Manhattan: In Love with the Infamous King

Chapter 7

Nolan POV

Trent, Vic, and I are doing our usual monthly checkups on our businesses when Vic notices Alex and Kennedy in a small swarm of girls that cross the street as Trent is parking. I get out of the passenger seat and look at them and gesture for us to go into the same store. Maybe I can find some way to corner her and ask her about that program. Trent better make it up to her fast because the "nice" route to do things is not doing it for me.

Her peach smelling hair sneaks up my nostrils and I feel a sense of relief. Relief. I don't know the last time I felt relief. Strange. I hook her new necklace on her and see that she is mildly unimpressed. If anything, she seems more irritated. Sensing her annoyance, I release her from my caged arms and she acts like nothing happened. I hand the credit card to the attendant. Alex catches on and shakes her head. Her small hands reach to her neck to take it off.

"Don't." My voice comes out hard and aggressive. She pauses a little to look up at me. Her face is blank with no feeling as the other girls behind her now all look nervously at us. We stare at each other for a minute when the attendant comes back and hands me my card and a bag with her old necklace. I hand the bag to her. She glances down for a second before grabbing it from me.

"Alex!" One of her friends from that night yells towards her. "Are you going to introduce our friend Nolan to the others?"

"Don't bother." Our eyes meet as I state that loud and clear for all of them. This isn't the first time women want to fawn all over me and I am not in the mood. Alex boredly looks away from me and lets out a small sigh. Before she gets a chance to turn to me to say something, I grab her arm and take her out of this place.

"Mr. Dietrich." She firmly states at me once we are outside the store. I don't stop. Trent and Vic are behind me as I drag her across the street. Her other hand tries to pry my hand off of hers, but I tighten my grip. The arm tenses and she stops trying to get my hand off of her. We get to our car and I shove her into the passenger street. Trent tosses me the keys and I get in the driver's seat as Trent and Vic take the back.

The girl in my passenger seat doesn't even flinch. She looks forward in response. I turn to her.

"The security program. Now."

"No." She doesn't hesitate to answer, but she doesn't turn my direction. My blood boils and I can feel the anger rising up. "Take the exchange or deal with it."

I almost pull out my gun and point it to her, but Trent shakes my head at me. When I am about to say something in response, Vic gets a message.

"It's Phillip. He wants us back now, like right now!" We look to the girl next to us as she is about to open the door to get out, but I reach over and slam the door back on her. I put the car into drive and speed to our building in basically silence except for her occasional deep breath that I hear if I listen very closely.

I pull into the parking garage and gesture at Trent to take her. We walk and get inside our private elevator and I notice that she is studying her surroundings, like she's already planning on getting out of here. I dare her to try and get away from me today.

We get to our business floor and Phillip is frantic on the computer in his office. His fingers are typing quickly and he's staring intently at the screen.

"Someone is trying to hack us." He says quickly and without a look in our direction. Who would dare? That list might actually be longer than it is short. Phillip catches Alex in the corner of his eye and he blinks hard back at his screen as his fingers continue to tap on the keyboard.

"Who is it?" Trent asks as we go around to see the screen that Phillip is looking at.

"I don't know. I ju-"

"Up." Alex had walked over to him as we were distracted. He pauses for a second, but gets up immediately. She sits down and starts going through the strokes. Her fingers are fast and move confidently. Leaning back on the chair, she takes out a deep breath as she fights back the hack. Phillip is looking cautiously at her as he should. "You were close." She says towards Phillip, but then stomps down on the last of the key strokes for us to see the camera of the guy that tried to hack us.

Keegan Duval. I should have figured that bastard would do something like this. The microphone, I guess, is also on because the next thing I know, Keegan starts yelling at his hacker.

"Damn it, you fu-" Alex hits record and then mutes our speaker. She gets up and gives Phillip back his seat.

"Not bad, kid." She says to him as he looks sheepishly back at her and she shakes her head. "Kid, you're better than me, you just haven't figured it out yet." She turns to the rest of us, anticipating our next move.

"Thanks, Alex. I owe you one." Phillips says quietly. Damn it, kid. We can not afford to owe her any more.

"No, we are squared." She looks me dead in the eye before grabbing her bag and heading out the door. f**k. We need that program. I nod my head to Trent and he rolls his eyes at me as he goes to chase her down.

"Phillip, make sure he doesn't try again." Phillip nods enthusiastically. He has only been with us for a year, so I understand he's doing what he can. Being only 15 years old, I am sure this life is a real 360 to what he expected his life to be. He will learn.

Vic and I head out to see Trent talking to Alex by the elevator as she waits for it come back up. That's weird. Why did it go back down? The elevator doors open and I get the answer to my question.

"Alex?"

Alex POV

I swear I was going to leave them out to fry, but Phillip looked frantic. It's not like they don't know what I can do, so I take over for him. God, this kid can't be more than 16. Tracing his steps, Phillip was getting close to the answer, but he missed a window, probably because the rest of them were staring him down. Internally, I shake my head. He's just a kid.

Trent stopped me before I can get to the elevator, but I continue and press the down key. It takes a minute since we are so high up. He tries to convince to stay for a little bit to talk everything over, but I just shake my head. They are desperate as hell for this program and that means I have the upperhand.

"Alex?" A cold chill spikes down my spine as I recognize the voice that calls out to me. Son of a b***h. I turn around to see them, Ryker and his father, Louis. His father always had one of those creepy vibes to him. He was attractive, sure, but slimy. I smile politely as I nod to them in acknowledgement. I can feel the surprise responses from the Royals. Louis and Ryker are loaded with old money and they deal a lot with contracting hitmen. That's why Ryker is so persistent about being a sniper.

