Chapter 31 Checkmate #2
I wanted to kill Scott.
Wanted it with a clarity that should have terrified me.
My hands were already imagining the pressure points—carotid compression, tracheal crush, the precise angle to make it look like he'd fallen in his drug-addled state.
Medical knowledge made it too easy to envision.
Fifteen seconds of pressure.
Maybe twenty.
Oliver would be safe.
Teyonah would be free.
Scott would be gone.
My parents' faces flashed in my mind—Dad's steady hands performing surgery, Mom's gentle voice reminding me that our hands were for healing. "First, do no harm, Dominic."
But what about when harm was the only way to prevent greater harm?
What about when a man brought cocaine into a house with children?
When he waved a gun around while high?
When he called the woman you loved a whore?
Didn't that earn harm?
I took a breath.
Then another.
Think. Don't feel. Not yet.
Killing him would feel good for exactly five seconds.
Then Teyonah would look at me differently—not with trust, but with fear.
The boys would grow up knowing their mother's boyfriend murdered their father.
The police were already coming. One forensic tech would catch something, some detail that didn't fit the narrative.
And I couldn’t forget about Mrs. Patterson who would happily go to court and serve as a witness against me.
And I'd be gone.
Removed from their lives.
Unable to protect them.
Even though dead, Scott would still win.
No.
Revenge worked better cold than hot.
Consequences lasted longer than violence.
I swallowed the rage—pushed it down into some locked compartment where I kept every other thing that threatened to overwhelm me. My parents' death. The patients I couldn't save. The nightmares from the ER.
This joined them.
Not gone.
Just contained.
Strategy replaced fury.
The clinical part of my brain—the part that made me good at medicine—kicked back in.
Evidence.
Witnesses.
Legal consequences.
Long-term planning.
That's how you destroy someone permanently.
Not with your hands around their throat, satisfying as that would be.
But by making them watch their entire life crumble, piece by piece, with nothing they could do to stop it.
I looked at Scott's briefcase. At the cocaine scattered on the desk. At the gun with his fingerprints all over it.
And I smiled.
Because I'd already won.
My only job now. . .was making sure he didn’t get rid of any of the evidence.
I smiled. "Scott, if you are half as smart as you think. . .you'll walk away tonight with some dignity. Because this family is mine now."
In the distance, police sirens began to wail.
Good job, Teyonah.
She’d done just as I said, confirming that she really did have faith in me.
The sound grew louder, closer.
Soon, blue and red lights would be painting the street outside.
Mrs. Patterson would be done from her orgasm and out there witnessing the craziness in a relaxed daze.
And all would be the way it should be.
Scott glanced at the window and then his eyes watered. “How?”
“What?”
“H-how. . .did this day. . .end up. . .like this?”
I felt no pity for this pathetic asshole.
I just wanted to hit him.
Wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until that desperate, pathetic bastard’s breathing stopped.
Wanted to make him feel a fraction of the pain he'd inflicted on Teyonah, on J, on Oliver.
Calm down. The dominos are falling exactly the way they need to. Don’t mess this up. He’s almost out of their lives.
I calmed myself, uncurled my fists, and confirmed the evidence again.
His fingerprints on the weapon. The cocaine in his briefcase.
His impaired state. The police report Teyonah would file.
My legal team's inevitable spin—self-defense, protection of a threatened woman, an unstable ex-husband with substance abuse issues breaking the terms of his court order and putting the kids in danger.
I winked at Scott. “Checkmate.”
He trembled. “W-what?”
“You heard me.”
“W-what?”
“Checkmate.”
“N-no.”
“Your games are over. Checkmate.”
“S-stop saying. . .that.” He shook. “S-stop it.”
I chuckled. “Checkmate, you son of a bitch.”
“Dear G-god. How?” Scott's legs gave out. He slumped into the desk chair. The leather creaked under his weight. His head dropped forward. “How? I. . .was a good. . .husband. . .g-good. . .father. . ."
Those words came out broken and wet with tears coated in self-pity.
A narcissist's brain was an odd thing. Regardless of the evidence, it would remain within its victim-reality as the narcissist began to gaslight himself.
Scott could cheat, lie, abandon his family, be as emotionally abusive to them as possible and even bring cocaine into a house with sleeping children, yet still—somehow—construct a narrative where he was the wounded party.
Where Teyonah was the villain for having standards.
Where consequences led to obvious persecution. The mental gymnastics required gold medals.
And the most exhausting part?
He genuinely believed he was a good father and husband. There was no reaching him with logic, no breakthrough waiting on the other side of the "right" argument, because in his mind, he'd already won every debate before it started.
The sirens were right outside now.
Car doors slamming.
Heavy footsteps on the walkway.
I looked at him—this man who'd had everything and destroyed it through negligence, narcissism, and cruelty. Who'd been given a second chance with his kids tonight and used it to get high and threaten violence.
"No," I shook my head. "You really weren't."
The doorbell rang.
Upstairs, I heard Teyonah's footsteps moving toward the stairs.
I walked out of the office, leaving Scott slumped in his chair, leaving the gun on the floor, leaving the cocaine where anyone with eyes could see it.
This was finally over.
The police would document everything.
Spencer would handle the legal angles.
Teyonah would be safe.
And Scott?
Scott would truly learn how it felt to lose everything that truly mattered.