shit together.”

  “Oh my god.” He sits on the edge of the desk and rubs a hand over his face. “She’s dating a Bishop.”

  “Griffin,” Kane intercepts. “You’re saying in fifteen years or so, you have never once slipped that you’re a Bishop to that man? Not once?”

  “I mean…” I try to cast my mind back. “I don’t think so. It’s not something I chat about. The first person to call me Bishop since I was a kid was Libby. And that was three months ago when I came back to town. I honestly don’t recall anyone using that name since I ran out of Hayes’ club when I was eleven.”

  “Hayes’ club,” Alex chokes. “Fuck me. History is rolling back around.”

  “What else did this dude do for you?” Jay asks. “On a day-to-day basis.”

  “He shopped for groceries if I asked, collected my dry cleaning, intercepted meetings if I deemed the client too stupid for my time. He collected orders, signed for orders. He interviewed some of the lower-level staff. He was very much my second in charge the way Annaliese is. She takes care of corporate, while he’s more hands-on.”

  “Did you teach him the things you know about computers?” Soph asks. “You spent all these years building machines and software. Did he have that same skill?”

  “Yes… no… sorta.” I run a hand through my hair. “I taught him things, and he learned more than the average dude in the street. But it didn’t come easily to him. I think he’s dyslexic or something, because he struggled with numbers.”

  “Dyscalculia,” Soph says. “We’ve long said whoever was trying to search our files was clumsy, right? He’s good, but he’s clumsy.”

  “Fuck.” I let my head drop into my hands. “He just… it can’t be him. He’s Olly. He’s the closest thing I have to family.”

  “He’s the only choice you had,” Jay counters. “You chose him because you had no other options. That doesn’t make him worthy.” He turns to Kane. “What else?”

  “This has to connect to the emails and the Jericho graffiti. It all connects, so why does Olly want to say his name is Theo? Why does he want to paint you as the bad guy in our eyes? And how does it connect to the girl?”

  “It doesn’t connect to her,” Aiden rages. “She doesn’t connect to you people! But she’s in trouble, and I can’t sit in here any longer.”

  “Hold up.” Alex slaps a hand onto Aiden’s shoulder to stop him. “We don’t know where to go. You’d literally get to your car and have no clue where to go.”

  “Hotel?” Jay asks.

  “They said he’s not there,” Soph says. “They said he’s never been there.”

  “Under my name.” I look up. “Have them check under Griffin. He has stayed there, because he was there when I was there. But we book the rooms under my company name.”

  Alex jumps up as though to make the calls, but Soph’s already doing it. She doesn’t need to call the hotel and ask the lady on the line. She easily slides into their accounts and checks for herself. “Yeah. He’s checked in under Griffin. Got to town yesterday.”

  “Like the rest of us.” I meet Kane’s gaze. “He was in the valley with the sour-sisters, and now he’s here.”

  “He followed us straight back,” Jay says. “He followed us.”

  “He didn’t follow. It’s not like he hasn’t already been here with me. He knew where we were going.”

  “Why would he try to get us into the valley to talk?” Jay seems to be speaking to Soph more than anyone else. “Why? Griffin was there, which means he would have been recognized right away. Why show his face?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t on a peace-making mission like he said,” Kane inserts. “Let’s look at this logically; he had two Bishops, one Tate, and two Hayes daughters all in the same space at the same time.”

  “Don’t forget Spence and Romeo.”

  “And Soph.”

  “Right, but they’re extras,” Kane argues. “Soph, Spence, and Romeo were nothing more than a tidy bonus, but those original five were around from when we were kids. So why did he want all the kids together?”

  “You weren’t in the valley,” I say.

  “No, but he wanted me there. He called me out. Those were my signs he was marking. He was calling me specifically, but he can’t have known I’d stay with Jess.”

  “So again, why the original kids? And why Evie?”

  “She’s an original kid,” Soph exhales. She looks to Aiden, then to me. “She’s a Kincaid now, but she was born a Frankston. Everyone knows Frankston was in that club when your mom was murdered.”

