Bishop (Chambers Brothers Trilogy Book 2), page 1
BISHOP
Copyright © 2023 by L. Ann.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by A.T. Cover Designs
Interior Formatting by Crow Fiction Designs
Editing by Teresa Smith
Blurb by Tami Thomasson
ASIN: B0B2PLZW3W
L.Ann Online
www.lannauthor.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
AUTHOR NOTE
OTHER BOOKS BY L. ANN
OTHER BOOKS BY L. ANN
MIDNIGHT PACK
MIDNIGHT TOUCH
MIDNIGHT TEMPTATION
MIDNIGHT TORMENT
MIDNIGHT HUNT
MIDNIGHT FURY
MIDNIGHT PACK FULL SERIES BOXSET
(ebook only - includes the short story “Midnight Link”)
FORGOTTEN LEGACY
TATTOOED MEMORIES
STRAWBERRY DELIGHT - SHORT STORY
STRAWBERRY LIPSTICK - SHORT STORY
SHATTERED EXPECTATIONS
GUARDED ADDICTION
EXQUISITE SCARS
BROKEN HALO
NEGLECTED CONSEQUENCES
BLACK ROSARY
FRACTURED ANGEL
CHAMBERS BROTHERS
ROOK
BISHOP
CHURCHILL BRADLEY ACADEMY
DARE TO BREAK
DARE TO TAKE
DARE TO FALL
DARE TO LIVE
There are chance meetings with strangers
That interest us from the first moment
Before a word is spoken.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dedication
Special thanks must go to my Alpha readers, without whom this book would probably have taken a lot longer!
As always, thank you to all my readers who indulge my need to explore all the shiny what if’s my mind points out to me.
Be Aware
Bishop contains talk of domestic violence..
Chapter 1
Bishop
Drip … splash … drip … splash …
My eyes focused on the water as it formed small-tear-shaped beads on the ceiling. They stretched down, detached, and fell, hitting the floor with quiet slaps of water against cement. After each tiny ball exploded, my eyes lifted and sought out the next.
Drip … splash … drip … splash …
The noise was enough to drive a person insane, which I’m certain was the point.
The man seated on the other side of the table hadn’t said a word in thirty minutes. His head was bowed as he thumbed through the folder in front of him, occasionally grunting and glancing over at me.
I said nothing. I recognized what he was doing. It was a ploy, a means to get me to speak, to break the silence, and offer up the information he was looking for.
Drip … splash … drip … splash …
Beneath the table the fingers on my left hand twitched, the only outward show of irritation I allowed myself. My time was being wasted, purposely, and I didn’t like it.
I also didn’t like how the hair was standing to attention on the back of my neck.
Or the way my instincts whispered that I needed to be aware, be ready.
Something about this entire situation was a little … off.
I swallowed a laugh. Off? Had I become so immune to the hazards of my life that being dragged out of my hotel room at gunpoint in the middle of the night and locked in a room with someone claiming to be FBI was only a little off?
“Something funny?” The man seated opposite broke the silence and glared across the table at me.
I lifted my hand and held my thumb and finger an inch apart. “Little bit.”
“Care to enlighten me?” He dropped the papers he’d been reading to the table, and I caught a quick glimpse of a photograph before he tucked it away inside a folder. The face was unrecognizable to me. I had a photographic memory. If I’d met the woman in the image, I would have remembered her.
“Not really.” I checked the time on my watch. “I have somewhere to be. Can we speed this up?”
“I don’t think you understand how much trouble you’re in right now, Mr. Chambers.” He leaned back in his chair and looked at me.
“Enlighten me.” I threw his own words back at him.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“I’d have to be a talented mind reader to answer that since I was on my way to bed when you broke into my room and insisted I come with you.”
“We know you were hired to make Eden Marshall disappear.”
“Is that so?”
He flipped open the folder, took out the photograph and slid it across to me. I glanced down at it but didn’t bother picking it up.
“Am I supposed to recognize that woman?” I feigned disinterest and boredom. “I hate to disappoint you, and I don’t know who’s been telling you otherwise, but I’ve never seen her before.”
“To be clear, you’re saying you’ve never met Eden Marshall or taken money to build her a new life.”
