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

”Take it,” Raymond Cole said, tapping the leather folder resting on the cold stone balustrade. ”I’m selling it to you.”

Alex didn’t immediately reach for it.

For the first time all evening, a subtle flicker of surprise crossed his face. He hadn’t expected the old man to give in this easily. After everything he knew about Cole... his hidden strength, his five years of calculated patience, and how fiercely he had guarded this property... handing over the deed so casually made no sense at all.

’What kind of game is this old man playing?’

Alex wondered, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studied the battered face in front of him.

Seeing that rare crack in Alex’s composure, Cole let out a low breath through his nose. The bruised corners of his mouth twitched, slowly curling into a mysterious, knowing smile. For once tonight, he was the one holding the initiative.

”Yes, you heard me right, Alexander,” Cole said smoothly, leaning his hip against the railing and crossing his arms over his dusty chest. ”I’m handing you the keys. And I won’t even bleed you for a premium. Fair market valuation. Base rate. Not a single cent higher.”

Cole clicked his tongue, giving an easy, dismissive wave of his scarred hand.

”I spent years watching those three families drool over that lot like rabid dogs,” Cole continued, his voice adopting the earnest, approving tone of an elder passing the torch. ”Arrogant, entitled bastards who think a family crest gives them the right to swallow this city whole. The thought of letting them strip that building down to line their pockets made my stomach turn. I swore to myself that if I ever let it go, it would only be to someone with real potential. Someone sharp enough, bold enough, and hungry enough to build something that actually matters.”

Cole tapped the top of the leather folder with a single knuckle, his bruised eyes gleaming with faux warmth.

”You’ve got that fire, kid. So consider it yours.”

Cole leaned back against the balustrade, watching the young man with a quiet, expectant eye.

He knew how people Alex’s age usually reacted. When a veteran of his stature offered rare praise alongside the deal of a lifetime, the mask almost always slipped. There would be a flush of pride, an eager glint of greed, or that desperate, clumsy rush to snatch the prize before the elder had a chance to change his mind.

None of that happened.

The brief surprise on Alex’s face had vanished completely. In its place was a faint, amused smile that carried a quiet, unsettling chill.

Alex didn’t pick up the folder. He merely laid two fingers against the dark leather, casually tracing the edge of the crimson wax seal without bothering to flip it open.

”You’ve got me all wrong, Mr. Cole,” Alex said smoothly, lifting his dark eyes to meet the old man’s stare.

He spoke without a trace of arrogance, yet the words carried an absolute, undeniable weight.

”That property is certainly an important piece of what I’m building. But if land was all I wanted tonight, a single phone call would have put the deed on my desk by tomorrow morning. I wouldn’t have bothered coming all the way out here to meet you in person.”

The smug satisfaction on Cole’s battered face instantly froze.

A flicker of genuine bewilderment flashed through the old man’s eyes. From the moment Alex had stepped onto the terrace, Cole had assumed the kid was just another clever buyer... someone determined to charm, outmaneuver, or plead his way into taking the bait off his hands.

Yet Alex had just pushed the prize aside like loose change.

If he hadn’t come to negotiate for the building... what the hell had he come for?

Alex didn’t leave him drowning in questions for long.

He lifted his hand from the leather folder, not sparing the multi-million-dollar deed another glance, and closed the short distance between them. He stopped barely an arm’s length away, stepping directly into Cole’s space with the quiet, effortless confidence of someone who owned the very air he breathed.

”I didn’t climb up to this terrace for a land deed, Mr. Cole,” Alex said softly, his dark eyes locking onto the old man’s bruised, weathered face with absolute clarity. ”I came here specifically for you.”

The terrace went quiet.

Cole didn’t flinch, but his brow pinched together in a sharp, bewildered frown. His scarred fingers hovered near his unbuttoned jacket, the gravelly banter entirely dying in his throat.

For a moment, he simply stared at Alex, trying to process whether this was an elaborate insult or some bizarre negotiation tactic.

