Chapter 8
The First Move

The silence was broken by the rustle of her kimono. She caught her sleeve with her other hand, baring a wrist as white as porcelain. Her slender fingers approached a silver general and took hold of it with a precision that betrayed years—no, decades—of practice.

She lifted the piece to the level of my eyes in a movement so fluid that it left me speechless. And with one gesture she brought it down against the wood with a clean snap, on the square in front of her king. Her fingers lingered there for an instant before withdrawing with an elegance that left me stunned.

The hubbub of the bar vanished all at once.

A heat rose in me. I loosened my tie and opened my shirt collar.

Something had just woken up inside me. I sat up straight in my armchair and took a deep breath. My eyes swept the board methodically, gauging every piece, every possible move.

Never mind that my opponent was a woman—a superb one, at that—I was not going to go easy on her.

My old player's reflexes were rising to the surface, that thirst for attack that gripped me in the gut. No more playing small. Tonight I would go all in. To hell with my usual caution and my bullshit calculations!

I grabbed my king's pawn and slid it two squares toward her.