Knights Game (Checkmate #1)

1. Chapter 1

1

Luca Knight

I don’t suffer fools. I can’t tolerate incapable twats, I despise insubordination, and I loathe fucking liars. Yet here Steven stands before me in my office, twittering on about how yet another shipment has been seized by the port authorities entering the UK via Liverpool.

He had one job: get it in, get it unloaded, and get it on the road to London so we could get it on the streets. Okay, that’s three jobs, but still. It was his job, and the imbecile failed…again.

I lean forward and grab the tumbler on my desk. Lord, give me strength. I want to put a bullet through this moron’s head. Taking a sip of whiskey, the liquid douses my burning rage.

Steven continues to rattle off excuse after excuse.

I am bored of it.

BORED OF IT.

This is the sixth time it’s happened in the last four months, and the Covenant is watching. Always fucking watching.

As are the Albanians.

How will I ever be able to move to phase two of my business plan if we continue to have these fuckups?

My family's inactions reflect on me, on my plans.

There’s something more to this, they’re obviously coordinated attacks. But that doesn’t negate the fact that this guy is an idiot and a liar.

The golden liquid burns my throat, and I swill the rest around the glass.

If I kill the grovelling twat, I’ll have to answer to my uncle and cousin. That would be a ball ache, especially when neither of them has the vision of what the future could look like without the Albanians.

I can’t risk letting Steven continue to run the operations out of Liverpool. Not when the scales are so precariously balanced. One wrong move, and everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve will be fucked. Everything I’ve worked so hard for.

I can feel Roman, my second-in-command’s eyes on me, waiting for my signal. He’s been witness to the fool’s every jittery move, to every snivelling word.

“One more chance, just one more,” Steven pleads.

But this won’t be just one more chance, will it? This would be his seventh. Six more chances than I was willing to give him, but I was overruled.

I’m growing tired of the family politics. The Albanians are taking over our territory for three reasons: they’re ruthless, they’re cunning, and they’re businessmen. They took the rule book, burned it, then threw the sizzling remnants out the fucking window.

And now? Now our family is fighting for the scraps of London, warring with idiotic gangs and our so-called partners while the Albanians are one step closer to taking control of the six-billion-pound cocaine industry in the UK.

Yet my family, my dear cousin, and uncle, continue to show leniency to fools like Steven here. Our enemies didn’t get to where they are with rainbows and pink fluffy unicorns.

No, they got there with bullets, money and brains.

I slam the tumbler down on the desk. “Enough.” I growl and the fool at least has the courtesy to shut his mouth. “I don’t think you understand the precarious position you put me in, Steven.”

“Please, Mr Knight.” The fool takes a step towards my desk and Roman shifts, the small movement enough to halt the dockworker in his tracks.

“I’m an understanding man,” I say, reaching into the top drawer to pull out a packet of cigarettes and take one out. Tapping it on the desk before popping it into my mouth. Each movement methodical, each movement slow, each movement prolonging Steven’s fate. I flip open the silver zippo lighter, a gift from my mother, etched with the inscription burn it all down . The flame warms my face, a hiss of the tobacco as it catches, and I take a slow drag.

“I get that mistakes happen, we’re human after all.” I puff out the smoke, and take another drag, letting the poison fill my lungs and ease the tension. “But this isn’t the first fuck-up. So, I will ask once,” I hold up my finger before taking another slow inhale. “Who are you working for?”

“You, Mr Knight. The Covenant, only the Covenant.”

I tilt my head and stub out the cigarette. My world is filled with enough death to ever let myself finish a full one. I want to go down in a blaze of bullets, not from cancer.

I rest my chin into my steepled hands, assessing him. “Then that’s not working for me, is it? You’re either loyal to me and my family, or you’re loyal to the Covenant.”

The Covenant. What a stupid, ridiculous waste of space. Four families, London, split into four territories: North, South, East, and West; an agreement that goes back to the 1900s.

“You. I’m loyal to you, Mr Knight.” His face is red, and he’s covered in sweat, his white shirt clinging to his bulging stomach. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a red cloth, rubbing it across his face with shaking hands.

I lean back into my chair and unbutton my suit jacket. The rhythmic bass of the music from my club downstairs drifts to my office, the patrons oblivious to the events that are unfolding mere metres from them.

“But how can that be? When I’ve got it on good authority that you’re lying to me—” The fucker goes to talk but I hold up my hand again. “Not completely mind you, not everything you spout is bullshit. You are in fact working for the Covenant. But you see, Steven, you’re also working with the Albanians. The question I still can’t quite work out is why?”

“Mr Knight, Luca. No, why would I do that? I have my family, my children. No no no, this isn’t right. Your information is wrong.”

Family.

Of course, he’d play the family card. The poor fuck drops to his knees, his hands together. Give me strength.

“Do you know how much you just lost me? How much was in that shipment?”

“No, sir, Luca, you must understand.”

