Checkmate: Checkmate, #8 Read online

  “I guess that was to be expected.” Mom’s nervous laugh makes me frown. “His father is broad and strong.”

  “Yes…” He sniffs, leans toward a crystal ashtray and taps the cigar against the side. “Hayes.” He looks to the man on my left, the man with the sausage fingers, and lifts his chin. “Take him to the girls. He can get to know his family while Jacintha and I speak.”

  “My family?” My gaze darts between the two men. “What?”

  “Wait.” He lifts a hand when Hayes grabs my collar. “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Um…” I look to my mom and frown when her shaking hand gets shakier. She purses her lips to contain her nerves, but she lets them curl up just a fraction, as though to encourage me to speak. “Gunner, sir. My name is Gunner.”

  “Gunner.” He nods thoughtfully. “Strong name. Prophetic, perhaps. Do you know how to use guns, kid?”

  My eyes widen. “Um, no, sir. I’ve never used one.”

  His dark eyes flicker over my shoulder to the policeman behind me. “We’ll teach him.”

  “Wait, no—” Mom steps forward to object, but stops again when the final man in the suit peels his coat back and reveals a shiny pistol.

  With a lifted brow, the army man watches her for a minute, then he looks over my shoulder. “Take him to the girls. We’ll be done in an hour or so.”

  Fat-fingered-man grabs my collar and pulls me away. He’s not rough, he doesn’t hurt me, but he makes me move and doesn’t slow when I trip on my feet. “Move your ass, kid.”

  “But my mom.”

  He pushes me past the policeman and through the door. “She’s fine. She has business to see to, but you can see her again in a bit.”

  “Where are you taking me?” I stumble along the hall, past the stair landing and into another hall.

  Stopping outside a door, he lifts his chin. “My daughters are in there.” He leans lower, so our eyes are level. “If you touch either of them, I’ll snap your scrawny fucking arms.”

  “My…” My eyes widen. “What?”

  He smiles the way he did back in the other room. It’s fake and slimy. “My daughters are perfect. Introduce yourself, but don’t touch them. Capiche?”

  “Umm…”

  Grunting, he snaps the handle down and opens the door to reveal a bunch of kids, three of which are wrestling in the middle of the office. This one isn’t as fancy as the first office, but it’s not ugly either. But what makes it the coolest is that these girls are my age. Maybe a little younger. They’re definitely not grown, and they’re not in police or army uniforms — uniforms I thought cool until now.

  “Girls!” The man claps his hands loud enough that I jump, and the girls fall apart.

  A toddler sits in the far corner on his own, quietly stacking blocks and bouncing his shoulders. Unfazed by the clapping — and the fighting — he looks up for a moment to assess the room, but goes back to stacking when he decides he’s uninterested in the rest of us.

  “This is Gunner,” the man says in his gravelly voice. “He’s one of us now, so welcome him to the family.”

  Two of the girls are beanpole thin. They’re younger than me by a few years, wear sundresses, tights, and black Mary Janes. I’m my mom’s only child, so it’s not like I have sisters at home, but I know what Mary Janes are, because the rich girls in my school wear them most days. The two thin girls are totally sisters, because they have the same pointy noses and thin lips. Their hair is the same; color, length, thickness. But the third girl, the one on the bottom of the pile, is a little chunky. She wears a dress too, and a cute coat that goes to her knees, but where the other two look like they enjoy their fancy dresses, the third looks like maybe she’s counting the seconds to toss it all away and wear shorts instead.

  Her legs are thick enough for her knees to have dimples, which is kinda… well… cool. I’ve never met someone with knees like that before. All three girls pant, like they’ve been wrestling awhile, but the top two jump up super fast and turn to us, while the other stays down and sprawls back. Exhausted, she opens her legs a little, so I see a flash of white underwear, but I’ve seen my mom’s a million times before, so I turn away and pretend I didn’t see.

  “Girls.” The man snaps his fingers and brings his daughters skipping forward. “Stella and Zoey, this is Gunner. I want you to make him feel welcome.”

  “Daddy?” One of them looks up from beneath her lashes and makes puppy dog eyes. “He looks weird. Can we come with you?”

