Sacrifice The Knight: Checkmate, #6

by Finn, Emilia

  Switching on a TV using the remote by his computer, Derrick turns back to me with a lifted brow. “I demand honesty inside my club,” he says in monotone. “I demand loyalty. I demand not to have a fuckin’ rat inside my home!”

  He hits play on the remote, which starts a voice recording, but the screen remains black.

  “When are you coming home?”

  “Soon, Gem. I promise, soon. I’m working, but we’re getting closer.”

  My stomach drops with such speed, I almost lose my intestines on my boots. We’re trained to go undercover. We’re trained not to cross our two worlds over. “Derrick…”

  “Silence!” Spit flies from his mouth, and his smoothly styled hair begins to break away from the combed lines.

  “Callie wants her, daddy, Eric. You said this would be a short one.”

  “I told you I didn’t know, but it’s not in my control, Gem. We talked about this, remember? We talked about me moving up and working something new.”

  “I thought it would be sexy! I thought it would be like the movies.”

  “I can’t stop working this case because it’s not the dream you were hoping for, babe. You’re being unreasonable! We shouldn’t even be talking right now. It puts us all at risk.”

  “I want to speak to my husband!” I know the very cadence of Gemma’s shout. It’s the sound she makes right when she’s trying to fight off angry tears. It’s as clear in this recording as it was when I spoke to her forty-eight hours ago. It’s as if she were in this room right now. “We miss you, babe. It’s really lonely when you’re gone.”

  “I know, Gem. But if they find out about these calls, I’m in a lot of trouble.”

  Derrick slams the TV remote down so hard, every single one of his soldiers, including Kane and me, jump. “Why does your wife call you Eric?” He stands and points an older model gun. A collector’s item. “Why do you speak of working undercover?”

  “Derrick, it’s not what–”

  He shoots off a round that blows through the meaty part of my shoulder and embeds in the wall behind us. Fire races through my arm, and the pain that scores through my body brings bile up my throat. “You’re a fuckin’ cop in my club, and you know what happens to rats.”

  “Derrick, no, it’s not–”

  Kane’s hold on me doesn’t waver, though I’m certain he’s supporting my weight, rather than holding me hostage, as Derrick lifts his remote again and switches out the channel. A blue screen turns into a picture of my home, and then video of Gemma’s tear-streaked face beaten and bruised. Her eyes swollen shut, her nose busted and bent, and her hair torn in chunks so I see parts of her pale scalp. “No!” I try to rush forward, pulling Kane with me, only to stop again when five guns press to my skull.

  “Watch it,” Derrick snarls. “Watch what happens to snitches.”

  “No.” The pain in my arm is forgotten in the face of my new tragedy. The time stamp on the corner of the screen reads 7:59 a.m. Yesterday. Approximately twelve hours after the recorded phone conversation.

  Vomit burns my throat; my heart rips my chest apart, and I suspect the only reason I remain standing is because of Kane’s hold. He’s doing his job, remaining in character, staying alive, and proving why he can be promoted over me.

  He’s impenetrable.

  He can’t be broken.

  “Cry for him, bitch.” The cameraman shows us every inch of my living room, the cute couch covers Gem made to keep the fabric beneath clean from our boisterous child. The prints on the walls, canvases of the three of us together last spring when we vacationed on the coast. “Say his name, and let him know why you’re hurting.”

  “Eric…” Her voice is hoarse, and my brain tells me over and over in a cruel shout it’s because she’s been screaming. “Help us, Eric. Please help us.”

  I fight Kane’s hold. I shoulder the guns from my head and try to rush forward. But Derrick is fearless; he smiles with such arrogance, I’m not sure I could ever feel hate for anyone as much as I hate him. “This is in the past, DeWhit.” My name on his tongue makes me cold all over. “It’s already happened, so now you get to be the third person on this planet who sees this footage.”

  “The third?”

  Please don’t let Kane have seen it and not told me. Please not Kane. Please not Kane. Please not Kane.

  “I sent Aren to your home. He filmed and was the first to see it. He brought it to me last night, and I gotta say, I whacked off while I watched Gemma beg.”

