Page 28 of Ruthless Mafia Heir

And I have to move now. Now. I push open the door and draw in a deep, ragged breath, stepping out into the corridor. I hold my breath, listening for any noise, for someone who’s going to jump out and stop me, but there’s nothing.

With my shoes in my hand, I pad along the polished wooden floorboards, praying I don’t make one creak. There are two sets of stairs that lead outside—the main one that heads down to the entrance of the house with the porter and the other for staff that drops down into the garden below. That’s the one I’m aiming for.

I hesitate at the top of the stairs, taking a moment to make sure I’m not going to walk right out in front of someone, but the place seems silent right now. Is Blake here? I don’t know. I’ve hardly seen him. I don’t even know if I want to or not. Some part of me craves him, craves his closeness, craves his touch, and another part of me is terrified of what he will do if he gets his hands on me again.

And that’s the part I know I should be listening to.

I dart down the first three steps, my feet digging into the plush carpet laid out on top of it. My stomach twists into knots as I hurry down the rest of the stairs, moving as quickly as I can, but it doesn’t feel fast enough, like I’m in a dream, my limbs leaden.

I reach the bottom of the stairs and glance along the corridor to the garden outside. Just one dash and I’ll have made it out of there. I’ll be gone. Nobody will be able to stop me. I just need to run to the back gate, throw my leg over the back wall, and make it as far from here as I can. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to avoid Blake once I get back to university, but I can figure out how to handle him when I’m out.

But there’s just one thing in the way of that—Blake’s office. The door is pulled shut, but there’s no guarantee he’s not in it. If he is and he catches me... fuck, I don’t know what he’ll do. He’s made it very fucking clear how little time he has for me, after everything that’s happened, and I can’t blame him. One wrong move, and he might...

He might kill me.

Those words rush into my mind, impossible to ignore or deny. I push them aside. I have to keep moving. I have to.

I pick my way along the corridor, every touch of my sole against the ground sending a shock of fear through my system. It all feels like too much, every step deafening, every noise shuddering through me. I pause outside of the office, holding my breath, trying to make out sounds of him from within. But there’s nothing. Thank God.

I plant a hand on the door and push it, and to my horror, it makes a loud scraping noise on the ground. I spring back from it like it’s on fire and turn to bolt back to the stairs before someone comes to see what the noise is, but it’s too late.

The door to Blake’s office opens.

My feet feel as though they’re frozen to the spot. I don’t dare turn around to face him. I can practically feel the rage coming off of him already, just like back in the car when he drove me here. I hear his voice before I see him, low and threatening.

"Where are you going, Sophia?"

I finally turn to look him in the eye. He’s leaning in the doorway to his office, looking me up and down with what seems to be amusement. Is this the precursor to his blowup? What’s he going to do with me?

There’s no point lying to him. I clench my jaw.

"I was trying to get the fuck out of here," I shoot back at him sharply. "Because you can’t keep me under lock and key the way you have been."

He chuckles slightly.

"You sure about that?" he replies, taking a step toward me. "Even if you get out that back door without setting off any alarms, you’re going to have to get past the guards, the porters, the CCTV..." He shakes his head. "I don’t think you’d make it very far."

He’s utterly in control here, and he knows it. His voice drips with a low, dangerous threat. It should terrify me, but it sparks something else instead.

Something I know I sure as hell shouldn’t be letting cross my mind right now.

I cross my arms over my chest, staring at me, narrowing my eyes.

"You’re not going to punish me?"

He lets out a low chuckle. "I wasn’t planning to. Why? Do you want me to?"

His words hang there between us, the implication obvious, the intensity of his words sending a shiver down my spine. I bite down on my bottom lip.

"I... I don’t know," I confess finally. I can feel a heat rising in my cheeks, a warmth flooding through my whole system at the thought of him punishing me.

"Why don’t you know?"

"It depends... it depends on what kind of punishment you were planning," I reply.

The corners of his mouth quirk up into a smile, his eyes flashing with possibilities. "Why don’t you step into my office? And I’ll show you."

Though he phrases it as a question, I know this isn’t an offer. It's an order. My hands are shaking. I squeeze them into fists to try and control myself, then nod.

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