Page 31 of Love Is A Draw (Check Mates #2)

T he room did not echo with cheers. No one applauded. No one rushed forward with praise or laughter. At the lingering scrape as Gail moved the final piece to checkmate, silence followed, thick as smoke.

Greg leaned back, his gaze unreadable. “You’ve done it.”

Gail didn’t look at him. She looked at the empty chair where Victor should have been.

She barely felt it when Lady Hermy entered the room and reached for her hand. “You were extraordinary, my dear.”

Rachel Pearler moved forward, eyes glinting wet. “That was—he would have been proud.”

Gail’s heart nearly cracked in two.

“Dmitry,” Rachel whispered. “And Victor. Both would be proud of you.”

Gail’s throat tightened. “Where is he?”

No one answered at first.

Then Fave’s voice broke through the hush. “Greg’s carriage is waiting. He and Hermy are heading to Customs House. Victor’s being held with List.”

“Held?” Gail turned sharply.

“For questioning,” Fave said. “List is using the ledgers as evidence against him. Claimed they’re codes. Treason against the Crown. You know how that sounds in the wrong ears.”

Panic surged. “But they’re not. They’re chess—Victor’s ideas, not sabotage?—”

“Greg knows. He’s handling it.” Fave’s mouth was grim. “But there’s something else.”

Rachel approached slowly. “Your grandfather’s ship. It’s docking within the hour.”

Gail’s heart stilled.

“If List finds him first?—”

“No.” She recoiled, shaking her head. “We’ll get him.”

Rachel nodded. “You, me, and Fave. We’ll go now. Before List sends anyone.”

“But Victor?—”

“Greg will bring him back,” Fave said. “If anyone can, it’s him.”

Gail looked to the doorway. Beyond it, the city throbbed with carriages and gaslight. She had just become the Black Knight, but titles meant nothing when the people she loved were in danger.

“Let’s go.” Gail headed for the door. “Before it’s too late.”

Fave grabbed their cloaks. Rachel gathered the dispatch papers. No one waited to see if List would try again.

The tournament was over.

Now came the real game.

Victor sat stiffly at the wooden table, fingers curling into fists beneath the polished edge. The room stank of ink and damp wool, and the two men seated across from him wore the weary expressions of civil servants forced to play constables.

One of them tapped the ledgers, splayed open like evidence. “You wrote this yourself?”

Victor didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

“In code?”

“No. In chess notation.”

“In Russian.”

He nodded once. “Because I am Russian.”

The man beside him scoffed. “Convenient, but not true. You’re a Jew, not Russian.”

Victor’s jaw tightened.

The door opened, and all three heads turned. Gregory Stone strode in without invitation, Lady Hermione on his arm, her chin tilted just enough to convey disdain without needing a word. She surveyed the room with the poise of a queen inspecting a schoolroom.

Greg’s gaze fell on the table, then Victor, then the officers. “This man is my guest.”

The officer shifted. “He is under investigation for subversive materials. These ledgers?—”

“—Are chess records?” Hermy cut in crisply. “And any man who knows the game could tell you that. Just because your ignorance cannot parse Russian does not make it treason.”

Before they could speak again, the door creaked open behind them again. Baron von List appeared, uninvited but clearly expected. He carried himself like a man climbing onto a stage.

“Ah,” he said with a lazy smile. “Shall I demonstrate?”

He placed one of the ledgers flat on the table, flipping through the pages. “See here—bishop takes rook, rook pins queen. And here—forward advance, pawn sacrifices, flanking. These are battlefield movements. Military codes.”

Victor opened his mouth, but List lifted a finger. “You claim these are chess?” He smiled now at the officers. “I played through every line, and no victory emerged. They make no sense. Because they’re not meant to.”

Victor gulped. “You played them?”

List blinked. “Of course I did.”

Victor’s expression sharpened. “Then you admit to stealing them. Memorizing them.”

Greg’s brows lifted. “And using them in a public tournament against the author. Doesn’t that make you the thief?”

The officers glanced at each other.

List’s eyes darkened. “That’s irrelevant. These are coded attacks.”

Victor stood and reached for the nearest blotter. “May I?” He didn’t wait for permission.

He picked up a pencil and turned one of the ledgers toward himself. On a blank page, he drew a board—eight squares by eight—and filled it with quick, clean annotations. “This is Russian chess notation. Standard for master players from the Imperial School. But if you prefer your own method?—”

He flipped the paper over and began again. “Algebraic. Queen to d4. Knight to f6. Rook takes h7.”

The officer leaned closer. “This… this is a match?”

Victor nodded once, but he continued to write.

“And a brilliant one, if I may say so,” Greg said.

The officer studied the page, brows rising. “I might try this sometime. My brother and I play on Sundays. He always opens too wide.”

Greg smirked. “Might want to watch for that flanking move.”

List’s jaw flexed. “This proves nothing! I played this match and couldn’t make it work—there was no mate!”

Victor’s voice cut cleanly through the room. “Because you didn’t understand it.”

The silence was sharp.

“You memorized my lines,” Victor continued. “But chess is not just memory. It is vision. You cannot win with pieces you do not respect.”

List turned purple.

The first officer slowly closed the ledger, glancing at his colleague. “This is no enemy of the Crown. Just a chess player.”

The second officer’s brow furrowed. “He’s unauthorized. And as such, he cannot stay.”

Greg’s face hardened. “Then you’ll have to argue with me and Parliament. And we’ll see who wins that match.”

The first officer cleared his throat, then whispered as he passed Victor’s papers to Greg, “My grandfather played in Odessa. He’d have been proud.”

Victor stood, spine straight, and left the room with Greg and Hermy beside him.

But he felt no sense of victory, not without her.

Gail had won the board, but maybe… she’d never meant to keep him on it.