48
“Why a white queen?” Aaron asks. He shifts his gaze to me. “Besides the most obvious reason.”
The chess piece sits in the center of my coffee table.
I called Joel the second I opened the box and saw it.
He was at my place in minutes, breaking every speed limit.
The car had barely stopped before he was out and sprinting to the porch where I stood.
Without a word, he swept me into his arms and crushed me to his chest, like he wished he could keep me there forever.
I felt the fury running hot under his skin.
On the drive he must have called Aaron and Gideon. They arrived in separate cars five minutes later, their faces grim and focused.
A lump forms in my throat. It’s the middle of a work week and they’re all here. They didn’t hesitate; they dropped everything to get to me, understanding how serious the threat is.
The four of us gather in my living room, not touching the chess piece, yet it commands all our attention.
Gideon’s taken the single chair nearest the entrance, his posture relaxed, but his eyes alert. Aaron’s in the armchair by the window and Joel sits next to me on the couch, his shoulder touching mine, Turbo at our feet.
I can’t help but notice that all three men have angled themselves so they can keep an eye on all the exits and entrances to the room.
Tension charges the air, the space crackling with unsaid things. It feels like the second before a lightning strike, when everyone holds their breath and waits.
Joel is still glaring at the chess piece as though he wants to smash it to pieces. I touch his leg to secure his attention and repeat Aaron’s question. “Why a white queen?”
His face hardens. “Roy Bellings would have given precise instructions to whomever he’s got doing his dirty work,” he says in a grim voice. “The white queen is a deliberate choice. Black is him. White is Kenzie. A white queen on black velvet says she’s in his hand.”
Aaron leans closer without touching the queen. “There’s damage on the crown,” he points out, eyes narrowing. “It looks like a clean notch, not like it was dropped.”
Joel’s eyes fix on the mark. “He’s used pawns to taunt, rooks to suggest he could breach any defense, and knights to say I won’t see the angle.” He holds still, not breathing for a second. “He’s never marked a piece before.”
“It must mean something then,” Gideon says. “What are you thinking?”
Joel doesn’t answer right away. The tendons in his neck flex as he glares at the queen, and I glimpse his reluctance to say something,
He looks up, and a silent exchange goes on between the three of them.
Oh, no, they don’t .
“If there’s a meaning, I need you to tell me,” I say steadily. “It’s my life on the line. You can’t keep parts of this from me, not if we’re doing it together.”
Aaron sits back, leaving the space to Joel. Gideon gives a small nod.
Joel swallows and his hands tighten on his knees. “The notch on the queen isn’t decorative.”
“What is it?” My voice stays even.
He inhales heavily. “He’s saying he doesn’t just want to reach you. He plans to break you.”
Aaron’s fingers tighten on his laptop. Gideon angles himself a fraction more between me and the window.
“Thank you,” I say, because honesty is a kind of armor. “Now we all know what we’re up against.”
“So Roy is not signaling a game,” Gideon says slowly. “He’s signaling damage.”
Aaron closes his laptop. “Then we treat this as a clear declaration,” he says. “Not a bluff.”
“What about Owen?” I ask. “Should we take this to him?”
Aaron is the first to speak. “We log it,” he says, in his calm, precise way. “Photos, timestamps. I’ll bag the piece and the packaging, but there’s no explicit threat here. Just a chess piece.”
“Whenever I bring something to the police, it ends the same,” Joel says, a little bitterly. “They file it and tell me to be vigilant.”
Gideon leans forward, forearms on his knees, eyes steady on me. “Owen’s a good man,” he says evenly. “He’s also a small-town sheriff with a small-town toolbox. He can note it down. He can patrol. That’s about it.”
Joel’s hand opens on his knee, then closes again. “Going to the authorities isn’t off the table. It’s just not our first move.”
Aaron nods in agreement. “We loop Owen in when we have something actionable.”
“In the meantime,” Gideon adds, “you tell us if anything feels off. Even small things.”
I straighten as a memory pricks. “There was this guy.”
Joel stiffens next to me, his eyes sharpening. “What guy?”
“Tell us about him, Kenzie,” Aaron asks in a calmer tone.
I do. I describe how he stopped me for directions, then asked me out for a drink. And how the whole encounter felt faintly wrong, though I couldn’t pinpoint why.
Aaron frowns. “Give me everything you remember about him.”
I give him as detailed a description as I can.
“We’ll look for him,” Aaron assures me. “I’ll check the hotel he mentioned. If he’s the copycat, he may have moved on. Or never stayed there at all.”
“I’ll use my resources,” Gideon says. “See if I can place him.”
