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

Chapter 353: A Parade of Failures

“I’m too excited, Alex,” Mike said, his eyes shining with a frightening, newborn intensity. “I feel so much power surging through my body right now that I can’t keep still. My skin feels tight. My muscles feel like they’re made of coiled springs.”

He looked around the quad, his gaze landing on a nearby concrete planter.

“I just want to break something,” Mike admitted, a toothy, almost feral grin stretching across his face. “I feel like if I punched a wall, the wall would be the one that cried. I’ve never felt this strong in my entire life. What did you do to us?”

Alex let out a low, appreciative laugh, seeing the raw energy vibrating off Mike. It was the laugh of a man who knew exactly what kind of monsters he was creating.

“This is just the beginning,” Alex assured them, his voice dropping into a tone that commanded instant attention. “But try to keep your excitement in check. We don’t want any unnecessary attention on us. Not yet.”

Mike and the others nodded seriously, the weight of his words grounding them. They knew the stakes were impossibly high.

“I still can’t believe all of this,” Danny muttered, looking at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. “It’s like… like I’m still dreaming.”

Alex smiled, knowing exactly how they felt.

The last twenty-four hours had been a blur of high-stakes chess moves and impossible transitions. After coordinating with Victoria to sanitize the hospital records, he had moved Nina to his villa under the cover of darkness.

Explaining the sudden existence of a high-end, fortified villa to David and Linda had been his hardest battle yet.

He had stood in the marble foyer, watching their faces shift from awe to deep, gnawing suspicion. Nina’s sudden, miraculous recovery had already left them reeling… a shock they were still struggling to process… and now, the sight of this sprawling luxury was almost too much for them to bear.

He’d spun a tale of high-level consulting, of meeting the right people in the tech world, and earning wealth that defied their working-class logic.

​”Alex, tell us the truth,” David had demanded, his voice trembling with a mix of awe at the luxury and fear for his son’s soul. “Are you in something shady?”

“No, I’m not. I swear to you.” Alex had looked his eye and lied with every fiber of his being.

He couldn’t risk their safety just to preserve their peace of mind, so he forced the move, promising them it was all for Nina’s recovery.

David had held the stare for what felt like a full minute. Then he’d exhaled.

They accepted it. Not because they fully believed his stories of business deals and right people, but because the alternative was far worse.

But while they had been mollified by his reassurances, Danny, Mike, and Sarah hadn’t bought a single word of the “lucky businessman” story.

Alex realized then that he couldn’t just slide past them with a half-truth. They knew him too well, and the sharp, searching looks they exchanged told him that his cover was paper-thin. Yet, he didn’t feel the need to scramble for a better lie.

In fact, he felt a sense of relief; he had wanted to bring them into the fold anyway, to have them standing beside him rather than behind a curtain of secrets.

He had sat them down in the villa’s private lounge and pulled back the curtain. He told them about Victoria and the reach of her influence.

He introduced them to the chilling reality of a hidden world… a landscape of tiers and power plays that existed just beneath the surface of their ordinary lives.

To bridge the gap between myth and reality, he had shown them his power, letting them feel the weight of his authority until the truth became undeniable.

He could still vividly recall the exact moment their worlds fractured… the way the air had seemed to leave the room as they watched him, their faces frozen in a mask of pure, bone-deep disbelief.

It was a haunting kind of shock, the look of people watching the horizon tilt and the sky change color, realizing that every rule they had lived by was suddenly, violently obsolete. Their reality hadn’t just shifted; it had turned upside down, leaving them breathless in a world they no longer recognized.

Then, he had handed them the resources and the guidance they needed to survive it.

He hadn’t just given them medicine; he had given them an evolution.

“You’re not dreaming, Danny,” Alex said, his eyes scanning the quad one last time before gesturing toward the lecture hall.

“This is the new reality. Now, let’s go. We have a class to attend, and I’d prefer if Mike didn’t accidentally demolish the entrance on the way in.”

“Well… well… look at this.”

​The voice was like a splash of cold grease, cutting through the morning air and instantly killing the high of Alex’s new reveal.