“Never met her, never spoken to her, never taken money from her.”
“Yet we have eyewitnesses who say they saw her outside your hotel room earlier this evening.”
I snorted. “I find that very unlikely.”
That wasn’t how I ran my business. I rarely met with my clients in hotels. It was usually in a public place in the middle of the day, far away from where I was staying or lived. This was a fishing expedition and one that was going to be unfruitful.
“If that’s all you’ve dragged me here for …” I stood.
He jumped to his feet. “This is a criminal investigation. Sit down, Mr. Chambers. I’m not done with you.”
My eyes dropped to the gun at his hip. It wasn’t a government issue, and I was pretty confident he didn’t work for the FBI or any other agency. I checked the time again. I needed to be at the airport in less than an hour.
“I don’t have time for this.” A quick look around the room accompanied my words.
There were no cameras. Nothing other than him and me. I placed my palms on the table and leaned across it.
“Do you really want to know where Ms. Marshall is?” I dropped my voice and cast another furtive look around.
He bought the action and stooped closer to listen to me. That was his mistake.
I grabbed his tie with one hand and yanked hard. As he staggered forward, I flattened my other hand on the back of his head and slammed his face into the table. Before he could react, I wa
“We could have kept this civil, but you called me a liar.” I thumbed the safety off the SIG P365, and he froze at the audible click it made. “I don’t like being called a liar.”
“If you kill me, you’ll have the entire FBI after you.”
I laughed. “You’re no more FBI than I am. My guess is someone has hired you to find Ms. Marshall. Did she steal something from your employer? Or maybe she’s related to them? It doesn’t matter.” My finger moved from the gun’s grip to the trigger. “I don’t know who she is, nor do I care. What I do care about is why someone is trying to involve me. But since you don’t have the answer to that question … Well, too bad, so sad for you.” I squeezed the trigger.
The gunshot was a muted sound, courtesy of the suppressor attached to the muzzle. Not silent, but not loud enough to draw outside attention. Blood and brain matter exploded outward, and I grimaced when some landed on my sleeve. Blood was such a bitch to get out of silk.
Pushing the body to the floor, I did a quick search of his pockets and came up with no I.D and no badge, but there was a set of keys. Whoever he was, he didn’t work for any government agency.
I checked the time. Fifty minutes until I needed to be at the private airstrip. If I was late, Wade would never let me forget it. I needed to leave.
I checked the gun’s magazine for ammunition, then opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
The guard outside scrambled for his gun a second too late. His brain took a moment to catch up with his body, and his eyes widened as he fell to the floor, blood dripping down his face. I stepped over him. I was certain there should be at least one more. When they burst into my hotel room, I heard three distinct voices.
So where was the last one?
I moved along the hallway, gun held steady while I listened for movement or voices. Silence greeted me.
Where was he?
I stopped, head tilting when I heard the flush of a toilet. Moving to the side, I turned until my back was against the wall so I could see in both directions and waited.
Two minutes passed before a shadow heralded the arrival of the missing man. From the lack of urgency in his pace, he clearly hadn’t heard any of the gunshots or knew his partners were dead. He had his head bowed over his cell as he walked and didn’t see me step out to face him.
Lucky for him, I didn’t want him dead. I needed him to take a message back to whoever his employer was. I waited until he was less than a foot away, then cleared my throat. His head jerked up. He dropped his cell and reached for his gun.
“Touch it and I’ll kill you.”
He froze.
“Hand me your gun … slowly.” I held out one hand and kept my gun trained on him as he reached for the gun in its side holster. “That’s it. Nice and easy. You don’t want to die tonight. That won’t benefit either of us.”
“Where’s Henry?” His voice quivered, and I gave a mental headshake. He was clearly green, new to the business of kidnap and killing.
“Henry is meeting his maker.” I leaned forward and took the gun from his shaking hand. “Now listen carefully …” I cocked a brow in query.
“Tom.”
“Okay, Tom. Listen carefully now. I want you to go back to your boss and tell him that Bishop Chambers said if he tries this again, I’ll be paying him a visit.”
It wouldn’t be difficult to find out who was behind the order to grab me. A few well-placed questions and I’d have the answer within twenty-four hours.
