Rise Of The King: Checkmate, #5 Read online

  Rise Of The King

  Checkmate, #5

  Emilia Finn

  Contents

  Also by Emilia Finn

  RISE OF THE KING

  Prologue

  1. John

  2. Sophia

  3. Next

  4. Touching Base

  5. Bass In The Ceiling

  6. March

  7. Pest Control

  8. Get me food

  9. Kane Bishop Is A Pain In My Ass

  10. Answers

  11. Plans

  12. Escape

  13. Roadtrip

  14. Charge!

  15. GPS Trackers

  16. A Week

  17. CAB

  18. Going UC

  19. Reunion

  20. Kane

  21. Answers

  22. Brotherhood

  23. Good Old Boys Club

  24. Final Plans

  25. Hugs

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Emilia Finn

  Looking To Connect?

  Rise Of The King

  By: Emilia Finn

  Copyright 2019. Emilia Finn

  Publisher: Beelieve Publishing, Pty Ltd.

  Coverdesign: Amy Queue

  Editing: Mountains Wanted/Krista Venero

  ISBN: 978 169 103 0514

  This Book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This Book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy.

  To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of Emilia Finn’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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  Also by Emilia Finn

  (in reading order)

  The Rollin On Series

  Finding Home

  Finding Victory

  Finding Forever

  Finding Peace

  Finding Redemption

  Finding Hope

  The Survivor Series

  Because of You

  Surviving You

  Without You

  Rewriting You

  Always You

  Take A Chance On Me

  The Checkmate Series

  Pawns In The Bishop’s Game

  Till The Sun Dies

  Castling The Rook

  Playing For Keeps

  Rollin On Novellas

  (Do not read before finishing the Rollin On Series)

  Begin Again – A Short Story

  Written in the Stars – A Short Story

  Full Circle – A Short Story

  Worth Fighting For – A Bobby & Kit Novella

  RISE OF THE KING

  Checkmate # 5

  Emilia Finn

  Prologue

  Ace

  Hidden in the shadows, moving as fast as I can while still remaining unseen, I duck behind cars and slide between people coming and going. I’m a ghost. I have to be a ghost, because if I’m seen, we’re both dead.

  Following his stretcher between moving ambulances and across the hospital dock, I burst into the ER barely ten steps behind him and his emergency responders.

  Staff at this small-town hospital were waiting for his arrival, alerted by their colleagues, and alerted by the messages I pushed through the system with my special skills so the transmissions aren’t lost in the chaos overtaking this town during a cold November day.

  It’s been a busy day for first responders, but I can’t afford for them to screw up and lose him in the shuffle. They need to know he’s coming; there can’t be a wait; there can’t be confusion, because every second that passes while he bleeds is another second closer he comes to death.

  The stretcher is flung through the emergency room amid shouts and dropped supplies. Bandages unravel across the floor, and a bloodied face mask drops to the linoleum as he’s pushed past a fleet of doctors and through another door.

  His strong body convulses on the stretcher. A fit man of more than two hundred pounds of muscle that was once trained and treasured, but is now weak from too much substance abuse and not enough sleep or exercise, clings to life while his hand hangs limply over one side of the stretcher and the other flexes against his chest.

  Blood leaves his body faster than is compatible with life. The parade of doctors, EMTs, nurses, and one stretcher leave a trail of crimson on the light gray linoleum as they slam into walls and skid in the blood until the chaotic noise lowers from ear-splitting to a low buzzing.

  “BP’s dropping fast. We’re losing him, guys!” They swing around one corner, then through a set of plastic doors at a sprint. I continue to follow, slower, quiet, invisible, despite the fact I’m not staff and have no right to be here.

  No one notices me because I perfected the art of blending in years ago.

  It’s what I have to do in my line of work: get in, get out, make a mess or clean up, depending on my objectives, and all the while, stay invisible.

  I already know the layout of this hospital. I’ve known since this began that the chances of him ending up here were high, so I pulled the digital blueprints eighteen months ago, studied them, then studied the staff files to familiarize myself with who I need to know.

  It was only a matter of time before I’d find myself walking these halls.

  Stepping into the hall and collecting a thick folder as I pass an unoccupied desk, I make myself look like I belong and follow the stretcher until my road ends. Noisily, they slam through another set of double doors while screaming for X-Rays, and when they turn right, I turn left and make my way toward the chief of staff’s office.

  Their patient today has no ID in his possession, but his wounds are unusual. Unusual enough that even the upper echelons of the hospital staff have come out to watch.

