Page 10 of Ruthless Mafia Heir

Chapter Six—Blake

I step out of the car and open the door for Sophia, and she gazes up at me for a moment before she steps out.

"You didn’t need to drive me here, you know," she tells me, fluffing out her hair and checking the time on her phone.

"I didn’t need to. I wanted to," I reply, and she steals a glance at me out of the corner of her eye.

"Well, I appreciate it," she tells me. "I think you’ve gone above and beyond what the student support officer tenets require of you."

I grin. "My pleasure."

I’ve taken the day off my classes to drive her to the city, to an interview she’s got with a cafe that my family happens to own. Of course, she doesn’t know that, and as long as things keep going the way they have been, she’ll never find out, either. As far as she’s concerned, this is a cafe I just happen to know the owner of, and he’s giving her an interview for a waitressing position there on the weekends. Little does she know that she’s already got the job, and I’m just letting her go through the motions so she can feel like she’s still got some control here.

In reality, I’m the one calling the shots.

She glances at the building and takes a deep breath. This place is familiar to me. It’s one of the first places my father set up to launder his money through. While he was still alive, he made most of his money running weapons in and out of the city, supplying the major gangs with the arms they needed to continue their warfare. It was a good way to stay on the right side of everyone without getting involved with the nasty stuff himself.

And now I’ve stepped up to take over. I’ve kept the same restaurants, launderettes, and cafes that he used all my life. Maybe part of it is nostalgia, given that I remember spending weekends here as a kid myself, but most of it comes down to the fact that I know I can trust the people who work here. That kind of loyalty, you can’t buy, and they’ve worked for us for long enough that I know they’re not going to go turning their backs on us. It might be old-fashioned. Using businesses to roll money through is as legit as it’s going to get. And it’s a classic for a reason. This digital stuff, it might be fine for some of the new guys, but for me, I’m going to stick with what works.

"So, you know the owner here?" she asks nervously. I nod. It’s not entirely a lie. I do know the guy who runs the place, Tammi. He’s an Italian chef who’s willing to work for cash under the table, and he makes a mean carbonara to boot.

"You’re going to do great," I assure her. "Trust me. I wouldn’t have gotten you this interview if I didn’t think you would ace it."

She exhales through her nose and manages a smile.

"Thanks. I appreciate the vote of confidence. Do I need to go in now?”

"Yeah, I think so."

"Okay, I’ll meet you here in an hour or so, right?"

"Right," I reply, holding back a smirk. "I’ve got a feeling you’re going to get this job, Sophia."

"Fingers crossed," she chirps brightly, lifting her hand to demonstrate. I grin at her and watch as she heads inside, leaning back against the polished blue of my Porsche. I know I shouldn’t get this much of a kick out of running the show behind the scenes when she has no idea, but man, is it fun.

It would be even more fun if Damon hadn’t dropped that comment about her working for me when we’d been at the bar a few days ago. I can tell that it’s stuck with her. She’s asked me, casually, a few times, whether I own the places that I’ve been in touch with, and I’ve had to swear up and down that I don’t.

"You know, it’s not a big deal if you do," she remarked to me once as I walked her back to her dorm room, doing my best to make it look like it was my first time following this path, as though I hadn’t stalked her back from work a few times already. "I know a lot of you guys here have rich families. You wouldn’t be the first person I’d met whose family owns a business."

"I know it’s not a big deal," I replied. "I just don’t own these places. That’s all there is to it."

She has peppered me with a few questions about my family, all of which I’ve deflected with ease. She knows I have a sister, Isabella, but that’s about it. She doesn’t need to know anything more than that. She’s been revealing little details to me about her own life, and I have to play like I don’t know it all already—that she’s on a scholarship, that she’s been struggling with her studies recently, that she pays her way through school. I almost feel bad for her, knowing what I’ve done behind-the-scenes to push her to the point where she needs my help, but when I consider the other option—letting her just walk out of my life unscathed—I know I only had one choice.

"You were at that meeting with Hanna Brown, right?" she asked the other day. I nodded.

"Yes, I was the one who organized it." I let that slip without thinking, and she glanced at me in surprise.

"You did?"

"Yes, doing student support stuff, I mean," I replied swiftly. "I helped get her over here. Organized her flights and everything."

"Oh, right, I see." Her brows knitted together slightly. "I… you're not studying history, are you?”

"Economics," I replied. Though I don’t exactly need a degree to work the business my father left behind, I still pride myself on being able to keep up with the work here. I’m not going to let anything get in the way of that.

"Damn, I don’t think I could handle that," she remarked with a slight laugh. "I’ve always been so bad at math. One time, the till went down at work, and I had to do it all in my head. I think the line at the Bean went out the door..."

I chuckled. There was such a brightness about her, untouched by the hardness and harshness of the world that lay beyond this campus. Little did she know, of course, that she’s surrounded by people who are involved in it. There are so many family members of mafia here, like me, sons and daughters whose parents are involved in this shady business. Though they hardly have any lofty academic goals, they’re sent here to get them out of their parents’ hair—and to give them something to boast about to their friends.

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