“One hundred and fifty million pounds.” I say it slowly. The words calm but deadly as they pass my lips. “One hundred and fifty million, Steven. You understand what the Covenant is trying to do, no? You understand what we are trying to do? Yet here you are, in the pockets of the fucking poison that is trying to push us out of London. Out of our town.” I stand and take off my suit jacket, draping it over my leather wingback chair, a gift from my uncle.

The chair had been my father’s and the only thing I have from him, with the exception of my looks and eyes. Or at least so I’m told.

I roll up my sleeves while he snivels on the floor, practically kissing my polished leather dress shoes.

“On this occasion, it would seem my uncle and I don’t share the same ideals—he sees your worth and your value.”

He peers up at me towering over him, and clumsily clambers to his feet. I hold my hand out and he takes it, his sweaty, clammy paw clasping mine.

“Oh, thank you, Luca. Thank you, Mr Knight.” He furiously pumps my hand as he continues to mutter his thank you.

I grip his hand tightly and pull him to me roughly, his fat body barrelling into my chest. I drop my face to his ear, his musky smell nearly choking me. “But I’m not my uncle.” It’s like a switch has been flicked inside, he starts to grapple with me, but I’m a solid wall of muscle, and I’m raging.

Raging at his incompetence, raging at his insubordination, at his lies.

I reach into my pocket, pull out my switchblade, and ram it into his neck. Steven’s poor brain has barely caught up with what’s happening. My knife slices through skin, tendons, and muscle, warm blood spurts out and coats my hand. I flick my wrist, extending the gash to do maximum damage before wrenching my knife out.

His brown bloodshot eyes widen as I push him to the floor; the poor sod grips his neck in a desperate attempt to hold the severed pieces of tissue together to stem the blood that is now pooling on the ground around his bulging body.

I turn and walk to my desk, passing Roman the bloody blade; the gurgles and moans of the dying man create a dark and deadly soundtrack to the beat of the music downstairs.

A soundtrack I’d dance in the rain to.

“They’re not going to be happy,” Roman muses, pulling out a napkin and wiping the knife before placing it in a Ziplock bag he takes out of his other pocket.

“When are they ever happy?” All they have done recently is question me. Pinning their inadequacies on me, they need a scape goat, and I am that person right now. “I’ll deal with them. Can you deal with that?” I point to the now still and very dead Steven. “Make it look like suicide.”

“A suicide?” He raises his eyebrows, and I shrug.

Steven’s blood is still spurting onto the floor. I reach over and grab my tumbler, sipping my whiskey. “Such a shame. I really liked that rug.”

Roman snorts, pulling on surgical gloves, and kneels next to the grotesque piece of shit that was once my head of shipments at the Freeport in Liverpool. I can’t quite decide whether to be in awe that he walks around with a set of surgical gloves in his pocket like it’s a pack of chewing gum or concerned for Roman’s mental health.

“Always be prepared, Luca,” he says, snapping the last one in place in response to the thoughts I never vocalised. That’s the thing about Roman, he’s paying attention when no one else is. Senses like a predator, a vicious and ruthless killer, which is why he’s my right-hand man.

Where I go, he goes, and it’s been that way since we met in primary school.

This is as much his plan as it is mine.

“Jesus, Knight, you practically decapitated the poor bastard.”

“Suicide doable?”

“Unlikely, probably going to need to burn his body.”

“Car crash it is.” I turn to the now ringing phone on my desk. The caller ID displays my uncle's name, and I hold it up, waving it at Roman.

This is going to be fun.

“It’s done,” I answer before he has a chance to say anything.

“Is he still breathing?” John's deep, commanding voice fills my ear. Deciding Roman should hear the fallout of my decision, I put it on speaker and lay it on the desk.

“What do you think?”

“Levi said to keep him breathing.”

“I don’t give a shit what Levi said. That’s the sixth shipment that’s fucked up. He’s been working with the Albanians. Roman confirmed it this morning.”

“How?” my uncle probes.

“I followed him,” Roman answers, pulling off his gloves with a satisfying smacking sound and puts them in another Ziplock bag.

“The fuck?” I mouth.

He shrugs, then continues. “He met with Aldo Marku this morning, and an unidentified man. They were together no longer than ten minutes. When he left, he got into the vehicle with the unidentified man. I followed them to the dock, at which point they met with a National Crime Agency team and Border force and raided our shipping container and warehouse.”

“You’re sure of this?”

I roll my eyes. “If Roman says it, he’s sure,” I reply tightly. “We should have shot your man after the first cock-up!”

“Patience, Luca. There are moving parts that you aren’t aware of.”

I meet Roman’s eyes and he frowns, shaking his head.

“Care to enlighten me?”

“All in good time, cousin,” Levi says, joining the call. “You fucked up, Luca.”

I pick up my lighter and spin it between my fingers, his smarmy voice grating on me. My whole life I’ve lived within this ridiculous hierarchy, respecting my elders. Respect the Covenant. Respect Levi, the heir to the Weston seat, to my Uncle John’s seat.

People easily forget the past if it doesn’t help them with their future, and that seat Levi is desperate for, it’s mine by birthright.

John shouldn’t be sitting in it now; it should be my father. But after his death, it was handed to John, and in turn my mother was forced to take back her maiden name.

