When our father died, my half-sister Lara inherited the house. I got a dusty old chessboard. I thought it was his final insult—one last jab from a man who always played favorites. Lara, of course, laughed. “A house for me, a hobby for you,” she said with that smug little smirk she always wore. But that night, something strange happened. One of the pieces rattled when I picked it up. I tapped it. Something shifted inside. Later, in her usual dramatic fashion,

Lara knocked the whole board over during an argument. A knight hit the floor—and clicked. That’s when the truth started to surface. Lara crept downstairs after midnight, carving the pieces open with a kitchen knife. Inside, she found tiny, glittering stones. “Gems!” she gasped. “Looks like I win again.” But she didn’t know I had already been there. I had found them first—and swapped them out.

The real valuables? Safe in a deposit box under my name. But that wasn’t even the final move. Inside a hollow square under the felt lining, I found something else: a second will. One our father had hidden, just in case. His final message read: “If you are honest,

you may live together in peace. If not, everything belongs to Kate.” Lara had played the game like she always did—greedy, selfish, short-sighted. And she lost. “Checkmate,” I whispered.