Checkmate: Checkmate, #8

by Finn, Emilia

  Aiden and Benny might be the most dangerous men in this room. Even with Soph at her laptop, and the Checkmate crew strapping weapons to their bodies, those two, who appear otherwise unarmed, are the most dangerous. A dad and a friend.

  A boyfriend?

  They stalk the offices and make sure everyone is working, and because there’s literally nothing else they can do, they glare at anyone that dares to stop moving.

  Evie and Lib have been missing for four hours, and for every minute that passes, the darkness presses in around us, and the heavier our worry sits.

  Did the girl survive the initial attack? Did Libby? And if so, where are they now?

  “Hayes sisters!” Soph’s ballerina body snaps taller when she gets our first hit. “Fuck, I found them.”

  Half of the room stops and lifts their heads as Soph zooms in on her screen. The timestamp shows this footage is from only an hour ago.

  After Olly took the girls.

  Once they were already situated wherever they’re going.

  “Let me just…” Soph’s eyes narrow as she clears away every other box popping up on her screen and isolates the one we need. “They went to the store. See the bag the chick on the left is holding? Her hands?”

  I lean closer so Soph and I are basically cheek-to-cheek. “Jonah’s?”

  “Mm.” She zooms a little closer and takes a screengrab of the bag. Isolates it, zooms in, and begins spinning it so we get a 3D view. “Soda?”

  “Just regular groceries.”

  My cell begins to vibrate as I study the screen and the bottle-shaped indent in the bag. Annaliese is the only person with permission to call, but though I don’t intend to answer, I still take it from my pocket out of habit.

  It’s strange how a lifetime of habits makes a man.

  I see Olly’s name on my screen, and I think of my driver. I think of the guy I sent for groceries when Libby had a concussion and needed pain relief, or the guy who was sent to follow her into the city while I searched her apartment. It’s instinctual that I think of these things, rather than what’s real, but once that second passes, my eyes snap wider.

  “Guys! It’s him. It’s Olly.”

  Soph snatches my cell with lightning-fast reflexes and jams a cord into the bottom. Spence and Romeo stay by their cache of weapons, but the rest of our crowd converge as I stand and force Soph up when I take my phone; she needs to stay within reach because of the cord.

  I look to her for direction, then to the girl’s dad. He’s frozen with indecision. Broken beyond comprehension.

  “Answer it,” Alex says. “Stay calm, ask questions.”

  “Don’t fuck this up,” Ben growls. “I don’t know you, but I’ll remember you for the rest of my life. Don’t fuck this up.”

  I nod and look back to my phone. Terrified the call will ring out, I swipe a thumb across the screen before I decide which way I’m going to play this. Am I Griffin, silent and foreboding? Or am I just a guy that wants that little girl back?

  Mostly, I’m Gunner, and I’m running down those stairs again when what I really want is to grab onto Libby and never let go.

  “Griffin.”

  Olly’s chuckle feels like home. It’s ridiculous to miss the only man I considered my brother, when I know he’s not truly one of us.

  “Theodore Griffin,” he laughs. “Gunner Bishop. Bastard child, prick of a boss.”

  “Olly.” I back away from the crowd slow enough to let Soph keep up. She works one-handed, since the other is supporting a laptop until one of the many men here take a hint and hold it for her. For as long as I stand, she either works one-handed, or she needs someone to help. “I don’t understand what’s going on right now.”

  “Of course you don’t.” What started out as sound in my ear turns to surround sound when Soph does something on her end. Now dozens of men can hear everything my second-in-charge says. “You were so fucking obsessed with yourself, you never paid attention to what was happening around you.”

  “Please, Olly, explain to me where I fucked up, because I’m really confused. I thought…” Against my wishes, my eyes go to Kane’s. “I genuinely thought we were family. I’ve known you since you were just a kid.”

  “The irony,” he hoots. “So much fucking irony.”

  “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

  “You say ‘kid,’ Griffin, and you mean you’ve known me since I was a hungry twelve-year-old approaching you like a stray cat in an alley.”

  “Well… yes.”