Then, his gaze flicked downward... taking in his torn lapels, the dirt caked onto his trousers, and the blood still tacky along his knuckles.

A dry, incredulous scoff rattled in Cole’s chest.

”For me?” Cole muttered, shaking his head with a humorless smirk. ”Kid, look at me. I’m a bankrupt relic who just took a beating on a balcony to buy five minutes of peace. My firm is in the gutter, my friends jumped ship, and the whole city treats me like dead meat walking.”

He leaned in slightly, his weathered eyes narrowing to slits as he searched Alex’s face.

”So tell me... what the hell could you possibly want with a ruined old man?”

Alex didn’t buy the routine for a second. A faint, knowing smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

”Drop the act, Raymond,” Alex said evenly. ”We both know you aren’t some broken old man waiting to die in the gutter. And playing dumb won’t do you any favors tonight. A chance like this only comes knocking once.”

He took a slow step forward, his dark eyes cutting straight through the battered facade.

”For years, you’ve been digging through sewers, chasing dead ends, and throwing millions at black-market brokers who take your money and feed you useless scraps. You don’t need another mercenary. You don’t need another cheap spy to tell you what you already know.”

Alex paused, his voice dropping into a quiet, lethal register.

”You need the only person in this city who can actually give you the answers you’ve been bleeding yourself dry to find.”

The words hit like cold steel.

In an instant, every trace of cynical humor vanished from Cole’s face. The playful slouch dissolved, his posture locking into the iron-rigid stillness of a soldier on the brink of war. His weathered features hardened, carving deep, hollow shadows beneath his eyes.

Then, the air on the terrace warped.

The restraint Cole had maintained all evening slipped. From beneath his bruised flesh, an invisible, chaotic wave of Vital Essence began to leak into the night. It wasn’t the clumsy pulse of an ordinary fighter... it was the suffocating, dense gravity of an Ascended cultivator who had spent years forging his strength in agony and silence.

The potted ferns by the wall groaned under an unseen weight, and the cold cliff wind seemed to shudder to a dead halt.

”What do you mean by that?” Cole asked.

His voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried a raspy, razor-sharp edge that rattled like unsheathed blades.”What do you know about my son?”

Standing barely three feet away, Alex felt the full brunt of the pressure.

It was like stepping beneath a falling slab of iron. The invisible aura bore down on his shoulders, tightening around his chest until breathing felt like swallowing glass. The instinct of any normal human would have been to flinch, retreat, or collapse under the sudden weight of an apex predator baring his fangs.

Alex knew the stakes with terrifying clarity. If he showed a single tremor of fear... if his pulse betrayed him or his knees buckled... the balance was gone. Cole was a wounded monster; the second he smelled weakness, he would crush whatever was in front of him.

Alex didn’t back down an inch.

Forcing his lungs to draw a slow, measured breath against the crushing weight, he kept his posture completely open, his hands resting easily in his pockets. He held Cole’s murderous, hollow gaze without blinking, letting his untroubled expression stare down the Ascended aura.

”Now that’s more like it,” Alex murmured, the corner of his mouth curving into an easy, fearless smile. ”The real Raymond Cole. A Middle Stage Ascended cultivator... not some washed-up drunk rolling in terrace gravel to play the clown.”

The words struck like a physical hammer.

The chaotic aura bleeding into the night violently shuddered. For a second, Cole forgot to breathe. His weathered face drained of color, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks as he stared at the young man as if looking at an apparition.

Middle Stage Ascended.

That single phrase tore straight through Cole’s defenses. It was his most closely guarded secret, hidden beneath layers of public humiliation for five excruciating years.

Yet this young man stood there, naming his exact rank as casually as reading a clock.

”Who the hell are you?” Cole rasped, every muscle in his battered frame wound tight as a loaded spring. A deadly, paranoid chill seized his eyes. ”Are you with the Blackwoods? Did they send you?”