Page 2 of The Mastermind

I won a drone contest held by Yale, and my super high Mensa scores opened the doors, and Yale offered me a full scholarship. Hell, yeah. I wouldn’t turn down a free ride. It was the perfect escape from my shitty home life. Dad was glad because he didn’t have to pay for college. Mallory and Brian seemed happy because I’d be out of their way.

No one in my family knew I’d been making bank from trading. I didn’t even need to attend college, but Iwantedto. I wanted to prove to them I could do whatever I wanted.

I wanted to prove to my mom—my real mom—that her son was worthy.

“Hey!” Royce arrived, flanked by Forrest and Arrow. They lived on the other side of Providence, deemed “dangerous.” That never bothered me. We all met through RPG games.

“Check out the intelligent flight mode.” Arrow attached his tiny controller to his phone and pressed a button. The drone lifted and hovered, barely making a sound.

“Alright, let’s do this,” I said. “We each take a street and record whatever we can from the bird’s-eye view and other angles.”

“Our WaterFyre Rising game is going to be the bomb.” Grayson beamed.

“Sounds good. We’ll meet up at the church in twenty minutes.”

We all scattered.

Twenty minutes later, my friends and I walked up the steps of the abandoned church where we held our WaterFyre Rising Club meeting. We entered through a boarded window we had discovered a while ago. We kept it hidden from the homeless people who often slept on the steps. I didn’t want them taking over our clandestine “office.” Making our way to the entrance, we heard voices from inside.

Who the fuck is in my office?

I turned to my friends and held a finger to my lips, then gestured to the stained-glass window with the crack. We climbed up on the brick balcony using an old chair someone had dumped on the property.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I froze. We all froze. Were those gunshots? My heart raced, and my legs wobbled. I looked through the cracked window and saw a man tied to a chair. His eyes were wide open, staring up at a man wearing a black hoodie. Three other men stood around the captured man, but I couldn’t see their faces from my angle.

Bang!

Another shot rang out. My body shuddered as though the bullet had gone through my chest. Concerned voices from my friends yanked me back to the moment. I jumped down from the balcony, scraping my leg. My friends joined me on the ground and we ran for our lives.

I heard a male voice shout something, but ignored him. Footsteps sounded, but they could’ve belonged to my friends and me. I didn’t dare stop to look around.

A man appeared in front of me and held up a hand, blocking my way. My heart jumped to my throat when I recognized the slash on his face. He had been eating a hotdog earlier.

Had he been in the church?

Slash looked at me. “You didn’tseeanything,” he said in a thick accent. “You didn’thearanything.” He clapped a hand over each of his ears. “Tell no one, nothing. If you do, they will find you and they will kill you and your families. Understand?” His jaw pulsed, and I couldn’t look away. He placed a hand on my shoulder, and I jerked, meeting his gaze. “Comprendes?”

“Sí.” Forrest nodded beside me. “Gracias.”

We spent the night at Grayson’s house, trying to gather ourselves. Audri knocked on the door several times, but Grayson kept telling his little sister to go away.

Nerves still jittering in my body, I wiped the sweat from my hands onto my jeans.

We were all on edge—our lives were at stake. We didn’t know who those men were. Were they part of the mafia? Who had they murdered?

We sat in silence as we downloaded the recordings from our drones to our laptops.

My heart dropped when I realized I’d captured parts of the murder on video.

CHAPTERONE

AUDRI

Nerves rattledmy stomach like a broken blender, churning anxiety by the second. Ignoring the sensation, I reapplied my pink lipstick, cleaned off the mascara smudge under my eyes, and fixed the flying strays of my long, black hair. I straightened the red pencil skirt and evened out my white blouse with the blouson sleeves.

Glancing at my reflection from the handheld mirror, I huffed a stressed sigh. I looked presentable and was ready for my meeting in Human Resources. HR was like a high school principal’s office. No one enjoyed going there unless they had an issue, and I had a major problem.

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