Page 52 of Love Is A Draw
Victor’s eyes flicked to the side—just enough to catch the back of Gail’s head. She was playing with Sofia. He couldn’t see her face, couldn’t read the state of her board, but her hand trembled as she touched a piece. He knew the feeling. Pressure. He was drowning in it now.
Baron von List lounged across from him, legs sprawled, chin tipped arrogantly as if the match had already ended. A piece of his blond hair had fallen into his eyes, but he didn’t push it back. His long purplish fingers tapped a slow rhythm against the table, each beat a deliberate mockery.
Victor’s queen was at stake. He hadn’t seen the trap until it was too late. And now the board—his battlefield—held a wreckage of pinned rooks and scattered pawns. He’d been dismantled.
Across from him, List gave a soft chuckle, the kind that curdled in the gut. “Your move. Unless you’d like to concede?”
Victor didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His mouth was dry. His lungs barely worked. The pieces stared back at him, hollow and cruel. He had written the moves that brought him here. He had penned the variations in those ledgers.
List had stolen them. Read them. Learned from him. Every thought Victor had committed to paper was now being turned against him—tactics weaponized, creativity bastardized. His years of work, laid bare and bled dry.
He reached for his knight, then paused.
List’s smile widened. “Ah. The Black Knight. How poetic.”
Victor’s fingers brushed the carved horse’s head. He moved it slowly into place. Not to counter or to attack. Just to survive.
List arched a brow. “That’s your response?”
Victor stared down at the board. No. It wasn’t. It wasn’t even from his notebooks.
And that was the point.
If List knew everything he’d ever written, then he’d stop playing what he’d written. He could no longer use his regular tactics. Survival required something more.
“Take your time,” List murmured, a man savoring victory. “Unless you’ve lost your nerve, Jew.”
Victor didn’t flinch. But inside, something buckled. He thought of Gail and the way she’d looked at him after the match with Sofia, her eyes raw with the weight of betrayal and brilliance.
He heard Dmitry in his head: “It’s not creativity but courage that’s rewarded in chess.”
So, Victor hung his queen for List to take. A foolish move. A reckless one. But it cracked the symmetry of the board—something not even List’s stolen knowledge could predict.
List took the bait.
The queen fell. Victor had lost the most powerful piece on the board.
The spectators froze, and the heat in the room thickened with the scent of impending defeat.Hopefully, not mine.
Victor’s pulse thundered in his ears.
List sat back, languid, self-satisfied. “We’ll adjourn here,” he said with a smirk. “Enough drama for one day.”
Victor blinked. “What?”
“You’re tired.” List stood. “I’ll give you the night to find a miracle.”
The room stirred. Spectators rose. Footsteps shuffled. But Victor remained seated, staring at the pieces. He had played his most dangerous move, and it hadn’t been enough.
Across the room, Gail didn’t look back.
Victor lowered his hand from the table and wondered if she still would have loved him… had he won.
Gail barely believedit as she stood in the darkened corridor, hand pressed flat against the table that Victor had almost lost.
This wasn’t over. Victor had given up the most powerful piece on the board, but he hadn’t surrendered. He was playing for something more than a title. He was playing for her. She could feel it in her bones.
She hadn’t seen the end of the match—List had insisted on adjourning. But she’d seen enough. Victor’s queen sacrificed. His breathless stillness. The way he left the room without looking back at her.