"I thought you weren'y applying to be their sniper?" Ryker asks and I internally scream, but shake my head lightly.

"Ryker, you didn't tell me you were going against Alex for Ace?" Louis looks slyly at me. s**t.

"He's not." I smile politely at the room as I try to head into the elevator. I need to get out of here before they say anything more. No such luck as Nolan wraps his arm around my waist and grips me in place.

"I'm intrigued, Louis. How do you know Alex?" Oh, please don't say it.

"She used to work for me." Damn. Well, that goes that. There's only one way they could interpret that. They're not stupid. "If you're not here for the Ace position, what are you doing here, Alex?"

"Nothing." I say, standing in place as the elevator doors shut.

"Well, don't let the sweet young face fool you. She is one of the best shots I have ever seen. You know the offer to continue working for me is still on the table, Alex." Ryker is pretty pissed at his father. He knows not to say anything to anyone, since it would cause more trouble than good, but his father likes the attention on himself. A gossip.

"Oh really?" Nolan states as he looks down at me, but I keep facing forward. Intimidation doesn't work on me. You would think he would catch on by now.

"Geez, Alex. Anything else you want to share with us?" Trent says with a little a mocking in his tone. Before I get a chance to say no, Louis beats me to it.

"Oh she will never tell you, always so secretive Alex." I blink back in response. The only good thing about this is that this will certify that I am not The Whisper. Whatever Nolan thinks he figured out, I have no doubt it involves me somehow. I worked for Louis for about three months when I was 17 and then I took off on my own, but I did side deals before then to throw them off. He may know that I am good, but he also has no idea how good I truly am. Nobody does.

"Why don't we test this out and see." Nolan states firmly. This may be my window of opportunity.

"I haven't shot since I left you, Louis. I don't think I would be able to live up to the expectations you just set for me." I say slightly arrogantly. If we actually take some rounds, that might be good. If I f**k up, there's no way they would bat another eye at me.

"Lead the way!" Louis gestures to Nolan. I need to let Ryker win again. In Louis' mind, Ryker could have no fault and it looked good for me, since honestly, Ryker was not that good of a shot, but it was also hard because now I have to try and miss.

Louis, Ryker, Nolan, and Trent take the elevator down first as Vic takes me to her place to change into something more appropriate.

"You really are full of surprises." Vic states at me as I emerge from the bathroom with a pair of light blue mom jeans and a tight long sleeve. My wedges are off and I have some high tops on.

"You have no idea." I smirk back at her as she does the same and we laugh. Woah. That's strange. I haven't felt a real laugh in awhile. Most of the time, I just fake it to go along with everyone, but Vic brings out my snarky side. Maybe we were friends in another life.

"I hope you kick their ass." She says to me as we jump back into the elevator. We laugh again.

"I doubt I will be able to. It's been awhile."

"Yeah, well we need some more kickass females up in here because I am tired of holding down the fort on my own." I bust out laughing and she joins me as the lobby opens up to us. The men look over, surprised at our interaction.

"Well, no such luck. I'm retired." I lie. My cover is not about to be blown by some guy who can barely control his wives. I make a mental note to myself to make sure Louis dies of natural causes in the next couple of weeks.

As we gather up, I look around to inspect my surroundings. Something feels off. My instincts are never wrong. Searching around, nothing. Vic gives me a strange look before linking arms with me as we head out the front door to a set of SUVs. I ride along with the rest of the Royals. I sit in the middle of the back seat as Trent is driving the car. Nolan is in the passenger seat, texting. Phillip is playing with some code, which I point out from time to time some areas for him that might need to be cleaned up. Vic is looking out the window.

We get to a large black gate and are stopped before being promptly let in. This must be their training grounds. I take a deep breath.

"Seriously, Alex." I look up and meet Trent's eyes in his rearview mirror. "What else can you do?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" I smirk back.

"But you know who we are?" Phillip takes a look at me.

"Not at first. I figured it out when Trent took us to his penthouse at the Royal Flush Club. Not too hard to figure it out from there." Nolan grunts in Trent's direction.

"I told you to stop bringing girls to our place." Vic whispers up to the driver seat to taunt Trent.

"Hey, she is hot!"

"Hey, that's my friend." I say with a little smirk that makes Trent give me wide grin.

"How did you even get into that circle?" Vic questions me, which I am not surprised with. I mean from the black market dealings to Manhattan socialites, who would ever make that connection? They don't need to know about that, so I just smile in response to Vic.

"Make sure she doesn't aim for you when we're there," Nolan says in his chilly raspy voice without looking in the back. Vic rolls her eyes at him even though he can't see her.

We finally get to the end of the road and I see that a lot of men and a few women here and there that are trying to put together all of the equipment that we are going to need. The sun isn't super high, but we have maybe an hour or two. I line up next to Ryker and a couple of the other shooters. We aren't shooting bullets, but something similar so that we can mark who shot what. It's a simple setup similar to what you might see at carnival games. All the boarded objects are moving and some are worth more points than others.

I see that Royal Flush looking at me as I set up everything. Ryker turns to me to stare me down a little, but he softens.

"I'm sorry about my dad." He whispers. I just nod. Even he can't help who his father is. Louis and Ryker were the only ones that knew I was working for Louis. I wanted to keep it that way, but the cat is out of its bag and I might as well make the best out of the situation.

"Alright, alright. Everyone knows the rules. Get ready! Set! Fire!" All of the men start spewing shots immediately, but I take a deep breath before taking my aim.