Page 23 of Love Is A Draw (Check Mates #2)
G aslight gleamed softly gold over the polished tables, catching every tense shoulder and furrowed brow. Victor stood by the fireplace, hands clasped behind him, trying to swallow the gnawing unease beneath his collar.
Rachel Pearler moved through the room with practiced grace. “We’re honored to host not just the tournament, but some of the greatest minds of Europe—men and women.”
Applause rippled politely, then List’s voice slithered through the air with clipped politeness. “It’s generous, but not necessary to include Jewish players. Or women, for that matter.”
A hush fell as if the room shifted underfoot.
Sofia von List rose, placing a hand to her firm belly with a predatory smile. “Progress indeed.”
Greg Stone’s laugh echoed. “In chess, merit is all that matters.”
The tension faded—tense relief crackling like cooling embers.
Gail sat before Sofia’s board, quiet and calculating. The chandelier haloed her curls. Her fingers fell gracefully onto the velvet pouch, pale with Slavic design. She chose her pieces. Every gesture betrayed nothing but confidence.
Victor watched her. A nod passed between them, private and electric.
The game began.
Gail opened with precision, the Tarkov sequence Dmitry had taught her. Sofia followed—move–for–move—replicating a private line from Dmitry’s second notebook , one that had never been shared.
Victor stiffened.
Gail’s jaw tightened. Only the soft scrape of sliding wood broke the quiet.
On move twenty-three, Sofia sacrificed her rook. Ice spread through Victor’s veins. That sequence was Dmitry’s secret. A leaf from the notebook, struck from memory.
He looked across the room at Gail. Her hand shook above the queen. Her eyes darted to the board—and then she shut them, blinking back shock.
His breath caught. She remembers him. She remembers that night.
Fave mumbled under his breath. “They’re playing better than usual.”
Their eyes met—a spark of kinship, of understanding. It’s Jews against List.
Victor approached him quietly. “Only a Tarkov can beat that.”
The room fell silent again, pointed ears twitching.
List rose, dark smile in place. “The beauty of chess? You don’t need the man—only his mind.” He sipped his brandy, gaze fixed on Gail. “We went to great lengths to prevent that mind from ever entering England.”
Victor’s heart hammered.
Gail’s face drained of color. Her lips trembled. She glanced toward Rachel, then she stared at Victor.
He watched her throat work. He’s keeping her grandfather out. Not by brute force—but by using Dmitry’s own legacy as a weapon. By sacrificing Gail’s inheritance on the board.
His world trembled. It was never just a match in a tournament.
The gaslight shimmered on the board, casting long shadows over the carved pieces—but the cold knot in Gail’s stomach pinned her in place.
He’s keeping Grandfather far from me. The truth struck like a slap: deliberate, cruel, final. Not content with stealing Dmitry Tarkov’s notebooks, List meant to erase him completely—out of the country, out of the match, out of history.
Across the table, Sofia von List smiled as if she hadn’t just gutted Gail with a rook and a sentence.
Gail’s eyes flicked up. Rachel stood stiff by the fireplace, lips parted in alarm. Victor seemed stricken, his gaze locked on hers, as if asking a question he couldn’t bear to speak aloud.
She couldn’t breathe.
The bishop on the board waited. But her mind wasn’t on the position—it spun with the magnitude of what Sofia had just done. She’d used Dmitry. His brilliance. His legacy. And now she was burying him alive in a world in exile where he couldn’t grow nor escape—a plant growing in a closed glass vase.
Time to shatter that glass.
A low buzz filled her ears. Around her, other boards clattered with moves, soft murmurs stirred, but none of it reached her. She stared down at the gleaming rook sacrifice—a line she knew by heart. A line that had once belonged to her.
Her inheritance turned against her.
Sofia’s words sliced gently through the haze. “If you’re not ready to continue, Gail, we could adjourn.”
Gail. Like a maid. Not Miss Tarkov, because that would attribute her the greatest and most feared name in chess—the name her grandfather had given her, the one her father had been denied to live out.
The mask snapped back into place.
“No.” Gail’s fingers settled on the queen. “It’s a good move.”
Sofia’s smile deepened—but she misunderstood. Gail wasn’t complimenting her. She was remembering the afternoon Dmitry first showed her this sequence. “It’s a good move,” he’d said, “but not the only one.”
And she, breathless and eager, had asked— “What would you play instead?”
“One day,” he’d told her, eyes warm, “you’ll tell me.”
Her breath evened. She shifted a pawn. Not the textbook reply. Not from any notebook.
It was her move. Not Dmitry’s. Not stolen. Never played before.
A line of her own.
Sofia’s smile faltered.
Gail didn’t lift her gaze. Her fingers moved in rhythm now. The next three moves snapped into place—quiet, exact, unfaltering. The queen danced, the rook flanked, a trap set beneath the board’s gleaming surface. Something Dmitry had never taught. Something Gail had imagined years ago.
She saw it then—in the flicker of Sofia’s hesitation.
Victor’s words echoed. “Only a Tarkov can beat that.”
She was a Tarkov.
But more than that—she was Gail.
Her bishop slid into position.
Sofia’s hand hovered, then faltered. Her eyes swept the board once, twice. She didn’t see the trap until her fingers landed—too late—on the wrong square.
Three moves later, Gail pressed forward.
Checkmate.
Silence coiled around the room. Then a soft cough, the shuffle of a shoe, the breath of realization breaking.
Sofia’s king toppled with the faintest clink.
Gail rose. Her chair scraped gently across the floor. She kept her voice steady. “Thank you for the match, Baroness.”
Sofia said nothing, just stared open-mouthed at the board.
Gail turned, walking away—not from the chandelier, or the board, or even the game. But toward something entirely her own.
She had been born from brilliance. But this—this was strategy.
And it belonged to her.