  “You motherfucker!” I try to break free, but Kane’s hold is iron. He’s either sealing my death by keeping me still, or saving my life by providing the illusion of safety for Derrick. “You don’t mess with a guy’s family!” My voice tears as I scream. “There are rules. You leave families alone!”

  “Yes,” he drawls easily. “There are rules. Like how you don’t try to infiltrate my club and hurt my family. This club is my family.” He raises his arms to show his power and all he controls. “This is my family!”

  Blood runs from my arm, down my bicep and drips off my elbow. It moves faster than my body can tolerate and already makes me woozy, but I remain standing, and when Derrick turns back to the television, my eyes stop on my beautiful wife when the barrel of a gun presses against her forehead and she begs for her life.

  “Mommy!”

  “No!” I slump against Kane’s chest and breathe through my closed throat. “Please, not Callie.”

  “Mommy!” She skids down in camera range and hugs Gem around her neck. Identical faces smoosh together, so my baby inadvertently places herself in harm’s way. “’S’okay, Mommy.” Callie stares right into the camera as though she’s willing to walk toward death. “S’okay, don’t be scared, Mommy.”

  Bang! Bang!

  * * *

  I shoot up in bed and gasp for breath through my swollen throat. Katrina’s room is still somewhat dark, though I see the sunlight peeking from behind the curtains. My chest rapidly lifts and falls; my hands shake; my shoulder aches from a wound long ago healed, and my brain throbs, pained as though a migraine is setting in.

  I turn to my right and find Katrina’s bare back, the sheets covering her ass and nothing else while she sleeps, then I look down my body and find I’m bare-ass naked in a woman’s bed.

  Not my bed, and not the bed I shared with my wife.

  “Fuck.” My dream plays over and over in my mind. S’okay, don’t be scared, Mommy. A movie reel on loop just the way Derrick played it in his office that night so long ago. Around, around, around, around.

  In horror, I watched them murder my family, and while I watched, they used my distraction to try to put a bullet in my brain.

  Kane was my guardian angel because while I was stuck in a kind of comatose shock, he flipped his cover and turned from captor to protector.

  Kane Bishop has an almost perfect shot record. For every target he ever aimed at, he hit. And for every man he intended to take out, he succeeded. It was one man against half a dozen, then when adrenaline broke through my shock, it became two men against Derrick’s army. We fought our way out of that office and left behind a trail of crimson and a seven-month undercover case busted wide open. Finally, I was allowed to go home… except I wasn’t. Because crime scene tape was strung from post to post, and Kane Bishop had to hold me down.

  Again.

  But at the end of it all, seven months of hard work and missing my family was a fucking waste, and my girls paid the ultimate price for it.

  I suck in a shaky breath as Callie’s “Mommy” echoes in my mind. Stumbling out of bed, I snatch up my jeans and drag them on in the early morning silence. I fight the nausea that swirls in my gut, trip and catch myself against the wall, then I search the room for my shirt. I pull it over my head and drop my hat on top, then I stagger into my boots and run my ass out of that room before I’m sick everywhere.

  Let it go, Eric. Let it go. You’re allowed to love someone else!

  I move through Katrina’s hall in a kind of
drunken stupor. I blindly sway from wall to wall because I don’t see the hall in front of me, but Derrick’s office. I see Gemma’s swollen eyes. I see Kane fighting for me, even though the chances of him dying were astronomical. I see everything except Katrina’s jeans slung on the couch or that red fucking scarf she so often wears in her hair, now draped from a lamp in the living room.

  Loving Katrina isn’t cheating on Gemma. It’s fucking not!

  I stumble to the kitchen and grab my keys, wallet, and phone, then I move through the front door and down the stairs so fast, I stumble and my ankles twist, sending pain tearing through my legs. Vomit rolls from my stomach to my throat, up and down, nauseating, dizzying, as I trip through the building’s front doors and into the morning sun.

  I’m not running from Katrina for good. I just need to not be in her fucking apartment when I throw a week’s worth of cookies up onto her rug. I jog across the parking lot and throw myself into my truck. I have nowhere to go, no one to go to. The home I provided for Gemma and Callie was long ago closed up and deserted. The town we settled in was left in my rearview mirror as I followed the Bishop brothers in their careers.