Knight.

When John took the reins, he made sure that seat would never be mine. Not with Levi around.

“We knew Steven was working for the Marku's, but what we didn’t know was who their contact in the government was, and how far up it goes. That information, cousin, has died with him.”

“We just lost one hundred and fifty million pounds,” I say quietly, grinding my teeth. “If you knew the Albanians have government contacts you should have told me. Roman knows people.”

“As do we,” John says. “And for that reason, we needed it contained.”

“Bullshit. Why are you not giving me all the facts?”

“Because we gave you an instruction. You don’t need all the information if you just do as you’re fucking told,” Levi snaps.

“I’m not a lapdog and I’m not your personal lackey, Levi. Do you think the other families will allow this to continue if we keep cocking up the shipments? They will have our heads.”

“No, Luca, they will have your head,” Levi says, and Roman swears under his breath.

Scapegoat. Just like I said.

“They take my head; we go to war. Blood pays with blood cousin, or have you forgotten that?”

“But that’s the thing, Luca. You may not be blood,” he snarls, and I lean back and hiss out a breath, trying to calm my fury. “You could be the pathetic result of your mother being unable to keep her legs closed.”

“You piece of shit—”

“Enough,” John booms down the receiver. “Luca, you’re told what you need to know. On this occasion, the fewer people who knew, the better.”

“Liverpool is my operation. I absolutely should have known. He was my man.”

“I don’t think that’s something you should be proud of.” Levi laughs.

“Dickhead,” Roman mutters, and I can’t resist a grin. He really does hate Levi as much as I do.

“We’ll be in touch,” my uncle says, and the line goes dead.

I lean back in my chair as Roman waits silently, sensing my annoyance. Then I propel myself forward, grabbing the crystal whiskey glass and smash it against the wall on a stream of profanities. The remainder of the liquid drips down the dark walls.

“Motherfuckers.” I shove back my chair, the momentum knocking it over.

“They’re shutting you out.” Roman watches as I pace the office like a wild animal. I want to punch something really fucking hard.

I circle round to Steven’s body, lift my foot, and slam it down onto the bastard’s face. Blow after blow, I stomp on his head. Cracking and squelching fill the silence. Cursing my cousin, cursing my uncle, cursing the motherfucking Covenant and their traditions and archaic thinking.

Cursing my mother.

Cursing them all to hell.

By the time I’ve finished, Steven is unrecognisable, his brain matter all over the floor. I bend over and take a deep, heaving breath before standing back up to face Roman.

“Feel better?” he asks dryly.

I look blankly to Steven, with absolutely zero remorse, except maybe for the ruined rug. No amount of stain removal is going to get rid of that shit. Rolling my shoulders, I pick up my fallen desk chair and sit back down.

“But the question is why?” I ask. “Do you think the Marku’s are working with the government?”

“No,” Roman answers quickly. “Maybe a sly deal with a small corrupt group of the National Crime Agency to turn a blind eye, but wider than that, not a chance. The government wants the Albanians out as much as we do.”

I pause and look at him, standing in front of my desk in his suit, arms folded, eyes calculating.

“You need to watch your back, friend.”

“That’s why you’re here.” I smirk, but then sigh, rubbing at my temples. “Levi’s threatened.”

“He thinks you want his throne.”

“He’s an idiot. Our next move needs to be cautious.”

He nods.

I will be at the top. Not them. The name Knight will send ripples of fear through the underworld of London.

“Uh-oh.” Roman smirks.

“What?” I ask, grabbing my phone to tap out a quick message to my driver.

“The last time you got that look in your eye, I ended up serving six months in jail.”

“It was good character-building.” I grin. “I’ve been thinking,” I stand and walk around the desk, throwing my arm around his shoulder. He may not be a brother by blood but Roman is more my family than either John or Levi will ever be.

“You know that gets you in trouble.”

I throw my head back and laugh as we both step over the broken body avoiding the mess on the rug.

“You and me, Rome, we are destined for greater things. Change is coming, we either wait and risk the potential of everything we have done so far go to shit, or we force the hand and speed up our plans.”

His grey eyes meet mine, his interest piqued. He hates the current situation as much as I do. “What did you have in mind?”

“Liverpool isn’t the only freeport, and it just so happens I’ve got something brewing on the Thames. We can get the product straight into Central London with no additional transports in.”

“And the Covenant?”

“Is dying. We just need to put it out of its misery a little earlier.”

He stops and steps back as we reach my office door. “This isn’t a new plan, is it?” Roman asks, knowing exactly what my answer is going to be.

“Always be prepared.”

“And yet you call me the fucking boy scout.”

“Having a plan B is logical, carrying Ziplock bags and rubber gloves is downright psychotic.”

Roman raises his eyebrows and looks over his shoulder at the massacre that is Steven’s head. “And kicking someone’s head in like its nothing more than a watermelon is the action of a sensible, sane man?” He pulls open my office door as I laugh.

“Tomorrow, we plot, brother. Tonight, I have a new business venture I want to show you.”

“You best change your shoes first.”