checkmate ♕ spencer reid

Every game of chess starts the same way.

Sixteen pieces.

Two players.

One winning queen.

Aurélia Ivory Raine was born into a world where every move was chosen for her, where loyalty was bought, betrayal was fatal, and the people who survived were the ones willing to sacrifice every piece on the board except their own.

As the heir to La Couronne, one of Europe's oldest criminal dynasties, an empire built on stolen masterpieces, blood money and buried secrets, she learned to survive by masking truths, altering lies and never asking questions.

Until one day, everything changed, and the checkered lines between black and white began to blur.

Five years later, the FBI believes they're hunting a murderer.

Instead, they find Kathryn Hayes.

Elegant. Intelligent. Impossible to profile.

A woman whose fingerprints appear at every crime scene, whose past seems to begin abruptly at eighteen, and whose every answer only deepens the mystery.

To Dr. Spencer Reid, the evidence is undeniable.

To Aurélia, the truth is classified.

Nothing about her profile makes sense. She is always three moves ahead, yet somehow seems determined to lose every game except the one no one else knows she's playing.

As lies begin to unravel and every move draws them closer to an end neither of them fully understands, one truth becomes impossible to ignore:

Some secrets are buried deeper than evidence can uncover.

And some games can only be won once the queen starts playing for herself.