Joel turns to me, his voice firm, his eyes implacable. “If you see him again, you call one of us. Do not approach him.”
“I won’t,” I reassure him.
“We’re all here for you,” Aaron adds.
“We have your back,” Gideon says in a quiet voice to Joel.
Gideon’s jaw is set. “He’s evil, but we’re a whole other kind of dangerous. And if he tries anything, he’ll soon discover just how dangerous we are.”
Gideon holds my gaze. “We’re all armed. We’ll do our best to make sure nothing happens to you.”
I’m grateful he’s not promising that nothing will happen to me. No one can make that promise. You can only control what you can. But when he says we’ll do our best , I trust their best.
All three men are formidable. Joel is strong, he works out. He’s taken all sorts of combat classes and self-defense classes. Aaron is fit and strong.
Gideon seems the most mild-mannered, but there’s a side of him I sense will do anything for the people he loves. For the people Kate loves. Joel, through no fault or choice of his own, has to live with darkness. But Gideon... It’s like he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty.
And all three of them are determined to protect me.
He keeps his attention on my face when he says, “You can’t go walking on your own. You don’t answer the door without checking who’s there. You wait for someone to go with you before you go out. Either myself, Gideon, or Aaron will accompany you.”
I hide my trembling hands in my lap. “This is awful. I’m inconveniencing everyone.”
“No,” Joel says firmly, tipping my chin up so he can hold my gaze. “Don’t apologize. Never apologize for something that is in no way your fault.”
“Kenzie, keeping you safe is not an inconvenience,” Aaron adds, steady and direct. “Not to us.”
“You focus on work and go about your days as usual,” Aaron advises me. “We’ll focus on the threat.”
It’s agreed that Joel will move into my house to keep a closer eye on me.
When Gideon tells me he’s organizing private protection for me, I protest, but he says, “I have the money, Kenzie. And I can’t think of a better way to spend it than on your safety. Kate will agree with me. In fact, Kate would insist on it.”
“I have a good friend who runs a private security agency,” Aaron says. “His name is Lucas Wilson. His guys are good.”
Gideon nods. “Give me his details.”
“Will do.”
Joel drops back on the couch, shame, guilt, and apology flickering across his face. “I was stupid to believe Roy would get bored with his game and finally leave me alone. Stupid and careless.”
“You weren’t careless,” I say softly. “You were hopeful.”
Aaron’s eyes cut to Gideon, a message passing between them.
“How about a cup of chamomile tea?” Aaron asks me, pushing to his feet. “It’s supposed to help calm you. Tess wants one whenever she’s stressed.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Coffee, Joel?” Gideon asks as he stands.
“Yes, please.”
Aaron and Gideon head to the kitchen to make drinks, tactfully leaving us alone, sensing we need a moment to ourselves to talk.
And we do. It’s clear to me that Joel is racked with guilt, flogging himself with self-recrimination.
I won’t have it. Since the chess piece arrived, a peculiar thing has happened.
I’ve discovered a fight in me I didn’t know existed.
Yes, I’m scared—I’d be foolish not to be—but a warrior spirit is waking up inside me.
Roy Bellings will not intimidate me. And he will not crush Joel with misplaced guilt.
I want to fight. For me. For the man I love. And for our future.
I look Joel straight in the eye. “If you could go back and change things so you never met me and I’d be safe, would you?”
He’s silent for a moment. “Yes,” he says at last, his voice rough. “It would tear me apart but I’d have refused that first kiss, walked out of that storeroom, and left the possibility of us behind if that was the price of your safety.”
I nod once. “Now ask me.”
“Kenzie—”
“Ask me.”
His throat works. “Would you change it?”
“I wouldn’t,” I say instantly. “Not for anything.” I rest a hand on his thigh. “These weeks with you have been the happiest of my life. I watched Sofia fall in love, then Tess, then Kate, and I wanted what they had so badly. And I found it with you. The kind of love I dreamed of my whole life.”
I lean in and plant a gentle kiss on his lips. “So no,” I whisper against his mouth, “I wouldn’t change a thing. In that storeroom, which feels like a lifetime ago, I would still steal that first kiss. I would still choose every moment that carried us here.”
His hand comes up to cradle my cheek.
I hold his gaze. “Whatever comes, remember this—I chose you. I chose us. I don’t have a single regret.”
Aaron and Gideon return to the living room. Aaron hands me my mug of chamomile tea and Gideon returns to his quiet post in the armchair closest to the entrance.
“You’re not a piece on his board,” Joel says, his voice low. “He doesn’t get to write the ending.”
Gideon gives a small nod. “We keep Kenzie safe,” he says. “Until he runs out of moves.”