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

”A few pieces of information, that’s all he wanted,” Alex said, a slow smirk touching his lips.

Victoria stared at him, her brows drawing together as she turned the words over in her mind. For a moment, she tried to make sense of why a stubborn old man would part with his most prized asset for something so vague.

”Information...” she repeated slowly, testing the word on her tongue. ”What kind of—”

She stopped mid-sentence.

The color drained slightly from her face as the pieces snapped into place. Her posture stiffened against the pillows, her eyes widening in disbelief as she stared straight into his face.

”Don’t tell me...” she whispered, her voice barely carrying across the sheets.

”Yes,” Alex said, completely unbothered by her reaction. ”The very same.”

”And you agreed?” Victoria’s voice rose, the quiet warmth of the room instantly overshadowed by her shock. She pushed herself up further, the sheet falling to her lap as she looked at him as if he had lost his mind. ”Alex, tell me you’re joking. You actually promised him that?”

Alex reached out, catching her hand and resting his thumb against the back of her knuckles. He leaned back against the headboard, looking at her with steady, measured calm.

”I needed the deed cleanly, and he wasn’t going to sell for money alone,” Alex replied smoothly. ”A promise was the only currency that held any weight with him.” He paused, studying the sharp concern etched across her face.

”Tell me the truth, Victoria. How much do you actually know about what happened to his family?”

Victoria let out a long, heavy breath, running her free hand through her damp hair as she gathered her thoughts. The disbelief lingered in her eyes, but she could see he was entirely serious.

”I know enough to tell you that you just walked straight into a hornet’s nest,” she said quietly.

She pulled her legs beneath her on the mattress, her tone shifting into the sharp, precise register of a clan leader discussing classified matters.

”Five years ago, that incident threw the entire elite circle of this city into an uproar,” Victoria explained. ”It wasn’t some quiet domestic tragedy that stayed behind closed doors. Raymond Cole’s son didn’t just die of an illness—he collapsed overnight. A healthy young man with promising cultivation, rotting away from the inside while the best doctors and healers in the region stood by helplessly.”

She paused, her gaze dropping to the dark file resting between them before rising back to his face.

”And right before he took his last breath, his wife vanished into thin air. No signs of a struggle, no ransom demands, and not a single trace left behind. The timing was too clean, too surgical to be a coincidence.”

”Did anyone look into it?” Alex asked.

”Everyone did,” Victoria said flatly. ”That was the problem. Back then, Cole’s business was expanding rapidly, touching corridors that several prominent groups were trying to control. When his son died and the girl disappeared, the paranoia was suffocating. Every major family suspected their rivals. Leaders were doubling their private details, intelligence networks were burning through favors, and people were ready to pull weapons in broad daylight because everyone thought a shadow war had started.”

She shook her head, a dry, bitter edge creeping into her voice.

”For nearly three months, the upper crust was on edge. But no matter how deep anyone dug, the trail ended in a complete void. The bodies, the suspects... everything had been scrubbed clean with terrifying efficiency. It became obvious very quickly that whoever was behind it operated at a level ordinary investigation couldn’t touch. Eventually, people stopped asking questions because asking questions in the dark gets people killed.”

Alex listened quietly, letting the silence settle between them while he turned her words over in his mind.

?In his head, he compared what she was saying to the dossier Viktor had provided. The timelines aligned almost perfectly. The sudden decline of Cole’s son, the vanishing daughter-in-law, the panic sweeping through the local business sector... it was the exact same sequence of events his own men had pulled from the old records.

?Yet that very consistency made it suspicious.

When an entire city of ruthless competitors and paranoid syndicates ends up with the exact same story, down to the final dead end, it usually means someone far above them decided what they were allowed to see.

The public was fed a tragedy, the mid-tier families accepted an unsolved mystery, and everyone went back to business.

?Alex leaned back against the pillows, his thumb lightly stroking the back of her knuckles.

”And the Blackwoods?” he asked, his tone level and unhurried. ”Are you telling me even a Sacred Family couldn’t find a single trace?”

