Page 37 of Ruthless Mafia Heir

"I’m going to leave," she tells me. "And I don’t want you to follow me. I don’t want you to come back to my classes. I don’t want to see you hanging around my dorm room, which I can barely afford, by the way, since I had to leave the restaurant. I want to live my own life, Blake. Do you get that?”

Fuck, when she talks to me like that, it takes everything I have not to just grab her, plant my lips against her, and take her right here and now, against the wall of the lecture hall. I flex my hands by my sides, fighting the urge as best I can.

With that, she brushes past me. I want to follow her, but her words are burning into my brain. If I go after her now, it will be proof that I’m incapable of trusting in what she wants, what she needs. I need her back in my life, more than anything, but I can’t force her. I can’t make it happen.

"Fuck!" I exclaim as I slam my fist into the stonework beside me. My voice echoes uselessly through the empty lecture hall. I don’t know what to do. I have to prove to her that she can trust me, that she can put her faith in me to give her the space she needs. But how exactly do I prove that? How do I give her the life she wants, the life on her own terms—and a life with me?

My mind begins to race. My father always told me, growing up, that there was a solution to every problem. It was just a matter of finding it. Even when it seemed impossible, there was always some approach you could take, something you could do to make it happen.

And I’ll be damned if I can’t find one here, a way to make her mine—and a way to prove myself to her despite all the times I’ve let her down and tried to control her.

Chapter Twenty-Three—Sophia

I push a hand through my hair, yawning as I try to keep my focus on the books laid out in front of me. My desk is stacked with papers, scribbled with notes, half-finished essays, and exam prep I can hardly keep track of. How long till finals week, again?

I groan and get to my feet, stretching in an attempt to brush off the exhaustion that’s clouding my vision. It’s already been such a long day, and I have to finish up an essay that needs to be turned in by tomorrow morning. My brain is so fried, I don’t know if I can do it, but I have to try.

I have to prove to myself that I can do all of this without Blake.

I’ve spent most of today in the city, dropping off my resume at various establishments in the hopes that one of them will give me a job. I'm avoiding the restaurant like the plague. No way am I going back there to work after everything that’s happened. I didn’t even bother to go in for my last paycheck, which leaves me in a tough spot regarding my dorm rent. I need to come up with a few hundred bucks by the end of the week, or I’m going to be in trouble. And I don’t think they’re going to give me a lot of grace to get caught up with my payment. They expect everyone to have their cash ready to go at any given moment, so I’ll be out on my ass before I can turn around.

I haven’t heard back from anyone, but I’m trying not to freak out about it. Everything will come together. I have to believe that. Because if it doesn’t...

If it doesn’t, then I’ll have to contend with the reality that letting Blake anywhere close to me might have ruined my life. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself.

At least he seems to have taken it seriously when I told him to give me some space. I haven’t seen him since the confrontation in the lecture hall, when I chewed him out and all but ordered him to leave me the hell alone. I don’t even know if it’s truly what I want or what I need or if it’s just what I’m telling myself I should want. It's so difficult to reconcile how much I want him with how much I know I can’t be anywhere near him.

Because he tries to control me. He tries to run every detail of my life, and he can’t let go of that control. Look at everything he’s done to me—getting me fired from my job, hiring me, following me around, kidnapping me and practically locking me up in his house. He runs his life like a tight ship, and that extends even to me, even to someone he seems to have feelings for.

Do I have feelings for him? I think so. Much as it would be easier if I could just forget about him and pretend that none of this happened in the first place, I do feel something for him. Our physical connection is intense, for sure, but it’s more than that. When I see the glimpses of the man underneath the surface, the man who is willing to admit that he doesn’t always love this life he has been thrust into—self-aware, vulnerable, willing to make change as long as it means he gets to keep me—I see someone I could actually be with.

But that man is too far hidden under the layers of his darkness. And I don’t want to try to excavate him. I got a glimpse of him before, when he agreed to give me more freedom, but he was gone again the moment I needed space after the shooting.

The shooting. I still can’t quite make sense of it—that I saw a man die, right in front of me, his life snuffed out in an instant right where he stood. Because he laid hands on me. Because Blake wouldn’t let him hurt me.

He’ll protect me against anything his world throws at me, I know that. But can he protect me from himself? From that dark, controlling side that seems to emerge whenever he doesn’t get what he wants?

Fuck it. I need to stay focused.

I slump back down into my seat and finish up the essay. I've still got to add references and pull in a few quotes from different sources, and then, I should be done.

I just about manage to get it wrapped up before I crash into bed at three, alarm set for just a few hours later. I don’t know how much longer I can keep all of this up—keep on top of my work for university and find a way to pay my bills, too. I might have to drop out. Fuck, if I could just...

I doze off, panicking about everything that still needs to be taken care of, and wake with a start after what feels like five minutes when the alarm goes off. Blearily, I print out the essay, stuff it in my bag, and head for the door, stumbling out into the bright sunshine. It’s a clear, crisp day, a lovely fall morning that’s almost enough to scrub the sleep from my system, but I’m still yawning as I head to the history department to drop off the essay.

The rest of the campus is quiet, I guess because everyone else is already ahead in their work. It’s nearly the end of term now, and it’s not long till we have to take our final exams. I guess I’ll see then if my hard work has paid off, or if it’s all been for—

"Sophia."

I stop dead in my tracks when I hear a familiar voice speaking my name. My eyes widen, and I glance around, wondering if I’m hallucinating from lack of sleep. Because there’s no way it can be...

"Blake."

I breathe his name when I see him standing there in front of me, my heart pounding in my chest. He looks even more handsome than ever—his dark eyes burning into mine, his hair cropped, his fresh shave leaving his jaw even sharper than usual. I want nothing more than to reach out and touch him, but I have to stick by my word. I told him that we had to keep our distance, but here he is in front of me, utterly going against that. I should be mad.

"What are you doing here?" I demand as I head off toward the history department. I’m not going to hand in an essay late for any man, that much I know for sure.

"I wanted to talk to you."

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