She Used Me for a Dare… Now I Own Her Mother

Chapter 303: The Vulture’s Court – I

CRASH.

The heavy crystal tumbler shattered against the mahogany paneling, spraying amber liquid and shards of glass across the pristine office floor.

”Incompetent! Every single one of them!”

Reginald Vanderbilt, the eldest son of the Vanderbilt line, stood behind his massive desk, his chest heaving, his face a mask of flushed, impotent fury.

He swept a stack of documents off the table with a violent backhand. Papers fluttered through the air like dying birds... intelligence reports, surveillance logs, private investigator summaries.

Every single one of them ended with the same three words: Current Location: Unknown.

”She vanishes,” Reginald snarled, gripping the edge of his desk until his knuckles turned white. ”Just when we had her cornered. Just when I was about to get what I deserve... what was stolen from me... She vanished.”

He slammed his fist onto the leather chair.

​”And none of my incompetent men can find out where she has gone? We pay millions a year for the best surveillance on the East Coast, and the CEO of a global empire just disappears into thin air?”

​”Reginald, darling. Please.”

​The voice was cool, smooth, and utterly unbothered.

​Cassandra Vanderbilt sat on the leather chesterfield sofa, her legs crossed elegantly.

She didn’t look at the shattered glass. She didn’t look at the scattered papers. She simply swirled the ice in her own glass, the very picture of composed malice.

​She was the true steel behind Reginald’s bluster. Beautiful in a sharp, frozen way, she was a woman who had married into the family and decided she would be Queen, no matter who she had to step over.

​”Screaming at the furniture won’t make her appear,” She said, taking a slow sip of her drink. Her eyes, sharp and predatory, watched her husband over the rim.

”How can I be calm, Cassandra?” Reginald spun around, his expensive Italian loafers crunching on the shards of crystal scattered across the rug.

”Do you have any idea what it took to get the Board to this point?”

He stopped in front of the window, staring out at the manicured grounds with unseeing eyes, his reflection ghosting in the glass... a man terrified of losing his grip.

”For months, I have been working them. Wining them. Dining them. Promising favors I don’t yet have the power to grant.”

He turned back to her, his eyes wild with desperation.

”I finally made them agree! I convinced them that the only reason she refuses to support Richard is her own personal hate for him. I painted her as a petty woman putting her ego above the family’s benefit!”

He slammed his hand against the window frame.

​”They were ready to support Richard. They were ready to override her hesitation and force the alliance through.”

​His voice dropped to a hiss, vibrating with humiliation.

​”But the moment they realized she wasn’t there? The moment her chair sat empty?”

​Reginald ran a hand through his hair, gripping the roots.

​”They refused to proceed. They said they do not vote on the fate of the House without the Head of the Family present. They called it a violation of Tradition.”

​Reginald laughed, a bitter, broken sound that had nothing to do with humor.

”Tradition.” He spat the word like it had left a foul taste in his mouth. ”The same tradition they had no trouble abandoning when they handed her the seat that should have been mine. When they looked past the eldest son... past me, Reginald Vanderbilt... and gave everything to a woman.”

​”They walked out, Cassandra. They wouldn’t even listen to me. They destroyed all my plans in seconds. Without Vivienne in the room to validate the meeting, they treated me like a usurper trying to sign contracts in the dark.”

He checked his watch, his hands trembling.

”And now Richard is coming in an hour. How the hell am I going to explain this to him?”

​Reginald turned back toward the window, gazing out at the city skyline where the Vanderbilt Tower rose like a steel needle, piercing the clouds.

​It should have been his to command.

​By every measure of tradition, experience, and competence, leadership should have fallen to the eldest son. To the one who’d spent decades learning the business from the ground up, who understood operations, margins, and ruthless efficiency.

​Instead, the Board... his own family... had handed control to Vivienne.

​A woman who prioritized ”brand image” and ”creative vision” over raw profit. Who had somehow convinced the elders that her modern approach was the future, leaving Reginald to rot in the position of Vice President.

​It was an insult. A betrayal.

​And now, in the middle of the most critical negotiation period the Vanderbilt family had faced in a decade, she had proven exactly how unfit she was.

​”This is the behavior I warned them about,” Reginald muttered, his jaw working.

”Reckless. Selfish. She’s compromising everything we’ve worked for.”

​Cassandra set her drink down on the coaster with a soft clink.

​She stood up, smoothing the skirt of her dress, and walked toward him. She moved through the room like a viper in silk, graceful and dangerous.

​”Your sister,” she said, her voice carrying a particular emphasis on the word that dripped with contempt, ”...has never understood what it means to put family first. She’s always been like this... chasing her own ambitions, her own pleasures, her own sense of self-importance while the rest of us do the actual work of maintaining this empire.”