  “But you don’t remember the child in Hayes’ club? The boy you completely ignored, because you were so busy talking to the girl?”

  I look to Soph.

  “The boy? I don’t…” A memory from forever ago flashes through my mind. “The toddler. You were playing with blocks in Hayes’ office…”

  “Give the man a medal.” Clapping hands literally make me jump when they crack through the speakers. “So easily ignored, so easily forgotten.”

  “Olly… where’s Libby?”

  “Oh, she’s here.” Olly’s eyeroll is almost audible. “Surprise surprise. Griffin is still obsessed with the girl.”

  “She’s my family,” I answer in my defense. “Of course I ask about her.”

  “And what am I?” Olly screeches. “Why aren’t I family? You walk into a room and decide only one of the four people in there are worthy? My father was banished from the Bishop empire, so what happened to me? I became a fucking soldier. A child was handed a gun and told to kill or be killed. Why don’t I get to be a part of your family, Griffin?”

  “You are! You were family. I trusted you to watch Libby. I trust you with my company, with my home, with my everything. I trusted you!”

  “You trusted the soldier, the boy that came to you as a man, and only after I proved my worth. But that child, the toddler in Hayes’ club; he was nothing to you.”

  “I mean…” I look around. “I didn’t know you. You were someone else’s kid, and you were playing blocks. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Knock them over and ask if you wanted a nap?”

  “You’re an asshole,” he seethes. “You think you’re so fuckin’ funny.”

  “No, I really don’t. I don’t understand why you hold animosity toward me. If you’re mad at Hayes, then fine, get in line. So am I. If you’re mad at Bishop, you aren’t the only one. But taking the Frankston girl was wrong and stupid. She wasn’t even conceived yet. She did nothing to deserve this.”

  “But she did,” he taunts. “She’s like you, a bastard child who got lucky. Now she has–”

  “Where is she?” Aiden snaps. “Where’s Evie?”

  Unbothered by the fact someone else enters our conversation, Olly answers, “She’s here, Rocky. She’s fine.”

  “Put her on the phone,” Alex demands. “Prove she’s fine. We’ll talk when we know she’s okay.”

  “Girl.” We hear footsteps, whispers, and then a whimper. “Speak.”

  “Biggie?”

  Aiden’s breath explodes out on a strangled cry. “Smalls. I’m coming for you, baby. You don’t have to worry, okay? Where are you?”

  “You can tell them,” Olly says. “We can’t start until they arrive anyway, so…”

  “We’re at Scotch’s club,” she whimpers. “And they’ve got a–”

  “That’s enough.” Evie is silenced with a cry, and Olly’s footsteps scuff against the floor as he walks away. “You know where we are. Send me the children of the club. No one else.”

  “Why?” Libby’s voice echoes through our call and almost strangles me. Her single word is scratchy and garbled. “Why us? What did we do?”

  “Because we need to finish something that was started.”

  The line cuts out, and silence hangs for just a beat before our room explodes into noise.

  “Club 188!” Alex shouts. He looks to Soph. “Do that thing you do, find us the best way in.”

  “We know that club inside and out,” Ben says. “We know it. We don
’t need computer stuff.”

  “Wait.” Aiden’s brows furrow as he holds onto the boy’s tank before he races away. He looks to Alex, then to Kane. “She said Scotch’s club.” He turns to me and Soph. “She said Scotch’s club.”

  “She means 188, right?”

  “Right, she means 188, but that’s not Scotch’s club. It’s ours. It’s hers.”

  “Why mention Scotch?” Kane stops beside us with glittery black eyes exactly like those his father wore when he asked an eleven-year-old boy his name. “Scotch has nothing to do with this.”

  “Who is Scotch?” I ask. “Who is that?”

  “Scotch is one of the band members,” Ben says. “He’s Alex’s brother, and the lead singer in the band that always plays at the club.”

  “She means the stage,” Aiden says slowly, as though it’s a question instead of a statement. “She’s near the stage?”

  “You had a new stage installed earlier last year,” Ben answers. “Scotch was always bitching, complaining what you had was like an afterthought.” He turns to Kane. “That’s what Scotch kept saying; that the club wasn’t built for a band, so the stage was an afterthought. An add-on. The Rollers finally had a new stage installed last year, and now the club layout has changed a bit.”