  “No. Daddy’s got to take care of some business for now, but we’ll be done in a bit. Gunner’s coming back to the house with us tonight, so make sure you’re nice. We don’t get a choice.”

  “But, Daddy!” The other one looks to me with a wrinkled nose, then she turns back to the chubby girl. “Why do we have to make friends with these people? They’re awwwful.” She drags the sound out and makes me regret thinking that just because they were kids, they would be cool.

  “Because this is the cost of business.” He steps back without a single word for the third girl. Taking the door handle, his dark eyes stop and meet mine. “Play nice. If you’re an asshole to my girls, you’ll see the back of my hand. Do you understand?”

  “Umm… yessir.” I jump when he slams the door closed, then I turn back to the sour-sisters and study them the way they study me. My mom taught me to mind my manners, she especially taught me to mind my manners around the female kind, but these girls act like I taste of lemons. “What’s your fuckin’ problem?”

  Gasp! Shock! They can’t believe someone would speak to them in such a way.

  “How dare you speak to us like that?” Sour-sister number one snaps. “You’re a dirty, poor, street filth boy who doesn’t belong here.”

  I lift a brow and chuckle. They knew I was coming today, and they know I’m poor. “Did you practice that speech in the mirror this morning, or was that something you thought up on the fly?”

  Sour-sister number two curls her lip and takes a step back. “Peasant. That’s what you are.”

  “Yeah?” My eyes drift to the chubby girl to see whose side she’s on, then I look back to the elite squad. “If I’m a peasant, then what does that make you?”

  “Worthy,” Sour-sister number one sneers. “We’re classy and demand respect.”

  “And her?” I nod to the chubby girl. “How does she fit in?”

  “She’s part of the help, just like you.” Sour-sister number two looks over her shoulder and glowers. “She needs to learn her place. Her daddy wears a badge; big effing deal. Our daddy owns this club. He owns all of this.” She lifts her hands as though to command her army of seahorses to swim up from the depths of the ocean or something. I’m going to call her Ursula. “This is our empire, and you’re nothing but a bastard child with a whore for a mother.”

  I lift a hand and roll my bottom lip between my thumb and finger, when really, my hand tingles with the need to smack her down for talking about my mom. If she was a boy, we’d already be on the floor and she’d be knocked the hell out, but nobody ever prepared me for this kind of confrontation. Blood heats and roars through my veins as my temper wants to forget she’s female for a second and lay her out. But we don’t hit girls. We don’t hurt women.

  Stepping around the sour chicks and stopping in front of the help, I extend my free hand. We’re both poor and unwanted, so I’ll stick with her and make sure those jerks don’t jump her again. “Come on up, girl.” When she’s up, she’s still a whole foot shorter than me, and I have to look down. I smile when I do. “You okay?”

  “They’re bitches,” she growls. “Stuck up bitches think they can double-team me.”

  I give the bitches my back and speak only to the chubby girl. “What’s your name?”

  “Elizabeth.”

  I nod. “How old are you, Elizabeth?”

  Her eyes narrow. “I’m nine and three quarters. How old are you?”

  “I’m eleven and a half, and my mom’s not a whore.” I stare into
her eyes. “Will you call her a whore? Because if you do, we’re going to have problems.”

  She hurriedly shakes her head. “I won’t say that. I don’t even know your mom, except that she’s Uncle’s girlfriend.”

  I take a step back and frown as Elizabeth watches me through dirty green eyes. Her hand remains in mine, despite the fear that trickles into her gaze.

  “No… My mom isn’t anyone’s girlfriend. Who told you she was?”

  “Oh…” she hesitates. “I don’t know. I thought that’s what the adults said last night. But maybe I’m wrong.”

  “You’re definitely wrong.” I hold her hand tighter and stand over her when she tries to step away from my glower. “Don’t say that shit ever again. In fact, don’t speak about her at all.”

  “Okay.” She tugs her hand from mine with a grunt, pulling it to her chest and rubbing away the ache from my squeeze. “I won’t say that anymore.”