She moved to the window, her silhouette backlit by the dying afternoon sun.

”She rejected Richard Blackwood’s proposal. Turned down a marriage alliance that would have secured our family’s position for the next generation. Why? Because she’s too proud to be anyone’s wife. Too arrogant to see that sometimes personal sacrifice is necessary for family advancement.”

Cassandra turned back to face him, and Reginald saw the calculated fury in her expression... the kind of anger that came from genuinely believing every word she spoke.

”She had the golden opportunity handed to her on a silver platter,” Cassandra continued, her voice rising with righteous indignation. ”The next head of House Blackwood... the next head... wanted to marry her. Wanted to bind our families together in the most powerful alliance this region has seen in decades.”

She laughed, the sound bitter and sharp.

”And what did she do? She threw it away. Told Richard no. Insulted him. And for what? Her precious independence? Her ego?”

Reginald nodded slowly, some of his earlier frustration finding a new target.

”She’s always been selfish,” he muttered. ”Even when we were children, she had to be the center of attention. Had to prove she was smarter, better, more capable than anyone else.”

”And now,” Cassandra said, moving closer to him, ”she’s proven exactly what happens when you give power to someone who values themselves over their family. She runs away. Hides. Leaves the rest of us to clean up her messes while she indulges whatever whim has captured her attention this week.”

Reginald turned away from the window, unable to bear the sight of the tower any longer. He walked heavily back across the room and sank into the leather chair behind his desk, the fight draining out of him.

​”It doesn’t matter, Cassandra,” he whispered, burying his face in his hands.

Cassandra’s lips curved.

”On the contrary,” she said, a mischievous, dangerous glint entering her eyes. ”Her absence is not a disadvantage at all.”

She let the words settle.

”Not if we use it properly.”

​Reginald frowned, looking up at her. ”What do you mean?”

​Cassandra leaned against the desk, her lips curling into a slow, cruel smile.

​”Think about it. If we can prove she ran away like a coward right when the family needed to make its most important decision... If we can prove her incompetence to the Elders... they will have no choice but to remove her.”

​She leaned closer, whispering the promise of power.

​”We don’t need to find her. We just need to prove she abandoned us.”

A light of hope sparked in Reginald’s eyes. They began to shine as he looked at her, the despair crumbling as he realized the path she was showing him.

”The Elders...” he breathed, his voice barely above a whisper. ”If we show them... if we...”

”And that is why,” Cassandra interrupted, placing a finger on his lips to silence him. She straightened up, her expression triumphant.

”I have already sent Arthur to the Sanctum an hour ago. He is there right now, with all the surveillance logs, the cancelled meeting minutes, and the evidence to show the Elders exactly how much of a coward she is.”

Reginald stared at her. One heartbeat. Two.

The full architecture of what she had done settling into his understanding piece by piece, each one landing better than the last. The crushing weight on his chest didn’t just lighten. It vanished.

​A low rumble started in his chest. Laughter.

​It vibrated against the finger she still held against his lips, growing louder, richer, fueled by the sudden rush of victory.

​Suddenly, he nipped the tip of her finger... sharp enough to be felt, possessive enough to be intimate.

​”Ouch,” Cassandra gasped, instinctively pulling her hand back, though her eyes were dancing with amusement. She rubbed the spot, looking at him with a mix of surprise and satisfaction.

​Reginald stood, the last of the morning’s despair burning away completely.

He reached out and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her flush against him with the easy certainty of a man reclaiming something that belonged to him.

”You really are my wife,” he murmured, his eyes moving over her face slowly, like he was seeing something he’d forgotten was there.

”Ruthless. Brilliant. Perfect.”

​He crushed his lips against hers. Not gently. Not carefully. The kiss of a man who had just remembered he was going to win.

For a moment, the broken glass and the ruined office didn’t matter. They were the Kings and Queens of the ashes.

​They broke apart, breathless, Reginald’s forehead resting against hers, a grin still playing on his lips.

​”When Arthur returns,” he whispered, ”we will... ”

​Thud. Thud. Thud.

​The sound cut through the heavy oak doors like a hammer strike.

​Reginald stiffened, the smile vanishing from his face instantly. Cassandra pulled back, her hands already moving to smooth her hair and straighten her dress, the lover vanishing and the Queen returning in the blink of an eye.

​They were heavy, deliberate footsteps echoing on the marble of the outer corridor. Not the scuttling of a maid, nor the quick pace of a secretary.

​These were the footsteps of a soldier.

​They stopped directly outside the double doors.