Page 79 of Sacrifice the Knight (Checkmate 6)

“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 hitsomething. “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.”

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