  “Oh God.” Aiden slams his back against the wall and slides down until his ass hits the floor. “Fucking Frankston! Why does this continue to hurt us?”

  “Frankston is in prison,” Alex says. “He’s locked up tight. He’s not doing this.”

  “So who is Olly?” Kane says. “He must be someone. He knows shit about us that we don’t advertise. He targeted Griffin back in the streets, and Griffin has never muttered the words Bishop in front of him. Which means the kid knew, and he went looking.”

  “No, it’s…” I press my thumbs into my eyes and try to fight what’s so obviously being laid out. “A twelve-year-old can’t plan like that. And that was so long ago. That’s a long fucking game.”

  “If we’re talking kids of those gangsters, Evie is the last piece.” Kane looks to Aiden. “She’s the youngest, and she literally wasn’t even conceived yet when the shit went down for Griffin. But there’s no denying she’s Frankston’s, which makes her a target in Olly’s head. Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Aiden’s voice cracks with pain. “She’s just a baby, and Sean has been locked up a long time.”

  The door swings open so hard that Alex nearly loses a leg. Benny, that boy from the octagon, steps in with a bruised face and zero fucks about the fact he should knock before entering. “Here it is. Her daddy, the chief, and the Bishops. This is where the real shit is being discussed.”

  “Get out, kid.” Alex stands and tries to turn the boy away. “You’re not part of this.”

  “Fuck I’m not.” He turns and slams the door at his back, and without invitation, he leans against the same wall Aiden does and slides down until they sit side by side. “I’m here, and there’s not a damn thing you can do to remove me. I will snap your fucking necks if you try, so keep talking, catch me up, and then we find her.”

  Aiden’s eyes, glassy and on the brink of tears, come up and look at the boy. He studies the teen as though in search of faults. The instinctual thing to say is that he’s a kid, and to go away. But instead, Aiden and Ben’s eyes meet, and after a moment, Aiden nods and looks back into his lap. “He’ll be with me. I’ll watch him.”

  “Alright. Let’s break.” Kane claps his hands. “Hotel first. And while we do that, Soph needs to find the Hayes sisters. We know who they are, we know their names, and we know they’re with Olly, so they’ll be easier to track than he is.”

  “I can do that and run.” She leaves her laptop behind, but snatches a Griffin cell from her pocket and goes to work. “Let’s go.”

  32

  Olly

  Twofer

  “I don’t under–” The girl rubs a hand over the side of her face and grimaces. “What the hell is going on?” She tries to sit up, but stops again when she finds weight sitting against her chest and her left hand cuffed to an anchor point in the floor. She rattles metal against metal as though needing confirmation that her eyes aren’t playing tricks on her, and when her gaze stops on the vest I strapped to her body, her breath explode
s out on gasp. “What the fuck? Oh my God.” She looks to her left to find the other bitch just three feet away. “What the fuck?”

  “Tut, tut, tut.” I stalk a line in front of her and shake my head. “You’re still a child. Didn’t your mommy ever teach you not to cuss?”

  “My mommy taught me lots of stuff,” she rages. “She taught me how to stab a man when he fucks me up, and my aunt taught me how to shoot him in the head. I come from a long line of psychos, which means this–” she rattles the cuffs with a violent shake, “is basically the last thing you’ll do.”

  She still carries the arrogance of a child. Ignorance, because she refuses to acknowledge the predicament she’s truly in. Each time she turns and catches a glimpse of the unconscious cop, her façade slips. Cops are supposed to be safe. They’re supposed to be the hero, and hers is sleeping.

  “We’re having a little party, young Evie. Soon, the rest of the family will arrive, and we can begin.”

  “Whose family? My family?”

  “No, sweet girl. Our family. They called us a family, didn’t they?” I look from her to Tate. “They used to make us call all the men ‘Uncle,’ and all the kids our cousins.” I stop and meet her eyes. “You do that too, don’t you? You call those other assholes in the gym your cousins, and you call the Kincaids your uncles.”

