Page 20 of Rise of the King (Checkmate 5)

“I appreciate your hospitality, Aguilar.” I swagger forward with arrogance and play my part. “If I make it out of this alive, I’ll be sure to add you to my Christmas card list.” Finding the email from Ace, I turn my phone and let him get a view of his man Cole exchanging money for girls.

Aguilar stares for a moment, grinds his thick jaw, then his light eyes come back to mine. He shrugs. “That motherfucker hasn’t reported to work in days. Take this to the cops; it’s got nothing to do with me.”

“He’s not your man?”

He flashes a wide grin and pulls in another draw from his cigar. “Never seen him before in my life. Next.”

“Alright. Next.” Chuckling, I scroll to the right and find the next image. “How about this guy. You know him?”

Pete’s eyes come back to my phone, to an image of the very man waiting outside this door, as he snorts a line of cocaine off a prominent politician’s daughter’s tits. “Cocaine is bad for you, Pete. You really shouldn’t encourage your soldiers to use. And you should definitely make sure he’s not using it with the senator’s daughter when some motherfucker has a cellphone nearby.”

“I can’t control the actions of my men in their downtime.” I haven’t cracked him yet, but he’s nervous. His pulse thrums heavily against his throat, and a line of sweat beads on his forehead. “I can only have a word with my man about what’s appropriate. She’s smiling, Bishop. She’s there because she wants to be.”

“Right, but see the rug just by his feet?” I turn my phone again to give him another view. “That’s your rug, no?” I arch my neck and take in the shit ugly thing on the floor. “You had blow and that girl in this office. You think you’re gonna survive that?”

Nervously, he reaches up and loosens his tie. “Like I said, I’ll talk to my man about what’s appropriate and what’s not. If you’re done, knock on the door and have my men escort you out.”

“Ah, unfortunately, I’m not done.” One last move to play: the king moves one space and takes check. I scroll to the final image in Ace’s email and spin my phone back. “Is that…” I lean a little closer. “Is that you, Pete?”

As soon as his brain registers the image of him fucking the senator’s daughter, I know I’ve won this game. His hand whips to the gun on his ankle, but I’m faster, I’m better. Sliding behind him and yanking his head back with a fist full of his hair, I bring Kane’s blade to his throat. “Don’t squeal, Pete. These images were sent to me by someone else, which means killing me won’t make this go away.”

“What do you want from me?” He grunts as I pull his head back. “What do you need to fix this and make sure my wife never finds out?”

His wife?

I was coming in to threaten this fucker with senator issues, but instead, Pete’s worried about his wife. I’ll accept it. I’ll take his concession and run with it. “I have an email teed up with your wife’s address typed in. The email is on a timer, so whether I live or die in this room, the email goes out. If you wanna make this go away, then you need to talk to me. Who were you bringing those girls in for?”

“I’m sent orders to get girls.” His hands hold a gun and a cigar, but he’s useless because my blade is one swipe away from ending the life he’s too comfortable to risk. “Big guys higher up send out an order. They want girls; they give us a brief: say they want ten girls between ages fourteen and seventeen; they gotta be fit, pretty, and Caucasian. That’s the order, so that’s what I deliver.”

I fuckin’ hate these people. “How do you receive your orders?”

“Text. It’s a group text, a competition of sorts; I’m not the only guy who gets the text. The first guy to deliver gets the cash and rewards. The other guys are punished.”

“Punished how?”

“Bullet in the brain. Stolen women. They hurt our families. Destroyed clubs. Sometimes they turn off supply of coke or whatever. They punish us however they think will hurt us the most. You cut off supply of women or coke, and our business crumbles.”

I swipe the phone off his desk and slide it into my pocket. Yanking his head back again, I enjoy the soft cry that crawls up his throat. I wish we had privacy; I wish I could drag it out and make him hurt even a fraction of the pain hisbusinessinflicts on those girls. “What’s his name? Your contact’s name?”

“Trenton. He’s in my cell under Trenton, but listen, Bishop – you take that cell and make contact, I’m a dead man. You’ll be responsible for killing my wife. They’ll probably gut my fucking dog. You want that on your conscience?”

“Nope.” I slide the blade along his throat and let his blood run over my hand. “That’s onyourconscience, and it’s something you can answer for when you get to the Gates.” Stepping away, I snag the hanky from his breast pocket and clean the blood from my brother’s knife. “Fuck you for making me take you out, you dirty fucking prick. Sell your drugs and guns. That’s already bad enough, but you had to go and sell girls too.”

With a new phone in my pocket and a dead man slumped at his desk, I cast a fast glance around the room for anything else that might be important. I snatch up Pete’s planner just in case Ace can extrapolate something useful, then I stomp out the cigar that lies on the floor before it can catch the rug on fire and burn the hundreds of people downstairs to death.

I’ve been in the fire already. I bear the scars.

I won’t put more people through that shit.

Stepping to the wide window over the liquor cart, I dig my fingertips into the lip between window and wall, and silently slide it open. Frigid breeze pushes in and rattles the liquor bottles until sweat beads beneath my beanie.

I watch over my shoulder and wait for Pete’s men to storm in. I wait for another bullet in my back, but it doesn’t come… yet. Pushing the cart three feet to the right, I hitch myself up to the window and glance outside: grass and snow. Fuck.

“Boss?” Pete’s men knock. “Yo, Boss? Comms ain’t workin’?”

I throw my legs over the windowsill and breathe through the potential of two broken legs once I land. If I fuck it up, I’ll be a sitting duck outside while they figure out what happened. If I break my legs, I’m a dead man, and the contract remains on Kane’s head.

So I don’t fuck it up.

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