A week later me and the boys sat in the living room of my penthouse the sky outside casting what little sunlight New York was having escape through the black clouds drizzling rain over the swathes of buildings through my tinted windows and onto all of the furniture inside the living room.
Sitting there was also all my friends, down to Mia who was currently sitting with her legs bent with one up and the other horizontal on the corner cushion as Hunter and Riley drank heavily diluted coffee while making minor jabs at one another.
Nico was pinpoint glaring at the chess board in front of him; most of his white pieces gone and my black ones still mostly standing around the board in a curved attack wall.
"Knight to C6," I call from the kitchen as I slid another piece of French Toast onto the pile, I'd been making for all of us.
"Shit," Nico cursed and I smirked mentally tracking where I'd moved.
"Rook to D5."
"Bishop One D5," final slice into the pan.
"Pawn seven to G6."
"Pawn six to G1, also check."
"You're clearing him," Hunter remarks
"Swiss chess champion age eight," Nico points out glancing at me.
"Do you remember every game you've played?" Riley asks.
"Yes," I say flipping the piece of toast that was now golden.
"King to E2," Nico calls.
"Queen to E4, checkmate," I say walking into the living room holding my cup of coffee to see Nico hadn't managed to get out of the attack line I'd maintained.
"How do you do it?" Riley asks staring at me.
"I spent too much time alone studying chess," I muse as I cross the room to the chess board and stared down at it with a small smile.
"Nicholas," I say and he glances up at me before I reach down and move his rook four spaces and set it down beside one of my bishops where my King was exposed and pinned.
"How did I not notice that?" he mutters.
"People get focused on the protecting now and forget small details its why I taught myself to imagine an aboveground view of this game," I say walking back into the kitchen to start washing the pan and bowl.
"And you never did anything about it," he says.
"Didn't want to draw attention to it, when I could silently make it not seem important, I would have but I put you on the defensive."
"Note to self never try to beat Adrian Winters at anything," Hunter says shaking his head.
"You should note down not trying to push his buttons so you don't get killed," Mia adds as everyone congregated in the kitchen to get breakfast.
"But its fun," Hunter says.
"Better start sleeping with an eye open Ambrose," I smirk as I took five pieces and covered them in maple syrup.
"I'm locking the door from now on," he says making sure to stay on the opposite side of the counter as me as I smiled in amusement, considering I'd never actually hurt any of my friends. They were like family to me and they may never know that but they were.
"Idiots," Nico mutters as we all walked back out into the living room and settled once more though now, I sat in silence eating my breakfast in the corner chair of the living room as they all conversed.
I preferred it this way and I didn't really know why, but watching and listening was always much more. It was kind of like my secret weapon because by doing that I could always catch small mannerisms with people and it likely annoyed the hell out of professional liars and manipulators when I could flip their own game on them in a single sentence.
YOU ARE READING
The Billionaire Darkness
Fiksi Remaja{Book #0 of The Winters Series} Adrian Leo Winters was many things, the heir to his parents multi trillion dollar empire, the son of the renowned Alexander Winters, but underneath he was cold, and sad, broken from years of being away from his sister...
