Page 17 of Niccolo (Mafia Kings #7)

I t happened at a fast chess tournament in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In grandmaster tournaments, time limits were more or less suspended. Games in world championships typically ran five or six hours, sometimes longer.

I didn’t bother with bullet chess because you weren’t actually thinking; you were just reacting. However, I enjoyed the challenge of playing much faster than usual – of thinking on my feet.

Fast chess was sort of a goofy, fun sideline to the more serious grandmaster scene. But it had become a popular fad.

The younger, less stuffy generation of chess players tended to like it.

You could even find some of the top players in the world slumming it at fast chess competitions, largely because the purses tended to be pretty high due to fast chess tournaments’ popularity.

I needed the money, so I went to as many as I could.

Copenhagen was like any other fast chess tournament…

Until the Number Two grandmaster at the time showed up.

He was a 26-year-old Danish asshole whose newfound fame and vanilla good looks allowed him to date actresses and models.

He was also undefeated in tournament play. He was slated to attend the world championship in Seoul the following month and was widely expected to win the top spot.

I faced him in the fast chess semi-final rounds in Copenhagen. I found him unpleasant from the very beginning.

He smirked and gave off an attitude that he considered this ‘fast chess’ thing a joke – but he would still do me the honor of being defeated by him.

Instead, I beat him.

I was thrilled, obviously. It was only speed chess, and not really a true test of our abilities. But it was a big feather in my cap to beat the reigning – and previously undefeated – Number Two player in the world.

The Dane was absolutely stunned.

Once I’d checkmated him, he stared down at the chessboard in mute horror…

And then he threw a fit.

When I put out my hand to shake, he angrily got up and stormed away.

I just thought he was like so many other men I’d faced over the years: garden-variety misogynists who couldn’t handle being beaten by a woman. Irritating but basically harmless.

That was, until I was about to play in the final match against a Russian.

Ten minutes before the game began, a bunch of tournament officials grimly interrupted and demanded to search my bag.

It was in a locker elsewhere in the facility. I was shocked at their demand, but I went along with it.

Inside my purse, they found a small handheld chess computer and a short chain of metal beads.

Anal beads, specifically.

Yes, really.

A few years before, a male player named Hans Niemann had played the world’s number one champion and won. Afterwards, he’d been accused of using wireless vibrating anal beads during a tournament to receive coded messages about how to counter his opponent’s moves.

Niemann brought a defamation lawsuit and settled out of court, but the damage to his career was incalculable.

And now I was being framed for the exact same thing.

Utterly, completely ridiculous.

When the officials pulled out the objects, I was stunned. I said I’d never seen them before.

When they accused me of cheating, I pointed out that I wasn’t using the damn things. They were in my purse and thus must have obviously been planted – probably by “a certain butthurt Danish grandmaster.”

Those were the exact words I used.

They made international headlines the next day.

Not only that, but I pointed out that using such things in speed chess would be beyond stupid. You wouldn’t have time to process any sort of information you got – the game went by too fast.

The officials ignored that obvious logic.

When they demanded I submit to an internal body cavity search, I angrily refused.

I told them to dust the handheld chess computer for fingerprints and do a DNA test on the beads. Then I would provide a saliva swab for a DNA comparison. If I’d actually used the beads, they could find out that way.

They said no.

When I refused to cave to their demeaning and ridiculous demands, they declared me a cheater and ruled all my previous victories in the tournament null and void –

Including my victory over the Danish grandmaster.

He kept his precious undefeated record…

And I was made an international laughingstock.

Not only that, I was drummed out of the International Chess Federation the next day.

My career – the main way I made my living – was gone overnight.

I was devastated.

I cried for hours that night in my shitty hostel room –

But they were tears of rage.

I decided that, unlike last time with my father, I wasn’t going to hit ‘Delete’ on the email.