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

Chapter 354: The Vultures

“I am actually here to deliver some good news!” Marcus roared, his voice cracking with the sheer force of his desperation to be heard.

“Since it’s recruitment season for the top firms. 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!”

He stood there, chest heaving, waiting for the devastating impact of his words to hit. He expected Alex to freeze, for Danny to pale, or for Mike to turn around with a look of defeated panic.

Instead, the four of them didn’t even break stride.

Alex continued his conversation with others as if Marcus were nothing more than the hum of a distant air conditioner.

They kept walking, their movements synchronized and effortless, finally disappearing through the heavy glass doors of the main building without a single backward glance.

The silence that followed was deafening. A few nearby students who had witnessed the exchange quickly looked away, stifling smirks as they hurried to class.

“These bastards!” Marcus hissed, his face turning a dark, blotchy purple. He kicked at a loose pebble on the pavement, his hands trembling with a rage that had nowhere to go.

“Who the hell do they think they are? I’m talking to them! I’m standing right here!”

Marcus’s voice reached a fever pitch, his face twisting into a mask of pure frustration.

​”I would have given those bastards a proper lesson right here if not for that bitch!” he spat, gesturing vaguely toward the faculty building.

Kyle, who had been lingering at the edge of the circle, stepped forward and placed a steadying hand on Marcus’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry too much about these pieces of shit, Boss,” he said, his voice oily and reassuring. “Let them act tough for now. It’s just a front. They’re probably shitting themselves inside.”

“He’s right,” Robert joined in, crossing his arms and spitting on the ground. “Let them have their little walk. It’ll be a lot more fun watching them come back begging on their knees once those rejection letters start piling up. They’re just trying to act tough because they know they’re trapped.”

Marcus took a jagged breath, his eyes fixed on the doors where Alex had vanished.

“You’re right,” he muttered, though the sting of being ignored still burned in his gut. “They’ll learn. By the end of this month, I’ll have them wishing they’d never even heard the name Steele.”

Sophia remained standing several paces behind the rest of the group, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest as if she were trying to hold her soul together.

She looked at Marcus’s trembling back, at Robert’s smug posturing, and at Kyle’s oily grin.

For the first time, the veil was stripped away. She didn’t see the “elite” of the university or the powerful heirs of the city’s future. She saw a collection of shallow, insecure boys playing pretend in a sandbox.

’Pathetic,’ she thought, the word tasting like copper in her mouth.

The contempt rose in her throat, cold and suffocating.

Compared to the man Alex had become, Marcus and his gang were nothing more than flickering candles standing next to a goddamn sun.

’What was I thinking?’ A bitter, jagged curse formed in her mind, directed solely at herself. She remembered the thrill she’d felt months ago, the petty excitement of using Alex for a dare, of letting these pathetic, hollow people influence her decisions. She had listened to their laughter, fed off their elitism, and thrown away the only real thing she had ever possessed.

She realized now, with a crushing weight in her chest, just how well he had truly treated her back then. He had adored her, treated her like a princess whose every whim was law. He had looked at her as if she were the only person in the world who mattered.

​And now? Now, he didn’t even spare her a glance. To him, she was no longer a princess; she wasn’t even an enemy. She was just… gone.

She had played with his feelings like they were disposable, and now she was the one who had been discarded.

​She turned her gaze back toward the glass doors where Alex had vanished. A single, hot tear traced a path down her cheek.

​’I will make this right,’ she promised herself, her fingers digging into her arms. ’I’ll apologize. I’ll crawl if I have to, but I will make him mine again at any cost.’

​Her eyes shifted, landing on Jennifer, who was trailing slightly behind Marcus. Jennifer’s expression caught her off guard… there was a faint, lingering smile on her lips, a look of secret satisfaction that made Sophia’s blood boil with irritation.

She had seen Jennifer’s reaction when Alex was standing there; the way her eyes had dropped, the way she had practically withered under his gaze.

​’This bitch is up to something,’ Sophia realized, her suspicion sharpening into a blade. That bitch noticed it too. She’s seen what he’s become and she’s already moving in.