  One of the sour-sisters makes a grunting sound at my back — maybe because she’s got the manners of a wild warthog — so I step into Elizabeth’s space and make her move. This office is big, with a large desk in the center and a tall leather chair behind it, so I shuffle the girl back and around the wooden desk. We’re nearer the toddler now, but he’s still quiet, stacking his blocks and bopping to whatever music is in his head.

  I would give Elizabeth the comfortable chair and sit on the desk myself, but that would mean having my back to the bitches, and call me crazy, but I don’t trust them. So I drop into the leather chair and nod to the desk so Elizabeth can sit.

  She looks to the sisters, who watch on in silence, stunned at the fact that someone came along and didn’t bend a knee when they demanded, then her eyes come back to mine. She’s about as comfortable giving them her back as I am.

  “I’ll watch out for you, I swear.” I snatch up a metal letter opener from the desk and spin it in my hand as she climbs her chubby butt up and makes herself comfortable. “You’re not friends with them, are you?”

  Elizabeth looks into her lap, giving herself an extra chin, and snorts. “Does it look like we’re friends? I don’t waste my time hanging out with snobs.”

  “No, it looks like you’re working off an old shiner to me.” I point the letter opener toward an old bruise on her face. “Bitches jump you before?”

  She nods and peeks over her shoulder. “I can fight back.” Her eyes come back to mine. “I’m not weak. But two against one is hard, and their legs are longer than mine.”

  I snicker and let my eyes wander down her legs. “You seem to be missing a little of what God intended us to have. Are you a dwarf?”

  “No! I’m just a little slower to grow. Geez, you don’t have to be rude.”

  “If you were taller, you wouldn’t be chubby.” She growls when I smile. “Stretch it out, and you’d be in proportion.”

  “You’re no better than them.” She pushes forward to jump off the desk, giving me yet another flash of white panties.

  “Stop, I’m sorry.” I push her shoulder back and swallow when our eyes meet. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way. I mean, I guess I was teasing a little, but I didn’t mean it to be horrible. I joke when I’m not feeling comfortable.” I cast a glance to the bitches, who try to sneak closer to us.

  They stop with an almost skid, back up on a squeak, and make themselves busy across the room as they drop to the floor beside a Barbie Dream Castle, and act like the children they really are. They can’t be more than seven or eight, but arrogance makes them act bigger than they are.

  Spoiled brats with a daddy that gives in to their every whim; I’ve met a billion of them at school.

  I come back to meet Elizabeth’s eyes. “I’m sorry for teasing. People tease me all the time for being tall and too skinny.”

  She purses her lips. “You are tall. And you’re too skinny, too.” Her lips twitch. “People tease me for being fat.”

  I smile. “I don’t think you’re fat. I think you’re thick, maybe. Like you have a little extra padding, I suppose. But you’re gonna hit that growth spurt soon, and you won’t be able to keep up with the food.”

  “Yeah?” She looks me up and down. “That happened to you?”

  “Uh-huh. I get sore knees and the kind of hunger that nothing can fix every couple months. I go to bed, sleep for twelve hours, and wake up another couple inches taller.” I flash a wide grin, because I kinda like it. I want to be the tallest, the biggest, the strongest. “My mom gets mad, because she can’t keep up with the clothes.”

  She scoffs. “My daddy gets mad too, but because he doesn’t wanna buy ‘fat girl’ clothes anymore.” She bobs her head with extra exaggeration. “‘Why can’t you be thin like the Hayes girls, huh? Why can’t you look like them’?”

  I scoff. “He sounds like a total asshole.”

  She nibbles on her lip and hides her grin. The sour-sisters continue to sneak glances our way, but each time they move to approach, our eyes meet, mine fiery hot and still pissed about the comment about my mom, so they sit their asses down and turn away again.

  “I don’t call him an asshole, though,” Elizabeth whispers. “No way José. He’d beat my butt so I couldn’t sit for a week.”

  I spin the letter opener between my fingers. “Does your dad beat you often? He likes to hurt girls?”

  Shrugging, she reaches for a metal ruler near the front of the desk. “He doesn’t, like, beat me or anything. Not with his fists. He spanks me if I’m bad, or sends me to my room if I back talk. But it’s not so bad. He has a stressful job, so…” She looks up. Shrugs.