  “They are my uncles. My mom married a Kincaid, she gave birth to two more Kincaids, and my last name is Kincaid. That makes the other Kincaids my uncles.”

  “No…” I saunter forward and crouch down so we’re on the same level. “Your last name is Frankston. And because the blood that runs in your veins is Frankston – though you’re the very reason Sean is now incarcerated – somehow, you end up with his fortune.” I tilt my head to the side and study the little bitch. “How is that fair? How do you end up with billions of dollars in the bank, when all I get is a cardboard bed in the streets?”

  “What?” She lets her attitude slip. “What are you talking about? I don’t have billions. My bank account literally contains three hundred and twenty-three dollars. I checked this morning.”

  “Your little piggy bank might have a couple hundred, but your name is worth billions. You know this, little girl. Don’t play dumb.”

  “Well… no.” Her eyes continue to flip to her should-be hero as Tate groans and fights to surface. “My biological father’s money has been sitting in a women’s shelter,” she argues. “My mom gave his money to all of the women. To help the women. Anyone that needs a bed…”

  “And yet, I needed a bed,” I hiss. “I needed a home. I needed shelter and food. But I got nothing while everyone else got the world!”

  “I don’t know…” Her eyes flicker to my hair. To my face. To my eyes. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why you’re mad at me.”

  “Oh, sweet girl. Don’t be so self-centered. I’m not mad at you in particular. I’m mad at a lot of people. You’re just the innocent bystander that always gets fucked up.”

  “He said that we’ll be heading out late–”

  “Oh good.” I stand and turn to the two new voices that head toward us.

  Evie is intrigued, despite knowing she’s stuck, and that makes me happy in ways that make my heart flutter. She’s strong, and it makes me giddy knowing that kind of strength flows in her blood.

  “Ladies.” I catch the women’s attention as soon as they step through the door.

  Zoey and Stella Hayes are older than me, but they still look good. They’ve had money and luxury their entire lives. They’ve had the best skincare products, the best surgeries, the best hair stylists and shoppers. They’ve had the best of the best, and apart from the occasional party, they’ve stayed far from the product they helped their father sell.

  All in all, they look great for chicks their age, and because they’re so used to a certain lifestyle, the minute Hayes was taken out and their banks dried up, they became my perfect lackeys.

  “You’re here just in time.” I wave a hand toward the girl on the floor. “Girls, this is your cousin, Evelyn. Evelyn, meet Zoey and Stella.”

  “I don’t know them,” Evie glowers. “They don’t get mad that a girl is cuffed to the damn floor, or at the fact there’s an unconscious woman beside me, or that I wear a vest that weighs a ton and beeps sometimes.” Her voice cracks on her final words. “Which means they’re not my people. Fuck off. Or better yet, uncuff me, and we’ll spar. Then we’ll see who’s tough.”

  “Nah.” I wave the women over and grin when they sidle up under my arms and make me look like a boss. I press a kiss to Zoey’s forehead, and when she purrs, I do the same for Stella. “This is Evelyn Kincaid, but she was born Katie Frankston.”

  Zoey gasps and looks up to me. “Frankston? Like… no way?”

  “Like… Yeah!” I mock her. “Now we’re just waiting for the rest. We’re gonna recreate a meeting between parents, and since those parents are now all fucked up, we declare ourselves the next generation of fucking gangsters. We rule ourselves, we create our own laws, and we do not fall as easily as the men before us.” I shake my head in disappointment. “Fuckin’ pussies were taken down by the most ridiculous shit. Come on.” I pull the sisters away from our newest visitors and release them when we reach a countertop full of equipment.

  Zoey and Stella wear tight jean cutoffs and soft blouses to fight the chill in the breeze. It’s not truly cold, but in here, in this club where much of my world began and ended, the concrete floors are cold when you’re wearing booty shorts and a thick layer of fear.

