The Pawn (Endgame #1)(53)

I look down at the board, denial in my hands, my arms. Clenched in my chest. I can still win this. I know I can, and I think he knows it too. Except if I give him my bishop, I’ll be leaving my king exposed. Checkmate in two moves. I’ll lose. How much is this information worth to me?

My heart beats a frantic rhythm as I reach the end.

I move the bishop into jeopardy.

“I’ve known your father for years. Who he is. But I hadn’t worked with him before. He invited me to your graduation party to see if I’d be willing to work with him, like my father did.”

Dread is a cold fist around my heart. “What did your father do with him?”

“He bought things. Sold things.” Gabriel uses his knight to take my queen. Only one move left and he’ll have my king. “Like most businessmen do.”

Except that his father was a liar, which is why Gabriel hated him so much. “Drugs. Guns?”

Golden eyes meet mine. “People.”

I suck in a breath, horrified, disbelieving. “No.”

He means that his father dealt in human trafficking. That my father had too.

“Move,” Gabriel says softly.

My fingers feel numb as I nudge a pawn forward. I ought to just knock over my king. I know what’s coming, but I need to hear him say it. I need to know the truth. Maybe I’m just like Gabriel Miller, after all. Myths can tell you about the people who make them, who believe them, but it’s the truth that matters.

His rook crosses the board to the first row. Checkmate.

The word comes from ancient Persian. Some say it means the King is dead, but the translation is a little less dire—depending on how you look at it. The King is helpless. The King is defeated. When there are no moves left, the only option is surrender.

“I don’t deal in people,” he says. “I made that promise to myself when my father died. Never. Not ever. And then you were there, desperate and broke. God, you’d actually gotten thinner.”

“You could have helped me!”

“That’s not how this works.”

The auction had been brutal. Being purchased like an object. The brief moments of kindness he gives me. “You bought me, but you haven’t fucked me.”

“Is it killing you, the wait? Are you imagining the worst-case scenario with that beautiful strategic brain of yours? Would it be better if I came to your room tonight and broke you, little virgin?”

Yes, God help me. I can’t manage words, and it comes out as a sob. My father was the monster in the Labyrinth all along. That’s who I put my virginity on the auction block for, someone who had bought and sold people. That’s what had paid for my tuition, my fancy dresses. I feel sick. Did my mother know about this? Was this why she killed herself?

The last thing I see before I flee from the room is my king, fallen over on the board.





Chapter Twenty-Nine





I press my forehead against the cool glass, looking out at the dark woods. Justin braved those woods, and maybe actual wolves, to rescue me. It was actually pretty gallant, if not very well-thought-out. Gabriel would have gotten revenge on him in a manner both public and thorough.

And I’d have given up a million dollars. Maybe it would have been worth it for love. But Justin had proven this wasn’t love when he broke up with me for what my father did.

So I’m still here, still locked in the tower with my very own dragon.

Gabriel is right when he said my mind can imagine the worst. A hundred strategies, a million possibilities. All the things he might do to me.

Why do I wait for him to come to me?

He gave me white because I made the first move. That’s what I should do about sex. It’s an advantage—a small one, but I need any advantage I can get. In chess we’re well matched. I still lost, sacrificing the game to get information that broke my heart. But when it comes to sex, he’s the far superior player. I’m a novice. I’m nothing.

But I will finish this game the way I started it—with courage.

I know exactly which room to find him in. The only door that’s locked. Who keeps the bedroom locked in their own house? A person with something to hide.

My footsteps are soundless on the oriental runner in the hallway. My knock echoes, incongruously loud. It sounds aggressive. That’s what he said about chess. Aggressive and mathematical. That’s how I feel right now, as if I’m making the devil’s bargain.

He opens the door, his expression incredulous. “You.”

His shirtsleeves are rolled up, his dress pants revealing black socks. That seems like suddenly intimate knowledge, those black socks. I’ve already seen so much more of his body—felt it, anyway, in the darkness of the spiral staircase—but the simple domesticity of his socked feet seems momentous.

“Can I come in?”

He laughs, leaving the door open as he strides back into the room. That’s when I realize that he’s drunk. There’s a bottle on the table by his fireplace. I recognize the fading ink, the clear liquid. Moonshine.

I follow him inside and shut the door behind us.

He lifts a half-empty glass in mock salute. “Want some?”

“Maybe it’s best if one of us stays sober.”

His throat moves as he takes a large swallow. “I’m not that drunk. Not too drunk to get it up, if that’s what you came here for.”