Victoria let out a quiet sigh. The tension in her shoulders dropped, giving way to a weary stillness that looked unusual on a woman who carried so much authority.

”They definitely know something,” she said softly. ”A family like ours doesn’t stay completely blind in its own territory. But whatever was uncovered went straight to the council, and I’m not privy to the internal matters of the Elders. All I can tell you, Alex, is that the entire affair was an absolute nuisance for our family too back then. Our name was dragged into the rumors, the city was on edge, and then... an order came down from the top. We were told to stop looking into it, and the case was closed for good.”

She looked down at their joined hands on the charcoal sheets, remaining silent for a brief moment before meeting his eyes again.

When she looked up, the lingering weariness was gone, replaced by a firm, protective seriousness.

”That’s why I’m warning you, Alex. Do not touch this.” Her fingers tightened over his, her voice dropping into a steady, deliberate register.

”If the Elders decided to wash their hands of the matter and bury it, it means there is poison beneath the surface. You are only just laying the groundwork for Eclipse Holdings. You have a business to build, territory to defend, and three families already circling your doorstep. The moment you start digging into an old grave that even the Blackwoods chose to leave alone, you won’t just be dealing with local competitors.”

She leaned in a fraction closer, searching his calm, unbothered expression.

”You’ll draw the attention of whoever silenced this city five years ago. Don’t trade the future of your company for an old man’s dead grudge, Alex. It simply isn’t worth the target it will paint on your back.”

Alex remained silent, his gaze fixed on the quiet shadows dancing across the far wall of the bedroom.

He didn’t dismiss her warning, nor did he rush to offer an easy rebuttal. Instead, he turned every detail over in his mind, fitting her words against what he already knew.

The clan council burying the case, the absolute silence from the elders, the five years of dead leads... none of it read like a random tragedy. It was a calculated quarantine.

Whoever had struck Cole’s family possessed enough weight that even the upper tier of the Blackwoods chose peace over answers.

Beside him, Victoria watched every shift in his expression. She knew that quiet stillness all too well. It wasn’t the hesitation of a man who was frightened or reconsidering his stance; it was the measured focus of someone already calculating how to breach the wall anyway.

A soft, resigned sigh left her lips.

Moving across the dark sheets, Victoria leaned into him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing her chest against his and resting her cheek gently in the hollow of his neck.

The cool scent of orchids lingered between them as she held him, her fingers curling into the fabric of his thoughts.

”I know you,” she whispered against his skin, her voice soft and entirely stripped of aristocratic pretense. ”I know that stubborn look in your eyes, Alex. You aren’t going to let this go just because I told you it’s dangerous. You never back down from something once you’ve set your mind to it.”

She drew back just enough to look up into his face, her dark eyes searching his with steady, earnest concern.

”So I won’t ask you to abandon it entirely,”

Victoria said softly. ”But promise me one thing.”

Alex tilted his head, his hand settling comfortably over the curve of her waist. ”What is it?”

”Promise me you won’t take a single blind step into this,” she said, her fingers moving to cup the side of his jaw, holding his gaze firmly. ”Before you make any moves, before you put yourself in the crosshairs of whoever buried that case... you talk to Catherine first. Go to her, and find out everything she knows about what happened back then.”

A faint, self-deprecating smile touched her lips, though the seriousness never left her eyes.

”I might handle the open administration of the family, but Catherine swims in the deep water. She moves through the underground, trades in contraband secrets, and keeps files on things the Elders wish would disappear. If anyone in this city has a copy of what was buried five years ago, it’s her.”

Victoria tightened her grip on him, her thumb lightly brushing his cheekbone.

”Hear her out first, Alex. Learn the real shape of the monster before you decide whether to hunt it. Promise me.”

Alex looked down into her dark eyes, feeling the faint, lingering tension in the hands holding his face. A faint, reassuring smile touched his lips as his fingers slid into her damp hair, gently gathering the dark waves away from her neck.

?”I promise,” Alex murmured softly. ”I won’t act blindly, Victoria.”