Page 46 of Love Is A Draw
She turned to him, full and fearless. “Strategy is a language. And I’ve learned it. From my grandfather. From you, when I was on the other side of the wall. From everyone who thought I didn’t belong.” She stopped next to him. “I’ve loved chess all my life. And I’ve loved you since the moment you played me without knowing me. But I’m not hiding behind the wall anymore.” Her voice didn’t waver. “I’m not afraid to be seen anymore. I’m not afraid to say it.”
Victor looked up at her then. Really looked. Something flickered in his eyes—recognition, maybe pride, but deeper too, as if he had been waiting for this move and she had finally made it. “Then let them see,” he said softly.
His silence after was not refusal—but reverence.
Fave nodded. “It’s like a writer and a pencil. Doesn’t matter what it’s made of. Oak, ivory, or gold. It’s just a tool.”
Gail smiled. “The genius isn’t in the object. It’s in the mind that commands it.”
Victor hushed. “Or in yours.”
Every sound drained away until the quiet pressed like glass.
Greg rose, speaking solemnly. “This only happens in very rare cases.”
She stood taller beneath their gaze. She would not be erased. Not by List. Not by anyone. She was no longer just a player. She was the one making the next move.
And it wasn’t just hers, but one for all of them.
The house had emptied,but fury coiled beneath Victor’s skin. Night pressed close around the Pearlers’ drawing room, the tournament suspended until morning, yet nothing in him rested. Every step echoed the sting of memory—each stolen line from Tarkov’s notebooks, each counterfeit sacrifice performed under List’s smirking gaze.
And Gail’s face. The way she’d risen, quiet but unwavering, as if the board had never been theirs to begin with. She had stood for more than herself. For him, for Tarkov, for everyone, List tried to erase.
Greg leaned against the mantel, swirling amber liquid in his glass. “You see it now, don’t you? List isn’t just trying to win a tournament. He’s telling a story: that Jewish brilliance is borrowed. That your work—Tarkov’s, yours, Gail’s—was never real. Just mimicry.”
Victor stilled. The truth of it hit like a blow to the ribs. “He’s rewriting history.”
Greg nodded. “And if he wins, he gets the final word.”
Across the room, Fave stood still, a silhouette against the window, arms folded. “White’s already owns the narrative. Their men walk in with titles and walk out with laurels. But if List wins, it becomes gospel: talent is inherited through bloodlines, not forged in hardship. Another myth in fine print.”
Victor turned to him.
“But if a Jew wins? One of us?” Fave asked.
“Then we prove brilliance can’t be bought,” Victor said quietly. “Or buried, exiled, killed… whatever they try to do with us over and over.”
Greg pushed off the mantel, setting down his glass with a soft click. “My time as the Black Knight is coming to an end. But I won’t let List mock what I built and what you all built. I hope to sit across from one of you tomorrow.”
“List is dangerous, for us more than for you,” Victor said.
Hermy lowered her gaze, but Greg held Victor’s attention. “You still have time. But if you step aside now, you hand him the legacy you swore to protect.”
Victor’s jaw tightened. Gail’s face rose again in his mind, trembling but unbowed as she saw her grandfather’s work used against her. “I’ll face him. Not in whispers. Not in back rooms. On the board. Openly.”
“Then we fight,” Greg said.
Victor spoke to Fave. “Who’s left?”
Fave straightened. “List. You and me. One of us plays you next. Then the winner faces Greg.”
Victor’s chest tightened. The bracket was narrowing—every move now counted, every misstep fatal. But his blood stirred—not from fear, but from purpose. Fire returned to his limbs. He was ready.
Footsteps creaked above. Rachel Pearler appeared from the hall, wrapped in a dressing gown, her hair down and her eyes sharp. “That’s not entirely true.”
All heads turned.
Rachel’s voice was clear as flint. “You forgot someone.”