  Checking my cell screen and the security feed I have access to no matter where I go in this hospital, I slide into the empty office, the fish that swims against the current while everyone else runs in the opposite direction.

  Dropping my folder on the corner of the heavy oak desk, I don a pair of latex gloves and sit down in front of the computer. Pathetically, it takes only three keystrokes to gain entrance to files that should remain confidential to everyone except the man who owns this office. Just three before I’m scanning their patients’ files.

  Today’s work is nothing more than a sleight of hand. It takes no skill, no concentration.

  Just a backspace and a new name.

  I replace what was there with the obvious: John D. Hamilton.

  He’s my new John Doe.

  I leave everything else alone: age: 29, sex: male, ethnicity: Caucasian. But where it lists his injuries as documented by the ambulance staff en route, I scan for my own benefit, frown at the hospital they intend
to fly him to once he’s stable – if he ever becomes stable – and instead, enter the hospital I know best.

  The hospital I can most easily monitor.

  The hospital that literally stands across the street from an apartment building I have easy access to, whose massive warehouse windows overlook the long-term wards.

  If he lives, I’ll see him again soon.

  And if not, then I’ll mourn a good man, but then I’ll go back to the start and find a new soldier to help me on my mission. This mission doesn’t die if he does. It can’t, because people are still suffering. Until they’re not, I have to keep forging forward.

  Standing again, I close the windows on the computer and slide my phone into my back pocket. Picking up the overfull folder for cover, I push the leather chair back in, tug my gloves off, slide back into the hall and head toward the OR.

  There’s a viewing window I can sit behind for a minute and speakers that let me hear every word being shouted in the operating room. Heart-rate monitors are strapped to John’s body as he lies in his own blood and filth. They strap him to bags of O-negative and frantically race to replace what’s dripping to the already massacred floor.

  The likelihood of him surviving is miniscule, but if he does, he’ll have earned it.

  1

  John

  Three Months Later

  Blizzards. Fucking blizzards in February.

  Pulling a beanie low over my eyes and digging my hands into my coat pockets, I walk through the club front entrance like I belong here and move through the hall.

  The bouncer on the door doesn’t know me, but he doesn’t stop me, either.

  The dancing girls on poles shoot flirty winks to the customers, to me, as they spin and seduce. They sway nice asses in the faces of men whose wives are at home. Men who’d rather throw a hundred dollars at a college girl shaking her ass, rather than at the woman he married twenty years ago and swore his loyalty to.

  I’ve been in a million clubs in my life; some were downright filthy, some were clean, some were questionable, and some were classy. But they’ve all been dangerous, and this one is no different.

  I wear a nine-millimeter Glock at the back of my jeans and another beneath my coat. I flip a blade in my left hand inside my pocket, hidden but easily accessible if the wrong guy recognizes me.

  And people will recognize me eventually; it’s inevitable.

  I’m looking for a twenty-five-year-old gangster-wannabe with a gold tooth and a fat wallet. He thinks he’s invincible. He thinks he’s invisible. He thinks he’s important to the success or failure of this war, and thus, he thinks he’ll win it. But no one wins this war except me, because what I have to protect is too important to lose.

  This club, aptly named Devil’s Court, is dark, but it’s on the classier side, since the dancers mostly want to be here. I doubt they grew up wanting to dance for old fucks who take little blue pills before they come out at night, but if they’re going to dance anyway, it may as well be in a club that doesn’t allow touching, and the bills being flung to the stage are worth significantly more than a dollar.

  If these women want to sell their bodies, then they’ll be compensated in such a way that’ll make it worth their time and effort.

  Glancing across the large room and between a set of long legs, I catch sight of my target just half a second before he sees me.

  He’s twenty-five, but acts like he’s an original gangster from way back. Face tattoos, tear drops, gold tooth – he’s a walking cliché – but he’s fast, and when he catches my eyes, he pivots and bolts.

  Breaking away, I run adjacent rather than straight across the room. I’ll catch him at the door rather than run in circles like a dumb shit. I sprint through bodies and bump only a few. The music is loud enough, and my feet sure enough, that my running barely raises a single brow.

  I know this club now. Ace makes sure I have access to everything I need before I step foot outside my apartment, so he sent the blueprints days ago with orders to study the layout, memorize my targets, and be ready to jack a motherfucker up in pursuit of answers.

  I don’t have room to fuck this up, because someone has put a contract on the head of someone I love… and that just won’t be permitted.

  I cannot lose this war.

  Sprinting, I push my way into a hall and time my steps. He’s going to enter the hall from ahead in three… two… one.

