Page 34 of Ruthless Mafia Heir

It’s a lie, of course. I’m going to make him regret this. If anyone thinks they can steal from me—let alone come after Sophia—they’ve got another thing coming.

The man shakes his head. "I’m not falling for that," he growls. He presses the gun hard against her temple. I can see the metal digging into her skin. One wrong move and he’ll pull the trigger. He’ll kill her. And if I lose her...

Blind rage courses through me. I won’t lose her. I fucking refuse, not when something in me needs her more intently than I need air, not when my whole life would collapse in on itself if she slipped through my fingers.

"I can give you anything you want," I tell him, keeping my voice low and steady. If I can make a move for the gun, if I can get it off him… I just need to play it cool.

"Any money, any power, anything," I continue. "You want this place? I’ll sign it over to you."

"Like you would ever see that through—"

"Like I would ever fail on my word," I shoot back. "That’s not how my father raised me. When I say something, I mean it. It’s that simple."

The man hesitates. I can tell I’ve gotten to him. He might not want to admit it, but he’s listening to me. The gun droops a few inches—and that’s all the time I need.

Sophia seems to sense what’s going to happen in the split second before it does. She slams her elbow back into his ribs, sending him staggering back into the office and crashing to the ground. I rush forward and drop down to my knees, snatching the gun from him and pressing it against his chin.

"No, please, no—" the man begs me, but I don’t give a fuck. I pull the trigger. His body spasms backwards, and brain matter, blood, and skull fragments explode across the floor behind him.

I hear a scream ring out at the same moment the shot does. I drop the gun at once and spin around to face Sophia. Her hands are clamped to the sides of her face, her eyes wide as she takes in the carnage in front of her. I rise to my feet, wrap my arms around her, and pull her close.

"Hey, hey, it’s alright," I murmur against her hair. But the thick, heavy scent of gun smoke hangs in the air around us, and there are blood spatters on my hands. I know, even as I try to hold her close, that nothing is going to be the same again after this.

Chapter Twenty-One—Sophia

When I get out of my class and see Blake there, leaning against his Mercedes in the dim fall evening, my heart sinks.

I should have known he would be here. I should have known he wasn’t going to stay away for long. I slide my eyes from left to right, seeking a way out of the situation, but it looks like I’m going to have to see this through.

It’s been nearly a week since... that happened in the restaurant. It doesn’t entirely feel real, not yet, like it must have happened to someone else—the pressure of the gun against my temple, the smell of blood in the air, the way Blake pulled the trigger without a second thought.

I approach Blake’s car, and his eyes meet mine, impassive, unmoving. I’ve been doing everything I can to avoid him the last few days, and he can’t blame me. It’s not like we can just go back to the way things were before, just pretend like nothing happened, nothing changed, and he’s the same man he always was.

"Get in," he orders as he pulls open the door and gestures for me to get inside. "We need to talk."

I do as I’m told. I’ve learned by now that it’s smarter not to piss him off if I can avoid it. I slip into the front seat, and he slides in next to me, pulling the door shut and then putting his foot down on the accelerator.

Rain begins to streak the windows outside. I stare at it tumbling down the window and chew my lip hard. I don’t know exactly what I want to say. But I have to start somewhere.

"Blake, I’m sorry," I blurt out, finally. "I-I'm sorry I haven’t spoken to you after what happened, I just didn’t know what to say."

"It’s fine," he replies, his voice pointedly even. My heart sinks. I can tell that all the work he did to open up to me before has been undone. He’s slid right back to normal, back to the harsh, hard man I knew before.

"No, it’s not," I admit. I can feel the tears starting to pour down my cheeks, and I don’t know how to stop them. I want to scream, I want to slam my hands against the glass, I want to plead and beg him to understand that I can’t just go through all of this without losing some part of myself, but he doesn’t see that.

He can’t.

"What happened the other day... I... I..." I trail off. I feel so useless. His eyes stay pinned to the road ahead, and I wish he would just look over at me and tell me that it’s all going to be alright—hell, even if he doesn’t really believe it.

"You haven’t been by the house in a while," he points out, his voice low. I almost laugh at how ridiculous that sounds.

"How could I, after what happened?" I demand. "I had a gun pointed at me, Blake! You killed a man, right in front of me. I can’t just turn around and pretend like it didn’t happen."

"I killed him because he threatened you," he growls.

"Yeah and that doesn’t make me feel any better about it!” I argue. "A man is dead because of me. Fucking dead!”

"He’s not dead because of you," he replies calmly. "He’s dead because he tried to steal from me."

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