Chapter 3 - THE CRACK IN THE TOWER"What is this?" Alexander chuckled nervously, though the sound lacked its previous warmth. "You're sacrificing your knight for nothing. That square is guarded by my queen."
"Is it?" Ethan asked softly.
Alexander looked down at the board, his eyes scanning the diagonal lines. His face drained of color in less than a heartbeat.
The queen wasn't guarding the square. The queen was pinned.
By moving his knight to f3, Ethan had opened a masked discovered attack from his long-diagonal bishop—a bishop Alexander had completely ignored twenty moves ago because it sat behind a wall of seemingly useless pawns.
"That... that's impossible," Alexander whispered, his hand hovering over his queen.
"Grandpa George called it the 'Broken Wing'," Ethan said quietly. "You look at the bright marble, sir. But you forget what's holding it up."
The crowd erupted into sudden, buzzing whispers. Cell phone cameras zoomed in tighter on Ethan’s dirty toes and the chipped, glued-together wooden knight sitting proudly on the square like a conquering hero.
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Alexander’s chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow breaths. The untouchable billionaire, a man who had crushed corporate rivals across three continents, found himself sweating under the cold New York wind, trapped by a child with no shoes.
"Your move, Mr. Hartwell," Ethan said.
