Page 24 of Forgotten Sacrifice

I don’t understand how things went from jovial to homicidal, but here we are.

Luna shoots me a death glare as I answer the door, leading the first potential chess coach inside.

“Mr. Vincenzo,” the man says in a thick French accent as we shake hands. He appears to be around my age, dressed in skinny jeans. His face can best be described as extremely punchable.Strike one.

“And you must be Luna.”

“Hello.” Her face lights up as she smiles brightly at him.Strike two.

Luna’s more prepared than I could ever be, firing off a list of questions. “Do you currently have your own chess ambitions?”

Frenchie shakes his head. “I’m a full-time coach, with no desire to return to competitive play.”

“Why?” Luna asks.

“Because it gives me greater joy to see my students succeed than any victory of my own.”

I’m calling bullshit.

“I want to break into the top fifty by the end of the year. Tell me your plan to help me make that happen,” Luna says.

Frenchie throws around technical terms I don’t understand, and he and Luna have a lively back and forth. “If our lessons go into overtime, we keep going,” he tells her, and that punchable face is begging for my fist. “Your needsalwayscome first.”

And that’s strike three. Frenchie’s out.

“Thank you. We’ll be in touch if you’re selected,” I interject.

Luna cuts me a look as I usher Frenchie out the door.

“He’s a no,” I tell Luna when it’s just the two of us.

“Why? He seemed knowledgeable enough,” she argues.

I shake my head, knowing exactly what kind of lessons that man would offer Luna if given the opportunity. “Frenchie was bad news.”

Luna crosses her arms. “Because he was attractive?”

“The answer is no.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“My dime; my decision.”My right to be ridiculous.“Why did you get so upset over the birthday cake?”

Luna hesitates, and I’m afraid she’s not going to tell me, but she finally says, “No one’s ever got me a birthday cake.” For the second time today, I want to dig up her father just to kill him all over again. “No one except the man Stockholm syndroming me.”

I snort. “That’s not a verb.”

“You’re making it a verb,” she counters with crossed arms.

“For the love of all things holy, it was a birthday cake!” I throw up my hands in frustration. “Nothing more, nothingless. Besides, haven’t you heard the old expression: you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth?”

“Can I borrow your bookie pencil? I need to write down these pearls of wisdom.”

If my glass eye could twitch, it would.

The doorbell rings, putting a pause to this nonsensical—whatever the hell this is.

I escort inside the second chess coach candidate: a non-French elderly woman.