Page 107 of Rise of the King (Checkmate 5)

“Soph?” Standing, I extend a hand and wait for her eyes. “We need a minute.”

“Not right now,” she murmurs. Playing with her laptop, her fingers fly across the keys, and windows appear faster than my eyes can keep up. Every second image that pops up looks painfully like me and Kane.

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree—we look just like Colum.

“Sophia.” I take her shoulder and try to pull her back. “Get up, we need a minute.”

“Not right now,” she snaps. Picking up a curly fry, she stuffs it into her mouth and continues working, even as everyone else watches us with wary eyes. “We’ll talk later, but I need to do this right now.”

“Sophia!” I snap her laptop lid closed and say goodbye to my life. Nose flaring, lips quivering, she looks up with rage in her eyes and flexing fists. I don’t let her speak, because once she starts, she won’t stop until she’s torn the skin from my bones and watched my blood run black. Instead, I pick her up and accept the grunt when her knee slams into my stomach. Carrying her similarly to how I first carried her to bed, I turn away from my watchful family and head straight toward the internal garage door.

“Jay!”

“Wait a second, Sugar Plum.” I carry her through the door and into the small half-staircase that leads us down to the garage.

“Jay!” Her fists rain over my back and hurt more than I’ll ever admit. She aims for the healed wounds and winds me each time she hits my lungs. “Put me down!”

I push the final door open and step into the cool garage. Turning, I flip the door closed for privacy, then I set her on her feet and hold her back, because she’s coming for the kill shot. “You need to stop for a second, Soph.”

“What the hell are you doing?” she screeches. “There’s a man with a sniper rifle just a three-minute drive from here, but you’d rather gossip in the fucking garage?”

“Not gossiping, babe.” I pull her in when she continues to fight my hands. I step forward and pull her against my chest until the oxygen explodes from her lungs and her knees become neutralized. “You’re having a moment, and it’s my turn to help you through it.”

“I’m not having a fucking moment! I’m doing your job.”

“You’re obsessed with this, and now you’re leaving your humanity at the door.”

“Of course I’m obsessed.” She headbutts my chest and growls when it does nothing. “He killed my sister! You were obsessed too, but now that you got Kane back, suddenly our mission is over? Fuck you! Let me go so I can work.”

“It’s not over, Sophia. It’s still going ahead, but before today, you were still able to love, to smile; you could still feel. You were able tolivein conjunction with working the case. But I swear, you left Sophia in the basement back at Checkmate, and only your machine parts came out.”

“I found out who our man is! I found out today the name of the man who brutalized my sister and dumped her body. Excuse me fornotsmiling about it.”

“You act like you’re all alone in this,” I snap back. “You act like you have no one to turn to for help. You gonna head on up to the hill and take him out yourself? Leave your team at home, so you can take care of business by yourself?”

“I don’t have a team!” she roars. “I’ve never had a team. I’m just me, and I buy muscle. You’re my muscle, but now you’re compromised. So I’m taking care of it.”

“Weare your team, Sophia! We’re all here. We showed up. We’re upstairs working this together right now. How do you not see us?”

“You’re upstairs reuniting with your brother and shooting stink-eyes at the guy you’re jealous of. You have this whole other world playing out inside your head right now, and that’s fine, because you deserve your happiness, but you’re not focused on me or Ellie, so quit pretending that you are. You’re planning to go to the beach with Kane! You’re fucking useless now that you got what you needed out of all this.”

“Got what I wanted?” I shake her. I’m ashamed of it, and when her teeth snap closed with a loud clang, and her eyes register the pain, my heart hates me for it. But still, I shake her. “I started this to make Kane safe! I could have come home to him seven months ago if all I wanted washim. But I didn’t, because havinghimdoesn’t mean shit if his threat is still alive. Now we found the threat. We’re working it, Sophia! What the fuck do you want from me?”

“The threat is your father! He’s your fucking dad! Are you gonna pull the trigger? No! Are you gonna slide a blade into his trachea and watch him choke on his own blood? No!Youwill choke;youwill try to reason, and when it comes time, you’ll try to talk me down from our mission. He hurt my sister, Jay!”

“You’re making this scenario up in your head. I haven’t choked once! I’m not talking you out of what needs to be done. I’m right here, in love with you, and terrified you’ve forgotten who you are in your heart. You’re so obsessed with Ellie, you forgot about Sophia!”

“That’s not true.”

“No? So tomorrow, when this is done, you’re gonna go back to your dance career?” Her mouth pops open to argue, but she flounders. “You gonna go be that Anna chick and make your millions dancing for the crowds and making people fall in love with ballet? Are you going to open a dance school tomorrow, Sophia? Will you ever dance again?”

“No… I…” Her pulse thumps in her throat and hurts me. She’s vulnerable, and I’m cutting her. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Right! Because youusedto be fast-tracked to dancing fame, but then you just stopped. You fucking quit, Sophia, and you became obsessed with something so unbelievably unhealthy.”

“Unhealthy? My sister–”

“You changed your metabolism! Ellie’s death isn’t the core of your trauma; your mission is! You changed the very fabric of your soul, not because Ellie died, but in your mission to make it all better.”

---