  “Let’s get this set up.” I hand a dummy remote-controlled explosive to Stella. “Here you go. I need you to carry this over to the girl, but don’t trip, and absolutely do not drop it. We’re all fucked if you do.”

  Her eyes widen. “What does it do?”

  “It’s a computer thing,” I brush her off with a lie and wave her away. “But it’s expensive, so don’t drop it. Set it just far enough away she can’t touch it.”

  “What?” Evie’s eyes widen the closer Stella comes. “No. No-no-no-no-no.” She’s not as stupid as her Hayes counterpart. She doesn’t know it’s inactive, but she knows it’s not a computer thing, so as Stella comes closer, she kicks her long legs out and tries to send the contraption flying. “You stupid ass bitch. Get that shit away from me!”

  “Don’t be such a little brat.” Slowly, Stella crouches down so her long hair rests against her back. She sets the explosive down by the girl, but it’s obnoxious and unnecessary. Give the world one thing to concentrate on, and draw their eyes away from what’s important. “Don’t touch this,” Stella murmurs to the girl. “It was expensive.”

  Evie looks the woman straight in the eyes. “Fuck off.”

  “Evelyn…” I saunter forward and shake my head. “You’ve got an attitude problem.”

  “No,” she argues. “I like my attitude. The fact you don’t like it means you have an attitude problem. Let me out of this thing.”

  “No, I don’t think I will.” Reaching back, I take out my Griffin Industries cell and chuckle at the logo.

  It’s ironic, really. To be employed by the Griffin, to be assigned to guard his woman when he’s otherwise busy. I’ve walked this town, and no one knew who I was. I walked into the gym, and no one had any clue how close our ties run. I worked for Griffin for more than a decade, and he had no clue we’d been in the same room as children, and the funniest yet, he taught me everything I know about this ‘computer stuff’.

  Nightmares and a coincidence. That’s literally all it took – coincidence. Theo Griffin says the word is a fallacy, but it’s really not. Two boys find their way into the same alleyway, and when one of them refuses to speak in the daytime, but can’t stop his subconscious from throwing nightmares at him, the name Bishop slips out and changes my trajectory.

  If I can’t get my hands on the money I’m entitled to – by blood – then I’ll claim my seat in Griffin’s office and finish what he began. I’ve been a fixture in that place f
or so long, Annaliese won’t question it. And she’s the only person I need to convince.

  The boss has gone on an extended vacation with his lady. I’ll be taking over until they return.

  I shake my head and swipe my screen open to make the call.

  There’s no game if no one knows where we are.

  33

  Theo

  The Mighty Lion

  Soph works as hard as she can, scouring the town’s motion-activated cameras set up every twenty feet from one end of Main Street to the other. The law frowns upon that kind of privacy breach, but Alex Turner says nothing as Soph and I sit together in the middle of Checkmate Security and try to find the needle in a haystack.

  This town isn’t massive, but it’s still a lot of cameras, and motion activation means exactly that – everyone is in motion all over town. The baker’s delivery van sends an alert up. A cab sends another up. Kids playing in the park, and other folks heading to church. There are a lot of cameras to study, and a lot of footage to watch, and the longer we take, the angrier those around us get.

  Spence, Romeo, and Cruz collect weapons and ammo from the bunker beneath this building, and when they deem them not enough, Spence and Romeo drive away and come back half an hour later with bigger, better, more.

  Alex Turner doesn’t know what to do. He can’t decide if he should arrest every single Checkmate employee and affiliate, or if he should thank them. He does neither. He simply accepts the weapons Spence tosses to him, and works them into holsters the same way the rest of our comrades do.

  Pictures of Evelyn Kincaid are flashed on every wall, every screen, and on every electronic device that moves around the room, but it’s Libby’s eyes that remain in the forefront of my mind. It’s not that she’s considered less important to them, but the fact a minor is missing trumps all else in everyone’s mind but mine.