  “My mom has a stressful job too,” I counter. “She’s always working, always tired.” I peek around Elizabeth for a moment, then I lean in closer and whisper, “We’re always broke.” The sour-sisters might be right about me, they might even be right about my dirty clothes and poor life, but my mom’s not a whore, and our finances are none of their damn business. “My mom never beats me, though.”

  “That’s probably because you’re a boy,” she argues. “You’ll be bigger than her one day. She’s making smart choices today, so you don’t turn and flatten her when you’re older. That’s not something my daddy ever has to worry about.”

  “No.” I shake my head and study the letter opener. “I would never hurt her when I’m bigger. She’s my mom. There’s nothing she could do that would make me that mad.”

  “Well, aren’t you lucky?” With a roll of her eyes for my very own kind of elitism, Elizabeth peeks over her shoulder and growls, “God, I hate them. They think they’re soooo special, but it’s all a lie. They’re the help too. If they think they’re special because of their last name, then they have no clue how much life is gonna kick their asses. Around here, unless you belong to Uncle, and even sometimes then, you’re the help.”

  I narrow my eyes and sit back to study the girl in front of me and her constant need to flash her panties. She doesn’t even know she does it, which proves that she’s used to wearing shorts. I study her cute hair; mousy brown and tied in that half-up, half-down way girls do. A shiny pin holds it together at the back, and she wears cute unicorn earrings in her ears, though a part of me wonders if those are stickers.

  Her eyes are like a rainforest green, but during a thunderstorm, when mud and dirt fling around. Her hands are fat like her knees, so her knuckles have dimples and tempt me to make a comment. But I don’t, because I’m not here to be mean, and she’s already laid down her rules.

  Instead, I slowly spin the letter opener and watch the sunlight from the windows glint off the metal. “Your uncle the army guy?” When she nods, my lips firm. “Guess that makes us family, because word on the street is he’s my dad.”

  Her eyes widen. “No shit?”

  I chuckle, despite the fact that none of this is funny to me. “Shit. That’s why we’re here; I’m supposed to be meeting him. Does that make you my cousin?”

  She shakes her head. “He’s not actually my uncle. My daddy told me to call him that, someth
ing about respect, but he’s not my blood family.” She pauses. “He’s your dad for real?”

  I shrug. “That’s what I’ve been told. We have the same hair, I guess. The same jawline. Not the same eyes, though.” I lean closer. “Does that make you not want to hang out with me anymore?”

  “No.” Her long lashes come down to kiss her fat cheeks as she blinks. “We can be friends, so long as you’re not a prick. But… isn’t it kinda weird that you’re only meeting him today? You’re eleven.”

  “Don’t judge me.” I sit back with a scowl and watch the door like I’m waiting for them to come back. They said their meeting would take an hour, and it’s been no more than ten minutes. “He and my mom aren’t together-together. They used to be together, they had me, then they separated. Lots of kids at my school have divorced parents. It’s not weird.”

  “Were your mom and dad married before?” Elizabeth sets her Mary Janes on my leg, I guess to stop them from dangling. “You said you only just met him.”

  “You’re super judgmental, ya know that? Why the twenty questions?”

  “I’m not judging! I’m only asking. Geez. If you think I’m judging, then that’s on you.”

  “Cop’s daughter,” I grumble. “Cops are always trying to judge without saying they’re judging.” I pause, because three-quarters of my heart wants to be a cop when I grow up. The other quarter wants to draw, but Mom’s told me a million times, ‘art never pays the bills’. “Does your dad ever call himself Walker?”

  “What?” She scrunches her nose and giggles. “No. That would be weird.”

  “Does he carry a gun every day? Even at home?”

  “He takes it off at home.” Leaning forward, she plays with the buckles on her shoe, and because of her new angle, the heel digs into my thigh and hurts. No way would I admit that, though. Men don’t admit to pain. Men suck it up and shut up about it. “He has others around the house and stuff. Like, hidden in places he doesn’t think I know about. But the one on his belt, he takes off when he walks into the house and hangs it up on the hat rack.”