“Whoever employed you to find the girl needs to understand that it has nothing to do with me, and I’d like to keep it that way. Think you can do that, Tom?”
“Y-yes sir.”
I nodded. “Good. Then I’ll head out. I have a flight to catch.” I stepped past him. “Oh … one more thing …”
As the young man turned, I hit him with the grip of the gun, and he dropped to the floor like a stone.
“I’d say I’m sorry about the headache you’ll wake up with, but it’s better than being dead.”
Chapter 2
Bishop
Outside the building were three cars. I pushed the button on the keys and walked to the one whose lights flashed. Once in the driver’s seat, I leaned across the center console and opened the glove compartment. Inside was another handgun, a driver’s license, and a packet of wet wipes. I took the gun, checked the mag, and placed it on the passenger seat next to the two I’d taken from inside. The driver’s license was next.
Sandro Trebuni. The name meant nothing to me.
The photograph was of the man who had tried to interrogate me. I put that with the guns, then checked the time. I had less than thirty minutes to get to the airport, but I needed to go back to the hotel first. It was going to be tight, so I had to be fast if I wanted to make it.
Jamming the key into the ignition, I started the car. Just before the engine roared to life, there was a muffled thud from the back of the car.
I cocked my head.
What was that?
I cut off the engine and listened.
Nothing.
As I was about to start the engine again, there was another muted bang. I frowned. It definitely seemed to be coming from the back of the car. I grabbed one of the guns and climbed out.
Skirting around to the back of the car, I looked down at the trunk. Another thud sounded. I popped the lock … and revealed a body hogtied inside it.
Face down with a hood covering their features, their hands and feet had been pulled behind their back and tied together, it was hard to say whether the figure was male or female, especially in the dark. The shape wriggled while I watched, and muffled moaning reached me. At a guess, I’d say their mouth had been taped closed.
Rubbing the muzzle of the gun across my jaw, I considered my options. I could leave them there and drop an anonymous call to the police once I was at the airstrip … or I could find out who they were.
Could they be something to do with why I’d been grabbed? If so, they might know who was behind it, which would save me the hassle of tracking them down.
I checked the time again. Wade was going to fucking shoot me. There was no way I could avoid being late. I needed to find a phone and let him know. Slamming down the lid of the trunk, I rounded the car and climbed back in. Whoever they were, they’d keep for another fifteen minutes. I’d get my shit together and then deal with it.
I drove out of the abandoned trading site, and followed the roads until I started recognizing the sights, and then found my way back to the hotel. I didn’t park there, though. I found a deserted side road, wiped down my fingerprints off the car and left it there, walking the block back to the hotel.
The hotel lobby was silent and empty when I entered, and I got back to my room without being seen. Once inside, I found my cell where I’d left it beside the bed and called Knight.
“Bishop.” As always, my youngest brother was wide awake.
“Run a search on the name Sandro Trebuni for me. I want to know who he worked for.”
“Worked?”
“He met with an accident a little while ago.”
My brother laughed. “Was the accident six five, temperamental and named after a chess piece?”
“Might have been.” I dragged my suitcase out of the closet and tossed clothes into it.” He was asking after someone called Eden Marshall.”
“Oh? Do you know who she is and why they were asking?”
“I’m guessing she pissed someone off. That’s where you come in. I want to know who is looking for her and why. I should be back home tomorrow night. Tell me what you find then. I have to go.” I cut the call before he could respond.
Once I had everything packed, I went into the bathroom and grabbed the toiletries I’d left there, tossed them into the case, and then pulled on fresh clothes. I wiped down all the surfaces in the suite to remove my fingerprints, then picked up my case, the bag containing my laptop, and walked out.
I’d already paid my hotel bill, so there was no reason for me to linger and I made my way to my car. I tossed my stuff into the trunk, then checked the time. Fifteen minutes. Glancing back down the block, I sighed, locked the car, and set off toward the side road where I’d left the other vehicle.
When I arrived, I unlocked the trunk, threw it open, reached into my pocket for my switchblade, and leaned over.
“Don’t move.”
A muffled yelp sounded, and the body tried to wriggle toward the back of the trunk.