​The memory of the bedroom at the estate flashed through her mind… her mother and her aunt, two of the most powerful women in her life… women she had thought were unbreakable… reduced to gasping for his attention. They had acted like absolute sluts for him, throwing away their dignity just to feel a fraction of his power.

​Instead of breaking her, the memory forged a new, terrifying resolve.

​’I won’t let him go,’ she thought, her jaw tightening until it ached. ’I don’t care what my mother tries, or what my aunt does, or what game Jennifer is playing. You can all try to claim him, you bitches, but he’ll be mine in the end. I was the first, and I’ll be the last.’

​”Sophia? You coming?” Marcus asked, glancing back, his face still flushed with the remnants of his tantrum.

​She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. Looking at him felt like looking at a mistake she couldn’t erase.

​”Go ahead,” she said, her voice sounding dead to her own ears. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

​She watched them walk away, their swaggering gait now looking like the clumsy movements of puppets with tangled strings.

Sophia remained standing in the fading heat of the parking lot, her eyes fixed on the entrance until a light, familiar weight settled on her shoulder.

“Pathetic, aren’t they?”

Sophia didn’t need to turn around to recognize Jennifer’s voice.Sophia stiffened, shaking the hand off her shoulder before turning to face her.

“You look far too happy for someone whose friends were just humiliated in front of half the campus,” Sophia said, her voice laced with venom.

Jennifer let out a short, melodic laugh that grated on Sophia’s nerves. “Friends?”

Jennifer repeated, the word sounding like a joke she’d heard a thousand times.

​”Please, Sophia. I was never ’friends’ with these people,” Jennifer said, her voice dropping into a cool, honest tone that Sophia had never heard before. “I was just enjoying the view as long as they were fun to be around. But lately? The show is getting boring, and Marcus… well, he’s starting to look like a dead end.”

​She turned her gaze back to the lecture hall doors, her expression shifting into something sharp and hungry.

“But hey,” Jennifer adds, her eyes flicking back to Sophia with a mocking glint, “I think you’re losing hope in your so-called boyfriend, too, aren’t you?” She lets out a sharp, biting laugh that makes Sophia’s skin crawl.

​”Honestly, though, I still think you guys look too good together.”

​The laughter was like a slap. Jennifer was twisting the knife. Sophia’s eyes narrowed, her suspicion from moments ago solidifying.

’This bitch.’

She remembered how Jennifer had been bragging just last week about her mother’s company, about how she was essentially done with the “academic charade.”

“What happened to that ’Director’ role you were so busy flaunting?” Sophia mocked, crossing her arms. “I thought you weren’t even coming back to college. Didn’t you say this degree was just a piece of paper for people who actually had to work for a living? Why the sudden change of heart?”

Jennifer didn’t flinch. Instead, her smile widened, a secretive, predatory glint entering her eyes… the kind of look a hunter gives when they’ve spotted a prize worth more than the entire forest.

“Director can wait,” Jennifer said simply, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial hum. “I’ve realized there are things much more valuable than a title. I’ve got something much better to do here now.”

She looked toward the glass doors where Alex had disappeared, her gaze lingering with the same hunger Sophia felt, but with a terrifyingly calm calculation.

​”It’s a crowded field, Jennifer,” Sophia says, her eyes narrowing as she scans the girl she used to consider a mere follower. “I just hope your ’new goal’ doesn’t find itself… interfering with mine. That would be a very messy mistake for you to make.”

​Jennifer doesn’t deny it. She doesn’t even flinch. Instead, she reaches out, her fingers lingering for a second as she straightens a stray hair on Sophia’s shoulder.

​”We all have our own paths, Sophia,” Jennifer murmurs, her expression one of serene, untouchable confidence.

“But you know what they say about the early bird. Some people are just better at recognizing a prize before it’s out of reach. I’d hate for you to tire yourself out chasing something that’s already moved on.”

​She offers a thin, razor-edged smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

​”See you in class?”

Without waiting for an answer, Jennifer stepped past her, her stride light and purposeful.

Sophia watched her go, her heart hammering against her ribs. The war wasn’t just against the powerful women of the Blackwood family anymore. The vultures were already circling the ground, and Jennifer was the first one to show her talons.