Page 3 of Manhattan Secret

I’ve had a good day, so I’m inclined to let the idiot live.

Besides which, we are best friends, guess I have to let him go on breathing.

It’s the last few months of our senior year, it will just be fools luck I get caught doing something I shouldn’t be doing right before I head to MIT.

Yeah, I’m smart. I could’ve easily finished high school several years ago, but my parents didn’t want me to have one of those genius kinds of upbringings where I was a kid amid adults.

It’s fine by me. I’m already taking college credit classes. The thing with having a genius IQ, is the school makes allowances for me and frees up some of my insignificant languages classes and religious studies so I can bone up on my college courses. Plus, that extra time means I can delve into more fun activities.

Parents are happy.

The faculty are happy.

And I’m happy with my bank balance growing.

I’m Noah Fierro’s son. Self-made entrepreneur, if there’s a dollar to be made, you can bet your wife and her fine-assed mother that I’ll be making it.

They’re fine… to a point, as long as I don’t get myself arrested.

Knock on wood. So far so good.

These last few months is going to be my last hurrah. Heading to MIT to get my degree and bachelor’s in computer science before hopefully a career in the FBI means I can’t continue getting up to my usual shit.

How will it look on my FBI background check if I’m still hacking for a price?

Not good, man. Not good.

So, I decided, this last semester is gonna be the best one yet.

I’ll get it all out of my system, live hard, party harder, earn as much as I can.

My college place and my scholarship are set, plus with credits already in the bag, it’ll be a few breezy first semesters for me when I get there.

All I need to do is concentrate on the fun.

Fun I can do in spades.

Speaking of. My interest is piqued as my eyes land.

There is a little piece of dark-haired fun sitting her cute ass at the bar all by her lonesome, I notice. My tongue slakes to lick my lower lip with interest.

But then Kian bounds up the stairs and my concentration is lost as we fist bump. “Hey, man, wondered if you’d be in tonight.”

If I’m a genius, then this kid is a down and dirty cunning crook.

Wouldn’t think to look at him that his parents own a shit ton of Irish bars in and around New York. He probably has a bigger allowance than I used to before I started earning my own. But as I know, the shit Kian MacNamara does is for the thrill. As he puts it, thieving is in his blood and why would he insult his ancestors by denying his birth right?

“Not here for long,” I reply as more of our core crew hoof it up the stairs and plonk down on the twin couches separated by a low, brown table covered in empty glasses. “Don’t sit,” I tell Zander. “Get the drinks,” he groans, but turns around and heads back down. Avery sits her red-headed-self down next to me and I inhale her soft scent as she kicks up her heeled boots on the table.

She’s the quiet one. But she’s never to be underestimated.

I always say one day we’ll switch on the news to see she’s gone on a maniac murder spree because someone has pissed her off too far.

“You sticking around?” I ask Kian. He’s standing at the railing and I note he’s looking at the woman I was staring at.

A roar of hot possessiveness rises in me and before I know it, I’m up off the seat, standing beside him with a muttered, “dibs.”

He just laughs his cocky laugh, and shrugs, looking away.

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