​Alex and his team turned in unison, their eyes narrowing as they watched a familiar group swaggering across the pavement toward them.

Marcus led the charge, his jaw set in a line of practiced arrogance, with Robert and Tyler flanking him like attack dogs. Trailing slightly behind were Sophia and Jennifer, their expressions unreadable.

​Marcus stopped a few feet away, his lip curling as he looked Alex up and down.

“I thought I smelled something cheap and desperate lingering near the Quad,” he said, his voice carrying just enough to draw the attention of nearby students.

“I see the scholarship project finally found a way to stop walking. What’s the matter, Hale? Did the bus finally get tired of carrying your baggage, or did you find a new way to beg for scraps?”

“This motherfucker,” Danny cursed under his breath, his knuckles whitening as he shifted his weight.

Beside him, Mike’s breathing slowed, turning deep and heavy. The “coiled springs” in his muscles were vibrating against his skin now… a silent, powerful resonance that Marcus was far too arrogant to notice.

“Alex,” Mike rumbled, his voice like grinding stones, “should I just crush this bastard’s skull? My hands have been itching for it for a long time.”

Alex didn’t flinch. Instead, a small, knowing smile played on his lips at the suggestion. He reached out, placing a steadying hand on Mike’s massive shoulder, feeling the raw, power humming beneath the surface.

“Relax, Mike,” Alex said, his voice smooth and dangerously calm. “There’s no need to get your hands dirty. If a dog barks at you on the street, you don’t bark back… and you certainly don’t bite. It only makes you look as rabid as the animal.”

Marcus’s face contorted, his neck flushing a deep, angry crimson at the audacity of being compared to a stray. He stepped forward, his eyes darting between Alex’s smugness and Mike’s predatory stillness.

“I’ve got to hand it to you, Alex. You’re really leaning into this ’important person’ fantasy, aren’t you?” Marcus sneered, trying to regain his footing in front of the girls.

“And you even brought your little fan club along for the ride. It’s almost touching, really. Do they know they’re backing a loser who’s one bad day away from being kicked back to the slums, or are they just here because they like the way you pretend?”

Alex let a beat of silence pass, his gaze finally settling on Marcus with a look of genuine pity… the kind one reserves for a terminal patient.

“I don’t know about that, Marcus,” Alex began, his voice carrying a sudden, heavy authority that seemed to quiet the surrounding parking lot. “But I am sure about one thing. You’re only here because you’re desperate to feel superior. aren’t you? ”

His gaze drifted past Marcus to the people standing behind him. Robert, Tyler. Two soldiers who had already stopped believing in their general.

Then Sophia. Her expression was complicated — arms crossed, jaw tight, watching Alex with something caught between resentment and reluctant fascination. She didn’t look away when he caught her staring.

And then Jennifer.

She wasn’t watching the confrontation at all. She was watching him. When his gaze found hers, her lips moved — silent, deliberate, shaping two words meant only for his eyes.

’I’m sorry, Master.’

Alex smiled. Brief, warm, invisible to everyone but her.

Then he turned back to Marcus, and the warmth was gone.

“You drag this bunch behind you like a security blanket because, without them, you’re just a spoiled kid with a loud mouth and a failing reputation.”

He tilted his head, his eyes boring into Marcus’s.

“It’s actually sad.”

He turned his back on Marcus—the ultimate insult—and looked at his friends.

​”Let’s go. We’re already late, and I’d hate to keep the Professor waiting because we were distracted by… noise.”

Marcus stood frozen, his mouth opening and closing as he searched for a comeback that wouldn’t make him look even more pathetic in front of Jennifer and Sophia.

​”Wait… don’t run away too fast, Hale!” Marcus finally managed to bark, his voice cracking slightly with desperation.

“I was actually here to deliver some good news. Since it’s recruitment season for the top firms, I’ve been making a few calls. I’ve made sure your little ’team’ of nobodies stays exactly where they belong. You’re going to remain jobless, Alex. I’ll make sure no one in this city even looks at your resume.”