  “She’s by the stage,” Aiden repeats. “She’s telling us where she is. Bottom level, to the left when you come in the main doors.”

  “She’s speaking, and she’s lucid enough to tip us off.” Kane slaps a hand onto Aiden’s shoulder. “She’s unharmed, and she’s ready to tear him apart. Let’s move.”

  “There’s an entrance beneath the stage.” Ben stops every man in his steps when he turns to Aiden. “The stage has storage beneath for the band’s equipment, but the bottom doors only open so far. There’s a tiny crawl space that leads straight into the club. It’s separate from the other storage doors.”

  Aiden’s nostrils flare. “I will kill you, Conner. I will murder you if you snuck my baby into that club.”

  “I didn’t!” he stammers. “I stopped her from going in. I locked it up from the outside and never gave her the key. We fought about it.” His eyes wheel from one set of eyes to the next. “We fought, because she thought she was clever for making that space, but I padlocked it up and refused to give her the key. She keeps trying to challenge me for it. She’ll make bets or whatever. If she wins, I pay her. If she loses, she pays me. She was super mad when I locked the space, so I said if she can win enough to save five grand, I would give her the key.”

  “This is why you refuse to let her win her circuits,” Aiden murmurs. “You refuse to let her win.”

  “No,” he snarls. “I refuse to let her party in a club that started as a drug cartel. She’s only sixteen. When she’s old enough to party, I’ll take her, I’ll keep her safe. But she won’t be going a day sooner. And she especially won’t be doing it while crawling on the damn floor to sneak in.”

  “Where’s the door?”

  Ben turns to Kane. “South side of the building. About halfway along, it’s just the crawl space dudes use to check for pests and stuff. The tunnel splits off from there and straight into the club. It ends under the stage.”

  “Is it locked inside the club?”

  “Nope. Just outside. If she got in there, she could crawl to the door, but she’d be stuck under the club, because it’s locked from the outside.”

  “We’re gonna talk about this.” Aiden smacks Ben’s shoulder, but then he pulls him along and begins the stampede of us all piling out of the building and into cars.

  My hand flexes and tingles with need. I’m supposed to be holding Libby’s hand. She’s supposed to be right here with me, but instead I’m running with Soph and hoping our brains are enough. The woman I thought was a bimbo so long ago is my intellectual match, while Jay stays with Kane and rounds out our party as they watch our backs. As a group, the four of us jump into one car and speed out of the lot behind Alex’s cruiser and Aiden’s truck.

  “He’s leading us into a trap,” Jay says calmly. “We know this. He wouldn’t tell us where to go unless he had something waiting.”

  “And we’re doing exactly as he asked,” Kane agrees. “Three Bishops in one car. He didn’t ask for Spence or Soph or the chief. He asked for us.”

  “I’m not leaving Soph behind,” Jay says. “We’re not separating. And Kane stays on my wing always. We end it today, and none of us can function if we don’t know the others are safe.”

  “I’m staying with Griffin,” Soph says. She meets Jay’s fiery eyes when they snap up. “We need to stay strong, and Griffin and I are strongest as a team. You stay with me too, but where he goes, I go.”

  “Sophia…”

  “Work to our strengths, babe. You and Kane follow our six and keep us out of Dunne’s scope, but then you let us work.”

  “It works.” Kane tears the car around a corner behind Alex and snatches up his cell as he goes. Dialing, he waits only one ring before Alex picks up.

  “Yeah?”

  “You need to pair up with the muscle. Spence and Romeo will get you where you need to go. Trust them to fuck shit up and make it right.”

  “Okay. And you?”

  “We’re what he wants. We’re the kids of the fallen. Me, Jay, and Griffin. And Soph’s staying with us. Griffin is going straight for the chick cop, which means we’re heading straight for the girl too. Cars are loaded up; let Spence set up how he wants to set up. You won’t find a more trustworthy brother.”

  “I don’t know him, Bishop. I don’t know half of the people with us.”