  I slam against his hundred-and-fifty-pound body and send us both sprawling. Women squeal, and men pull weapons, but Cole – that’s my gangster’s name – and I slam against the floor, against the wall, and stop when his head raps against the metal emergency exit at the back.

  “What, man? What the fuck?” He throws his hands out to hold his injured head. He calls himself a gangster, but can’t do shit once he’s caught. “What’s your fuckin’ problem?”

  “Get up.” I climb to my feet and pull him up by the front of his shirt. I don’t pull my weapon, and I don’t spare a glance for the men who stand around holding theirs.

  I’m not scared of them. I’m not scared of anything.

  I’ve seen the fire already. It burned me up and snuffed out my life, but here I stand, alive and well, and un-fucking-touchable.

  Having led us exactly where we need to go, I shove Cole through the emergency exit and back into the ball-shriveling blizzard with a groan. It’s so fucking cold out today, it eats at your bones and threatens frost-bitten extremities.

  Fuck the weatherman for forecasting this shit last night.

  Cole fights my hold; he tries to escape my hands and shivers as we move. I walked into that club with my coat and hat still on, but this pussy is wearing a wife-beater and jeans five sizes too big for his skinny ass.

  His gold chains aren’t gonna keep him warm like he’d hoped.

  Slamming the door closed and flipping the lock until the barrel snicks and echoes in the dark alleyway, I turn and snatch my gangster back when he tries to make a run for it. Smashing him against the wall until the breath explodes from his lungs, I lift him off his feet and wait for the stench of urine. “Talk.”

  “What… what… what do you want?”

  “I want names.”

  “I don’t know names, man! I’m just here to buy a dance and a drink.”

  I pull his scrawny body away from the wall, only to slam him back again until his head crunches against the brick and blood trickles over the back of his neck. “This ain’t your ordinary interrogation, kid. I’m a man with too little patience, but loads of time to kill a motherfucker. So before you speak again, listen.” His muddy brown eyes follow mine. His pupils are pinpricks, and his lips quiver. “I’m looking for a military dude. He’s powerful; he’s hidden; he’s protected.”

  “I don’t know any–”

  He stops on a squeak when I squeeze his throat. “I said listen. Do not speak until you have something important to say. The guy I’m looking for is your boss’s boss’s boss. Someone high up. He’s the guy who controls the soldiers. I need to know how to find him.”

  “How the fuck you think I know that shit?” His eyes pop wide when he realizes his mistake and my hand starts squeezing his windpipe. Sliding my left hand into my pocket, I pull the blade out and take pleasure in the way his body comes to a dead still.

  Flicking the blade open, I bring it up to his throat. “You were saying?”

  “Um.” He gulps. “What I meant to say was, I don’t know this guy. You’re asking me to give you a man I’ve never met. I don’t know this man.”

  I flash a smile of approval. “That was an intelligent answer, Cole. I appreciate your honesty.”

  “Can I go now?”

  “No.” Without releasing him, I drop my eyes to my boots for a moment to think. “This dude, this military guy, he’s a few levels higher than you. I’ve got feelers out on this, but so far, he’s hidden. I believe you when you say you didn’t meet him yet, but you transported women across the border last weekend. I saw you.”

 
; His face drains whiter when he reads the truth in my eyes.

  “There’s no need to deny. I fucking watched you do it. You moved a van full of teenage girls across the border and sold them to someone who won’t treat them nicely. You took that order from someone. Tell me who.” He’s lucky I didn’t execute him through the scope of my Winchester while I had the chance.

  Ace and I are strategic. Everything we do has a greater purpose, so not ending Cole’s miserable life a week ago was only because we had more use for him. But it ends tonight. It ends here. “Your only choice right now is to die for what you did to those girls, or hand me your boss, and he dies. There is no third option.”

  “I don’t know!” His voice chokes off when I squeeze his windpipe. Panicked, his hands claw at my wrist, similar to how some of those girls clawed at him a week ago. He was the only thing that stood between them and slavery. He chose wrong.

  “Names!”

  “I don’t know who you’re looking for. I’m just doing my job, man!”

  “You stole fifteen-year-old girls from their folks when their backs were turned. Seven of them! That’s seven families who are now broken. Seven families who’ll never be the same, because you wanted to make a clean thousand bucks and feel like a gangster. Who do you take your orders from?”

  “His name’s Peter. That’s all I know.” Cole’s feet slam against the brick exterior of the club as I lift and squeeze his throat tighter. “He’s a white boy that wears a suit every damn day. Like, a full five-piece to inspect his club.”