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

”I am losing it,” The man muttered. ”Why do we have to sit here like idiots when that old man is not even ready to sell? He is just wasting our time.”

The woman glanced at him, but he kept going, his voice low and bitter.

”If he really wanted to sell that building, he would have taken one of the offers already. Some of them were the best he is ever going to see. He refused every one as if this was a game to him.”

Alex smiled at the complaint, then let it pass. The man had already told him everything worth hearing.

He lifted the glass and finished what was left in one slow swallow. The whisky burned clean on the way down. He set the empty glass on the table, left enough notes beside it, and walked toward the far end of the room.

As he passed the couple, he felt the woman’s eyes cut across him. The look was sharp, measuring, a second too long to be idle.

Did they recognize him?

Margret should have shared his picture with them. If she had, the woman would already know the buyer they were waiting for had been sitting behind her the whole time.

Alex did not slow down, he had no interest in their petty games.

The stair was narrow and poorly lit, tucked out of the main hall as if the floor above was not meant for every guest. He put a hand on the rail and started up.

The air changed before he reached the landing. Loud music pressed against the walls, heavy enough to be felt in the chest, and the air was thicker with perfume, sweat, and spilled liquor.

Alex stepped onto the floor and paused just long enough to let the room settle around him.

The dance floor had been polished until it caught every colored light. Against the far side, floor-to-ceiling glass held rows of premium wine and liquor, locked behind a glow that made the bottles look like part of the decoration. People sat in loose groups with drinks they were not in a hurry to finish, talking over the music, watching the floor, already comfortable in a night that had started too early.

Alex looked for Raymond Cole and did not find him at first. Then his eyes stopped on an older man near the center of the room.

That was him. Raymond Cole.

His white shirt was open at the throat, expensive and worn without care for formality, cuffs turned back, a watch catching the light each time his hand settled on a waist. His build was solid, his back straight, his chin high. A neatly kept beard had changed the lower half of his face enough that the photograph in the file did not match at once.

Two girls moved with him. He swayed slowly between them, not quite dancing so much as letting them orbit him, one with her hands on his chest, the other laughing against his shoulder.

Even in motion he was unhurried and certain, used to being watched. He smiled as if both women belonged there, and as if the lawyers downstairs and the buyer who had not arrived were problems he could leave for later.

Alex’s eyes stayed on the man, a faint smile touching his mouth. The report had not exaggerated him. If anything, the file had been too polite.

Cole turned suddenly, as if something in the room had brushed against his senses and pointed him toward the door.

His eyes found Alex at once.

The look was heavy and assessing, but it did not stay cold. A small smile touched Cole’s mouth, knowing and faintly amused, as if the young man at the edge of the floor was already familiar to him. Then he turned back to the two girls and continued swaying as if nothing had happened.

Alex did not move.

The look had lasted only a second, but it had not felt like the glance of a drunk old businessman enjoying a private floor. It felt like a beast looking down from a height and measuring what had walked into its room.

”Lilith,” he said inwardly. ”Scan him.”

A blue panel unfolded over Cole’s back, sharp and cold against the colored light.

[SCAN COMPLETE]

[Name: Raymond Cole]

[Identity: The owner of the target property]

[Realm: Middle Stage — Ascended Realm]

[Affiliation: Independent]

[Threat Assessment: Extreme]

Alex’s expression tightened.

Middle Stage of the Ascended Realm.

”That is the next realm after Apex,” Lilith said in his mind. ”Peak Apex is already rare. Ascended is another wall entirely. Body, soul, and Vital Essence are refined again. A man at the middle of that stage is not someone you measure with money.”

Until tonight, Apex had been the highest power he had stood near. Viktor at the peak of that realm already felt like a different class of existence. What the panel showed was a full step beyond it, and Cole was wearing that power as easily as the open shirt on his shoulders.

He had come here expecting a wealthy man with bad habits and a building he did not want to sell. He had not expected this.

’This was why Victoria had been concerned about me coming here alone.’ The warning made sense now.

’She must have known Cole’s strength, or at least known enough not to treat him like an ordinary seller. A man in the middle of the Ascended Realm would not be unknown to the Sacred Families. They should have tried to recruit him already. The fact that he was still independent said as much about his temper as it did about his power.’

The panel had not faded when another window cut across it.

[DING!!!]

[UNIQUE TARGET EVALUATED]

[NEW MISSION TRIGGERED]

[MISSION: BIND THE GIANT]

[Objective: Convince Raymond Cole to become your subordinate.]

[Requirement: Voluntary submission. Forced contracts will not count.]

[Time Limit: None]

[Reward : Special Reward]

A slow breath left him.

This was no longer a property meeting. The building was the excuse. The real prize was the man dancing in the middle of the floor, smiling as if the night belonged to him.