  Kane and Jay are my connection to home. They’re the only family I have, the only people left on this planet I can protect. And now Jessie is having a baby. Two of them! And Kane is going to be as vulnerable as I was.

  Spinning my wheels to escape the blacktop, I hit the road with squealing tires and speed across town toward Kane and Jess’ home. It’s early enough that Kane and Jess should be home. But not so early that I’ll be waking anyone up.

  It takes only minutes to cruise while music plays in my ears and sings of goodbyes. “Fuckin’ perfect.” Why couldn’t it be a love song again? Why couldn’t it be the fucking Macarena? Anything but a song of goodbyes like the universe is screaming its message at me. I hastily scrape a hand beneath my nose and drag in a deep breath. It’s been so long since Gemma and Callie, so why now? Why hurt me now? Because of Katrina? Because I fell in love? Or because I told her I was in love?

  The universe won’t let me find something else because I don’t deserve happiness. I should have died in Derrick’s office. I shouldn’t have survived what I did to my girls. I might not have pulled the trigger, but it was my shitty work, my phone calls, my inability to work exactly the way we’re trained that caused their death.

  Kane didn’t fuck up like I did. He did the job; his family remained safe, and his cover remained intact until it wasn’t. It blew up because of me and my shitty work. And when it all went to shit, he still had to save my life and plug a bullet wound before I bled out.

  I pull up in front of Kane’s home and swing the door open until the hinges groan in protest. Dropping to my booted feet as the laces fling around and whip the road, I slam it closed again and race across the lawn. Up the front steps and to the front door, I swing the wire door open and grimace when it bounces off the wall with a crash.

  “Bishop?” I slam my fist on the solid timber, knowing I only have moments before the neighbors come out. “Bishop! Open up.”

  The locks inside the house disengage with fast snicks—one, two, three locks, then the chain. As soon as the door cracks open, I slam my palm down and push it open without thinking. My brain registers only fear and fury. Longing. Grief. Desperation. It mixes inside me, grows, and poisons me.

  He shouldn’t have blown his cover for me.

  My brain tunnels in on a female squeak, a cry of pain, then a roared curse when I realize the door hit something. “What the fuck?” Jess’ angry voice penetrates my brain. She opens the door wide enough to step through while she rubs the palm of her hand on her forehead and studies me with just as much rage as I came here with. “What’s your damn problem, Eric? Why would you do that?”

  “I hit you?” Fury is washed away with disgust as I race forward and pull Jess’ hands from her forehead. “I fucking hurt you?”

  “Yes, you jerkoff. You nearly dropped me on my ass. Where’s the fire? Why are you rushing?”

  “Jess…” My breath stutters in my throat as my initial reason for coming here fights with my current reality. “Fuck, Jessie. I’m so sorry!”

  “Wait…” Her electric blue eyes study my face. She scours my eyes, my cheeks, my folding chest. Finally, she pulls in a pained breath. “Are you okay?” She grabs my shaking hands and pulls me closer. “Oh my God. What’s the matter, Eric? Who’s hurt?”

  “Blondie?” It’s like Kane can sense Jess’s pain. He wouldn’t have seen my rash actions, but he feels her pain or the rapidly reddening goose egg on her forehead. I turn in the same moment Jess steps around me with a ghostly white face, then we watch as the Bishop brothers race through the front door of the house across the street. Jay’s house. Jess’ future brother-in-law. Together, they sprint across the street and up the front steps until Kane steals Jess away.

  I’m his brother, his colleague, his best friend of sorts, so it doesn’t occur to him that it was me who hurt her. He doesn’t hesitate to show me his back while he fusses over her, when in any other situation, any other man, he’d shield her while he took out his enemies.

  “What happened?” He ducks his head lower and gently fingers her bruising brow. “What the actual fuck? What did you do?”

  “It was me.” My voice is barely loud enough for me to hear. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Bish. It was me.”

  Kane turns, more confused than angry. “What?” He turns back to Jess. “What happened?”

  “It was me,” I repeat. “I was looking for you, but I hit her with the door.”

