Mafia Heir, You Have 60 Seconds to Text Me Back Chapter 10

Mafia Heir, You Have 60 Seconds to Text Me Back Chapter 10

For a long stretch of time, I didn’t cross paths with Alec Rossi.

According to the floating comments, though, he still spent his nights scrolling through our past text

messages.

Once I verified that he wasn’t going to blast my personal details across campus forums, I finally relaxed. After all, my family had always kept me on a painfully short leash.

Perhaps it was having spent nearly two decades forced into the role of a quiet, obedient, perfect daughter

that sparked my quiet rebellion the second I stepped onto a college campus.

Alec had grown up under the opposite kind of pressure–old family rules, constant scrutiny, and expectations.

he had been rebelling against since childhood.

Thinking of him, I let out a light, self–deprecating scoff and shook my head, forcing myself back to reality.

There was a limit to how much you could take from someone before the bill came due.

A text notification chimed on my phone screen–a message from the family group chat.

[Mom]: You’re in college now. Your aunt knows a nice boy from a solid family, and he goes to your school.

Just have coffee with him.

[Dad]: Don’t waste four years dating people who aren’t going anywhere. If you’re going to date, date someone

with a future.

I pressed my lips together in a thin line, staring at the screen.

[Clara]: I’m only a freshman. There’s really no rush.

Truth be told, the guy’s photo was almost painful to look at–especially after spending months surrounded by

insanely sculpted, mafia heirs.

Still, out of basic courtesy to my parents, I agreed to a quick coffee meeting, hoping to reject him in person

so he’d take the hint and back off.

Instead, the guy turned out to be completely deaf to plain English.

Within five minutes, he was talking as if our marriage had already been scheduled–where we’d live, how

many kids we’d have, and how I’d take his name.

“We should live together next semester,” he said. “Best way to find out whether you’re actually wife material.”

Listening to his grating, self–important voice, I knit my brows in deep distaste.

“You look like a quiet, obedient girl. Our parents know each other, and you seem low–maintenance. That’s

important to me,” he droned on, taking my silence for submissiveness.

“I’m not saying we have to sleep together. I just want to know you can handle living with me before I seriously

consider marriage.”

SCREECH!

The harsh scraping of a chair echoed behind us.

Alec stood there, his tall frame casting a dark, imposing shadow over our table. His eyes were storm–dark,

practically dripping with murder.

Without a word, he slammed down onto the velvet seat right beside me.

“Are you deaf?” Alec leaned across the table, and the guy visibly recoiled. “Or did you just miss the part

where she turned you down?”

He let out an icy, mocking laugh. “Apparently basic manners were too much to ask.”

The guy froze, initially intimidated by Alec’s sheer height and broad shoulders, before blinking in confusion.

“What… what manners?”

Alec choked on his words, his jaw tightening.

I adjusted my glasses, explaining in an entirely even voice, “He’s not my boyfriend, so he doesn’t need to

memorize them.”

I looked the guy dead in the eye. “And needless to say, I have zero interest in ever being with someone like

you.”

Alec spent the next two minutes shredding him with the kind of polished cruelty rich boys seemed to learn at

birth.

I looked down at my phone. If I wasn’t mistaken, the campus forums were going to be insufferable tonight.

Yet, a weight lifted off my chest.

As I stood up to leave, Alec followed close behind me, his tall shadow trailing my steps.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out suddenly, his voice raspy and stripped of all his usual arrogance.

“The bet… it was entirely my fault.”

I thought he was going to launch into a long speech, but he merely ducked his head in a rare, panicked

gesture, whispering, “I didn’t agree to the family alliance.”

In truth, I had always known every move he made–thanks to the floating comments. But what caught me off

guard was what happened later that night.

Alec posted a public statement on Instagram, and within an hour it had been reposted all over the campus

gossip pages.

True to his word, he never exposed a single line of our private chats.

By the end of the week, everyone on campus firmly viewed me as the innocent victim who stood her ground

Before the semester ended, Sienna moved out of our dorm suite.

Prior to leaving, she stopped by my room to apologize.

She confessed that she was the one who covertly told Alec about the $50,000 monthly hush–money

transfers. “Sometimes,” she admitted with a self–aware laugh, “Sometimes I realize I can be pretty awful.”

I gave a polite nod, but I didn’t say ‘it’s okay.

An apology didn’t mean I was obligated to grant forgiveness.

[Clara literally speed–ran Sienna out of the main plot]

By the end of the third month–with Alec and Sienna barely speaking at all–the floating comments

disappeared.

Alec came to find me a few more times after that.

I didn’t dodge him. I even sat down and had a quiet, peaceful dinner with him a couple of times.

He had changed. He wasn’t as short–tempered or impulsive as before; he learned to listen patiently and keep

his voice low.

Noticing that I no longer rejected his presence outright, he started showing up more often, though he acted with extreme caution–almost as if he were still strictly abiding by my old one hundred rules.

I knew he was genuinely pursuing me now. But I never said yes.

Not because of the original bet, and not because of Sienna Vance.

It was simply because I realized something far more important:

I had spent eighteen years playing the role of the sweet, compliant daughter in everyone else’s eyes.

Yet, I had never spent a single moment truly, authentically living as myself.

By senior year, my parents had doubled down on trying to plan my future for me and attempting to map out

the rest of my life.

Instead of walking down the path they laid out, I used the money I’d saved–from the resale listings, Sienna’s

payments, and my own freelance work–to apply to graduate programs overseas and fund the move.

Alec had become someone I could have chosen.

But for the first time in my life, I chose myself instead.