Page 69 of Rise of the King (Checkmate 5)

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Charge!

Sophia

“You got your phone?”

“Yes.” I tie my sneakers and hide a grimace at the pain that throbs in my heel. My feet aren’t gravely injured. It’s nothing that won’t heal within a week or so and will leave no lasting problems, but it hurts all the same.

The way things are for us right now, we need to be fast on our feet, able to run and dodge in a split second. I feel like I’m at a disadvantage, and disadvantages in this phase of my mission aren’t acceptable.

“You got your gun?”

“Yes.” I reach back and run my fingers over the cold steel that sits tucked into the back of my jeans. “If the cops decide I look sketchy and want to frisk me, the jig is up, and I’m going to prison. I hope that makes you happy.”

“Prison is better than dead.” Jay whisks by with gummy worms in one hand and his binoculars in the other. He drops a kiss on my lips, then heads back toward the kitchen. “I can probably bust you outta prison, but dead is dead.”

“Unless your name is Jay Bishop.”

He snorts. “We’re wily sons of bitches. We get nine lives each.”

“Mm.” I roll my eyes and finish tying my laces. “How many did you use already?”

He stops at the sink and turns. Leaning against the counter, he crosses an ankle as though it helps him think. “I swear, I shoulda died a hundred times already. And that wasbeforebecoming a junkie DEA agent.” He folds his arms and chuckles. “There was the time Kane and I went mountain climbing but didn’t take ropes. I fell a long-ass way, Soph, and busted myself up bad. Then there was the time I was run over by an inboard speed boat. The props should’ve chopped my head clean off, but I surfaced good as new. Nearly killed my brother with fright. There was the time I was hit by a car when I was six.”

“You were hit by a car?” I surge to my feet and regret my decision immediately when my feet protest. “Who hit you?”

He shrugs. “Some old folks. I ran into the street because I wanted to beat my brother home. Got smacked down and tossed twenty or so feet.”

“Did you break anything?”

“Nah, but I slept for a minute. Got up. Walked it off.” He chuckles. “I was six, but in my family, you don’t cry unless you wanna be given something to cry about. So I shook my leg and walked the rest of the way home.”

“You’re insane.”

He laughs. “I’ve heard that before. There was the time we went fishing.”

“Fishing?” I walk forward and fold myself into his embrace when he opens his arms. “You don’t look like a fisherman to me.”

“I’m not.” He buzzes his lips over my hair and bathes me in candy-flavored breath. “Kane and I had had enough of the hard knock life, so we decided we’d take a vacation out at Cape Cod. Fishing. No danger. No girls. Just quiet.”

“What happened?”

“We were fishing from the rock wall, and the waves jumped up and grabbed me. Slammed my head against the rocks until I was floating in the clouds.” He shakes his head. “Kane has had to drag my stupid ass out of so many dangerous situations, then we go into this Hayes case, and I end up getting myself killed anyway. I bet he blames himself, like he should’ve saved me again. But at the same time, he’s probably relieved to be rid of me.”

Stepping out of my embrace, Jay walks across the dining and living room and stops at the chair he turned last night so he could watch out the window. “He’s got a girl now, a life, a home. He’s not leaving her, and she’s not leaving this town, so this is it for him. He’s settling in and domesticating himself.” Gently, he fingers the lace curtain aside and peeks out into the mid-morning sun. “He couldn’t keep both meandher. We’re two different worlds, and she would have put her foot down eventually.”

He turns to me. “She’s a lawyer, and her family is so entrenched in this town that her brother is the chief of police, and the chief’s daddy was the chief before him. Then there’s me and Kane… bastards, thugs, and in my case, a cocaine addict with a proclivity for doing dumb shit.”

“You’re way too hard on yourself, you know that?” I walk forward and take my place against his chest again, because when he gets in these moods of self-doubt, he squeezes my heart until it hurts. “He loves you so much, Jay. And when you let him see you again, he’s going to be so unbelievably happy you’re okay. You’re right about one thing: I bet he blames himself for your death. He feels the same sense of responsibility for you as you do for him. But do you forget why we’re here? Because someone has him in their sights, and you’re going to fix it. You take care of each other; you take care of him, even when he thinks you’re dead. And don’t beat yourself up because Abel Hayes held you down and stuffed cocaine into your system. It was inevitable you’d come to crave it. That’sexactlywhy he did it.” Standing on my toes, I reach up and press my lips to his. “You’re sober now; you beat it. And you’re strong.”

At the sound of a rumbling engine rolling along the street, we turn and watch out the window as a classic Buick with old whitewall tires and faded red paint pulls up in Kane’s empty driveway. The truck that was in the driveway last night is now parked in the street behind the small Mazda.

We watch in silence for a beat as a long-haired man in jeans and a stained shirt climbs out and pockets the keys. He walks around front and heads up the front steps.

I mentally flip through the billion files I have stored in my mind and settle on the right one. “That’s Angelo Alesi.”

Jay’s body tenses. “How do you know?”

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