  “I know him,” he murmurs. “It’s time to trust. I only associate with the best. That’s why I’ve kept you around.”

  “Bishop…”

  “Trust. You go with them and coordinate the layout. You know the club better than they do. Help them. Do it quietly, and get that door open in case the girl decides to crawl.”

  “And you?”

  Kane’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “We’re going straight through the front doors. It’s what he wants. It’s what he’s expecting, and he has no clue we have so many men. Turn your sirens off. He doesn’t need to know we have more.”

  “Too late.” Alex’s voice catches as he tears his car around a turn and skids onto the sidewalk out front of the club. “He would have heard us the second we left the station.”

  “Okay. Stay sharp. Dude knows computers. He knows security and whatever Griffin taught him.”

  “He knows explosives.” It’s a quiet admission, a confession of guilt as three sets of eyes come back to me. “Roar Munitions is a Griffin subsidiary. We’re contracted to supply the military.”

  “You make bombs?” Sophia screeches. “You’re… but… Roar has no ties to Griffin!”

  “Well… they’re hidden,” I admit. “I worked harder on that connect than I did on others. We’ve been working on this arm of manufacturing for about seven years. Olly eagerly followed me around while I worked.”

  “Fuck. Okay.” Alex audibly rubs a hand over his face. “I don’t know how to handle this. How big a blast radius are we talking?”

  Every pair of eyes come back to me.

  “Uh… there’s no safe zone if he’s gone big. Not for this town, or the next two. If he’s going small, then it could be contained to literally a square foot and still kill the person in that foot of space. I won’t know until I see.”

  “I’m definitely with Griffin,” Soph murmurs. She snaps her laptop closed and shoves it to the floor. “This isn’t one of those things where we snatch it and dump it in the lake to muffle the blast, is it?” she asks hopefully.

  “No. This isn’t gonna be like that.”

  “I’ll be with you. Jay can watch our six.”

  “And I’ll watch over all of you,” Kane says. “I’ll make sure you have space to take care of your shit. We don’t fuck this up. We only get one life, one chance. There’s no reset.”

  He cuts the engine beside Alex’s cru
iser and feels the same thing I do. I know tingles race down his spine, because we’re all already dead if Olly has explosives and decides to use them. There’s no running from this. There’s no hiding. Olly holds the entire town in his hands, and it can all be wiped out if he decides he’s done.

  “I think it might be a suicide mission.” I grab Soph’s arm as she turns to slide out of the car. “He can’t expect to survive this. Either he’s here, and he’s not expecting to survive, or he’s away, and he’s gonna remote activate, in which case, we’re already dead.”

  “Ever been dead before, Griffin?” Jay turns and meets my eyes. “Because I have. When you work while dead, it’s like all the free lives in your favorite Super Mario game. It’s like you ran into that titanium mushroom where you turn silver and you can run through all the bad shit, and none of it can hurt you. That’s what this is like. If we’re already dead, then we have nothing to lose. If we’re already dead, then we can take risks we wouldn’t normally, because fuck, there’s no fear of death if you’re already dead. Take risks, do this up right, and make sure my girl lives. I’m gonna marry her soon, so if you deliver her in one piece, you can attend. Like… sit in the back. You don’t get to speak or anything.”

  Soph laughs and, leaning forward, grabs his face with a rough hand and gives him one fast kiss. “There it is, I guess. The proposal of the century. Don’t die, and we’ll tie the knot.”

  “You got it, Sugar Plum. Let’s move.”

  34

  Libby

  Duck, Duck, Goose

  This is not what I was worried about when I thought of dating a Bishop. All of my fears of being called a Bishop Bitch, or a rentable cop, all of that washes away as I lay on a cold concrete floor beside a quietly crying Evie.

  The vests we both wear beep once a minute.

  One beep per minute.

  Our clothes fucking beep!

  “I don’t like this.” Evie rocks on her butt and whimpers. Her hand is a nasty shade of purple from lack of blood circulation, but she refuses to lay back, she refuses to make her reach easier while Olly walks laps on the other side of the large room. “I didn’t come here on purpose.”