They Bullied the Top Student, Then My Mafia Family Arrived Chapter 02

They Bullied the Top Student, Then My Mafia Family Arrived Chapter 02

I immediately tensed up and hurried to tell Mom I could get home on my own.

It took a lot of convincing before my parents finally gave up on coming to pick me up themselves.

After I hung up, I let out a sigh.

They always managed to come up with plans that caught me completely off guard.

If they found out their daughter had been locked in a storage room at school, they would absolutely lose it.

I might have been a nameless side character in the novel, but there was nothing ordinary about my family.

My grandfather, Salvatore Moretti, was the godfather of the North American underworld.

My mother, Victoria, inherited the Family ring and became the current head of the Moretti Family.

My father, Marco Rossi, was the number-one cleaner on the underworld bounty list.

The two of them met during a Family war.

They started out as enemies, became lovers, and eventually had me, their only daughter.

According to Mom, the Moretti Family had gone ten generations without producing a single person who actually enjoyed studying.

Apparently, everyone in the family preferred killing people to reading books.

Then I was born.

For the first time, the Morettis had a child who genuinely liked school.

When I was eight, I came home with a report card showing top marks in every subject.

Instead of being thrilled, my parents were horrified.

They suspected I’d stolen the answers.

Then they suspected someone had threatened my teachers.

At one point, they even wondered if the hospital had accidentally switched babies when I was born.

Anything made more sense to them than believing I’d earned those grades myself.

Eventually, they noticed that I had no interest in fighting or patrolling Family territory.

All I wanted to do was sit in the study and read.

By the time I was still very young, I’d already learned eight languages.

That was when they finally accepted the fact that I was simply different from everyone else in the Family.

At the end of eighth grade, I ranked first in the statewide assessment.

Mom was so excited that she opened more than a dozen bottles of vintage champagne and rented out a sightseeing yacht near the Statue of Liberty just to celebrate.

Dad handed me a bank card containing more money than I could possibly spend in a lifetime.

And I only asked for one thing.

When I started ninth grade, I wanted to hide my real identity so I could study in peace.

Every time people found out my last name was Moretti, they got so terrified they could barely finish a sentence.

This time, the Family created an ordinary identity for me as “Grace Miller.”

According to my records, my parents simply ran a small laundromat in Queens.

For once, I could live like a normal student.

There was no way I was letting them ruin this rare taste of an ordinary school life.

With that thought, I walked over to the lock and crouched down.

Thirty seconds later, it clicked open.

I’d been trained in all kinds of skills at the Family estate since I was little.

Picking a basic mechanical lock was one of the first things I’d learned.

That afternoon, I returned to class on time, sat down at my desk, and opened my textbook as if nothing had happened.

I didn’t mention the storage room at all.

When Lina saw me, she clearly couldn’t accept the fact that I’d already gotten out.

She stared at me for an entire class, looking both irritated and determined to keep her emotions under control.

The moment class ended, she finally walked over to my desk.

Her voice was clear and firm.

“Grace, I’ll give you this, you’re good. But I’m taking that top spot back, fair and square.”

I looked at her sincerely.

“Then you’ll have to get past the other eighty-two ahead of you first.”

Lina froze for a second.

Her lips pressed into a tight line before she silently returned to her seat.

I shrugged and went back to solving problems.

It wasn’t long before Adrian stormed over with a dark expression.

He was wearing a perfectly tailored black suit, with the Blackwood Family’s silver wolf crest pinned to his cuff.

“Grace, I underestimated you. Clearly, earlier wasn’t enough of a lesson.”

He raised his hand to slap me.

I was about to dodge when someone reached in from the side and caught his wrist.

It was Julian Ashford, heir to the Ashford Family.

He wore a polite smile, but the way he looked at me made it obvious he was evaluating a business deal.

“Putting your hands on a lady is hardly a good look.”

Then he lowered his gaze to me.

“Grace, I’ll pay you to step aside and let Lina have first place. What do you say?”

I asked curiously, “How much?”

Julian’s smile deepened.

“Name your price. Money isn’t exactly a problem for the Ashfords.”

I thought about it, then raised one hand and held up five fingers.

He lifted an eyebrow.

“Five million? Fine.”

Then he turned toward Adrian with a mocking look.

“You don’t need to solve everything with your fists. If money can sort it, there’s no need to make a scene.”

I didn’t answer him right away.

Instead, I asked, “The first-place scholarship is only five thousand dollars. Why not just give Lina the five million? She’s the one who needs it, isn’t she?”

Adrian gave a scornful laugh.

“Lina isn’t going to throw her principles out the window just because someone’s waving money at her. Five thousand she earns herself means more to her than everything someone like you owns. You haven’t a clue how proud she is.”

I nodded.

“But I wasn’t asking for five million.”

Julian frowned.

“Then what do you want?”

Slowly, I folded down four fingers.

Leaving only my middle finger raised directly in front of him.

Julian’s smile vanished instantly.

“Grace, don’t think that because I’m willing to bargain with you, that puts us on the same level.”

I took a step back and noticed the school’s academic adviser approaching from the far end of the hallway.

So I drew in a deep breath and shouted at the top of my lungs,

“Mr Harris! I need to report something!”

“Julian’s trying to pay me five million dollars to give up first place!”