Page 67 of Rise of the King (Checkmate 5)

Her eyes race across her screen as fast as the information and windows pop up. This is the first time she’s allowed me to see her work, the first time she doesn’t shut her screen as soon as I open my eyes. And she does it all in English, not Mandarin. “He’s powerful, Jay. Whoever he is, he’s powerful, and he’s been powerful for almost a decade. Ellie was taken eight years ago.” Her voice cracks and shows she, too, has a soft side, but when I reach out for her hand again, she brushes me away and keeps typing. “I guess that rules out Trenton’she could be thirtything. If he’s thirty, then he was barely legal when Ellie was taken. I don’t think this is the work of a twenty-year-old.”

“So, middle-aged.”

“Right.” She chews her bottom lip and lifts a hand in request. She’s not asking to hold my hand. She’s asking for a snack. Digging into my pocket, I take a handful of gummy worms from the packet and dump them in her palm, smiling when she shoves the lot in at once.

I love that she eats like a pig.

I love that she doesn’t give a fuck about propriety.

“How far out are we?”

“From town?” I shrug and stare out to the open road. “Three hours, I think.”

“Okay, I got us a house, but we can’t arrive till after dark.”

“Why not?”

* * *

“Okay,” I whisper, though we’re alone in the car. Sophia’s face is lit from her laptop screen as she directs me onto a street I know well. “Number forty-seven. Pull straight into the garage.”

“Right across the street, Soph?” My heart races so fast, I can feel it on the outside. “You got us the house right across the street from Kane?”

“Yup, how else would we keep watch? Hurry up and pull in. I can’t jam his security for long, you know? He’ll notice.”

Shaking my head, I turn right into our driveway, rather than left into the one I want. He’s right there. The lights are on, a truck in the driveway, and a little Mazda parked in the street. I’m so fucking close to the only person on this planet I share blood with who I care about.

“Lights off, engine off.” She hits a button on her laptop and has the automatic garage door lowering behind us. “Don’t get out till the door is closed. Wanna see?”

“See what?” I lean across into her space and send my heart into hyperdrive when I catch a visual of my brother. He’s right fucking there! Standing in his kitchen, hugging his blonde girlfriend and smiling as Eric walks through. “He’s happy.”

“You trust DeWhit, right?”

Frowning, I pull back to catch her eyes. “Eric? Yeah, I trust him. He’s one of us.” And yet, she makes me question my instincts. “He’s good, right?”

“Yeah, I think so.” She turns back to the laptop and watches the feed she so easily hacked into. “I’ve never found anything on him, and I looked. I looked hard. I just wanted your thoughts. I see the players via records and surveillance, ya know? But you know him for real. I want your instincts.”

I shrug. “My instincts are that he’s clean, and he’d take a bullet for any one of us. And since we’re going there, I’m saying Spence is clean, too, and so is Cruz. He’s PD, but he’s one of us. He’s good.”

“Alright. You gotta say goodbye now.”

“What? No–”

My heart breaks when she kills the feed and Kane is gone, vanished like he was never there. “I couldn’t stay in, Jay. They’ll notice the blip if they go searching their feed.”

“I wasn’t done looking!”

Smiling, she brings a gentle hand up to my jaw. It’s dark in here, so the only light is her laptop screen illuminating her face from below. “I’ll work on it tomorrow so we can get in and stay in. You’ll be able to watch him around the clock, I promise. But I can’t do it tonight. My brain is fried.”

“You’ve had a big couple days.”

She scoffs. “Slammed my head day before yesterday and lost my job as a stripper. Blown up and shot yesterday. Stubbed my toe on the way to the car this morning. I deserve a break. I’ll fix the feed for you tomorrow, I promise.”

“He looks well. Happy, unharmed.”

She closes the lid on her laptop and nods. “He does. He’s safe because of you. They both are. Your sacrifices were worth it.”

“I’m dead right now, Sophia, but he’s smiling.” And my heart breaks. “Maybe he doesn’t want me back.”

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