AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Now, even though I’d found the building, I had no idea where exactly I needed to go to get registered for classes. “Shit,” I muttered as I looked at my watch. I shouldn’t have been so prideful with Eli. Missing the first day of classes was not a good way to start things, especially since I needed to finish in order to graduate.
“Are you lost?” a small girl with black curls asked me. She was dressed in jeans and a cardigan with the school emblem. Weird considering the heat, but I bit my lip to stop from asking her about it.
“Is it that obvious?”
She chuckled. “Kind of. Plus, I’m supposed to be looking out for you.” The girl reached out a hand to me. “I’m assuming that you are Carla?”
My back stiffened. “How—”
She laughed once more. “Sorry,” she apologized, lowering her hand. “That was probably a creepy thing to say. I’m Sophia. My father is the headmaster here.”
The explanation made sense, but my past made it difficult for me to trust people. Sophia seemed harmless enough, but dangerous people came in all different shapes and sizes.
“No one told me that I could expect an escort.”
Sophia laughed. “Technically, no one set you up with one.” She raised her phone. “Fiona Blanchi texted me asking if I’d show you around. She knew that I was taking a few classes. How she knew, no idea, but that girl seems to know everything.”
That didn’t surprise me. I’d barely spoken to Fiona, but I’d gotten the sense that she was the type to keep her life on a tight string. She’d come to a semi-casual dinner with not a hair out of place despite having just gotten back from vacation.
“That was nice of her.”
Sophia nodded. “She has her moments.” She handed me a folder. “Here. I swiped this from my father’s office. We are taking some of the same classes, so I figured that we could walk together.”
A beat passed when I considered telling her no thanks, but then, the bell rang, causing me to jump, and I realized the time for consideration was gone.
“Don’t worry about being late. Mr. Williams is always at least ten minutes past the bell.” Sophia looped her arm in mine, not waiting to see if I was coming with her or not. She didn’t give me much of a choice as she practically dragged me down the halls. “He loses time in the lounge making coffee. Why he waits till the last minute, I’ll never know, but it works to our advantage.”
Nodding, I tried my best to keep up. Sophia was only about five foot tall, but she could give Eli a run for his money in terms of stride.
“All of the summer classes are held in the left wing of the building, which is the newer section.”
I nodded, unsure what she was saying. “We have the first two classes together, so that works today, but I’ll be sure to show you around to the rest of your classes before the end of the day.”
“You don’t have to do that.” It felt odd to me that Sophia was forced to help just because Fiona, who I barely knew, dictated it. There was no need for her to do that, and I didn’t like it. “I’m sure that I can find my way around.”
Sophia chuckled. “Nonsense,” she said. “This summer is going to be incredibly boring.” She wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t know what that had to do with me. “This way we can go through it together.”
Despite myself, I laughed. “Alright,” I said, squeezing her arm slightly. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTEREIGHT
“Why are you so pressed about this?” Matteo asked. He looked as though he did not have a single care in the world, and I was sure that he didn’t. Matteo was the youngest Blanchi child, and it showed.
He enjoyed spending the money that came with being a Blanchi, and he enjoyed the violence. But if you asked him to do anything else, he’d tell you to screw yourself, which is why Luca and I generally kept him out of things.
Right now, though, his presence was required. “You aren’t worried about her?”
Matteo rolled his eyes. “Why would I be worried?” He leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on my desk. The itching in my fingers to knock him off intensified, and I clasped my hands together to try and keep the itch at bay. “She’s an eighteen-year-old slip of a girl.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Luca chuckled. I’d called him over the moment my parents went out for the day. It pained me to bring him and Matteo into this, but I needed more than one pair of eyes when it came to Carla. “After all, her father is head of the cartel. He’s well known across the border, and he’s also one of the richest men in L.A.” Luca released a small whistle between his teeth. “Like rich, rich. The Moreno family could give us a run for our money.”
“I’m aware of that.”
After I learned that Carla was a Moreno, I’d done my research. I hadn’t been able to find much information about him within the organization. If I did, it would have gotten back to my father, and he would not have been happy about it.
So, I’d turned to the internet. Not that there was much to find. Whoever scrubbed the Moreno family from the news, they were good.
“Moreno has a hacker on payroll,” I said, with certainty. “No one has that small of an internet footprint. Carla doesn’t have a single social.”