  “You hit her with the door?” he snarls. “Motherfucker, you hit my babies with a door?!” He cups her stomach as waves roll in my head and send me into a long tunnel. Daylight turns to dark spots, their voices turning to buzzing. Kane speaks with Jess, but all I hear are bees in the tunnel until a rough hand slams to the back of my neck and shoves me down until I’m on my ass with my head between my knees.

  Sophia’s eyes are just two inches in front of mine. Her hand is strong, but her gaze is soft. “Breathe through it.” Her murmur is almost silent, as though to preserve my privacy. “Find your lungs. Feel them. Where are they?”

  Sophia appears at first glance to be a delicate ballerina. Five-six, maybe five-seven, too skinny, with elongated limbs. She’s exactly who we’d send into a situation where our enemies needed to see unthreatening. But she’s who we’d send because she’s the most threatening woman I’ve ever met.

  She’s Jay’s equal in every way, including her lust for justice and the fact she won’t shy away from bloodshed to get it. She rests on her knees in front of me in holey jeans and an oversized sweater and counts. “One. Two. Three. Draw the oxygen into your lungs.”

  My body works its way into a panic, despite the fact I know this won’t kill me. “Can’t,” I choke out. “Can’t. No lungs.”

  “So start with your mouth. You know where your mouth is. You just used the damn thing. Bring the oxygen in.”

  “Eric?” Jessie’s soft voice registers over Jay’s chatter and Kane’s worry. I feel her beside me, even if my peripherals are pitch black. “What’s wrong, Eric? You’re scaring me.”

  “He’s fine,” Soph says with conviction. “You’re fine, Eric. Suck it in. Suck it up. Harden the fuck up.”

  “Sophia! Don’t be a jerk.” Jess kneels beside me, replacing Soph’s hard hand with a much gentler touch. “Eric, honey? Why are you crying?”

  “Jessie, no. Soph is doing it right.” Jay takes her hand and lets Soph back into my vision. “Eric, pull it in, motherfucker. This is war, and you don’t get time to breathe.”

  “I’m okay.” I pull in a long line of dribble as I force the black from my vision. My body forces me to yawn, to pull in a long breath and fill my starved lungs as the buzzing in my ears intensifies. I was coming here full of rage, a mask for the horror I feel for what happened to my family, but instead I’m just as weak now as I was when I needed to be pulled from Derrick’s club.

/>   “Cap?” Kane shuffles Soph aside and crouches in front of me. “What the fuck?”

  “I hurt Jessie.” I blindly reach out and take her hand, if only to keep her close long enough to apologize. “I slammed the door open because I was angry. I hurt her.”

  “Why were you bringing your anger to my fuckin’ door?” he demands. “What happened? It’s barely breakfast time!”

  “I dreamed of Gem.” Finally, I meet his eyes. “I slept in Katrina’s home this weekend, and for the first time in a whole fucking decade, I dreamt of them.”

  “Ah fuck, Cap…” His face transforms from anger to worry. “It’s not the same.”

  “It might be!” I push his hands off and shove to my feet. Jess plops to her ass with a hiss and adds a whole new layer of guilt for me to overthink later. “It’s not safe.”

  “Who is Gem?” Jess slowly climbs to her feet and wipes invisible dirt from her backside. “Who is that?”

  “His wife,” Soph answers blandly. “Cap had a wife. Gemma Arianne Callaghan, married to Eric DeWhit the summer after high school graduation. They were both eighteen years old.”

  Jess gasps at the information I have never given before. We’ve known each other for a year now; we shared a home for a short while; I’ve stood in front of her in protection and behind her when she needed strength. We’ve watched girly movies and eaten ice cream together, and that was all before the pregnancy announcement. And in all that time, I never mentioned my wife or child.

  I never told Sophia, either, but she’s our hack, and she doesn’t work with anyone until she’s run their information right back to conception. Now she recites my data on rote without emotion. “Gemma DeWhit was murdered in her home on April third, almost eleven years ago.”

  “Eric?” Jess’ voice carries the tears Soph’s doesn’t. “You had a wife?” Her voice cracks. “She died?”