Chapter 143: The Better One
DANTE
She was gone.
Days had passed. Then a week. And Lila—the woman who shared his hunger, his vision, his vengeance—hadn’t returned.
Lila was supposed to come back. They had a plan.
Destroy Richard and Marcus Blackwood. Share the crown of chaos together.
But she didn’t return.
Dante told himself it was part of the plan. Maybe she went underground. Maybe she was lying low until the dust settled from the last time.
But deep down…
He knew better.
Something was wrong.
At first, he ignored the tug in his chest. The dull ache. The itching pull of something missing. He was human, not a wolf like her. His instincts were supposed to be logical. Controlled.
But Lila? She wasn’t just his partner.
She was his addiction.
His match in madness.
His anchor to the world.
And now the cord was fraying.
The hunt began the moment the doubt entered his mind. He mobilized his men—low-tier criminals, deserters, mercs, and junkies. People who owed him. People too scared to ask questions.
He pulled out a photo. A screenshot from a social media account—one of those suspiciously fresh profiles with hardly any posts, just enough to draw curiosity but never detail.
The real Ivy Blackwood.
Her face stared back at them, sunlit, captured in a moment that felt almost too perfect to be real. Smooth skin like polished ivory, untouched by the world’s rot, glowed beneath golden hour light. Her cheekbones were sharp, her lips parted just slightly in that effortless, disarming way rich girls mastered from birth — not seductive, not sweet, just undeniably seen.
“Isn’t that the Blackwood girl?” one of the men asked.
“No,” Dante snapped. “There are two of them. I’m looking for the better one.”
The search spread through every underbelly alleyway, every forest line, every abandoned building sector for miles. His men canvassed the woods near the Blackwood estate, combed the mountains near the eastern caves, and whispered into every black-market connection still willing to take his coin.
Nothing.
Lila’s scent—gone. Her trail—dead.
Dante spiraled.
He stopped sleeping. Pacing replaced rest, his nights eaten alive by obsession. Maps cluttered the walls, marked with frantic red slashes—places they’d searched, places still untouched, places he refused to give up on.
And when the leads ran dry, he turned to watching—tracking the Blackwood estate from a distance like a predator learning the rhythm of its prey.
Still, nothing.
No whisper of Lila.
No clue.
No blood.
Just that damned tug in his chest—growing louder by the day.
From what he learnt after his encounter with her, wolf bonds were strange. Ancient. Tied to the soul. Even though he was human, the bond he shared with Lila had made him more.
And now that bond was screaming.
Something had happened to her.
Something that made her bleed.
And if she bled... then Ivy Blackwood—her twin—would feel it too.
Which gave him an idea.
A dark, twisted, delicious idea.
If he couldn’t find Lila... he'd take Ivy.
Use her as bait.
Make Richard panic.
Retrieve his woman.
Then kill Ivy anyway.
A win-win.
But first, he needed to breach the estate.
So he watched.
He tracked the movement of every vehicle that left the grounds. He sat in the shadows with a pair of cheap binoculars and a notebook filled with handwritten time stamps.
7:14 — Richard leaves in a black SUV.
7:28 — Marcus exits in a grey Audi.
No guards between 7:30 and 8.
CCTV rotates at 7:45.
The western blind spot lasts 22 seconds.
Gate sensors reset every 12 hours.
He was learning their rhythm.
The pulse of the fortress.
But he needed eyes on the inside.
And that was when it happened.
That morning.
She walked out.
The maid.
Early twenties. Thin. Tired. Duffel slung over her shoulder like she was fleeing a life she didn’t belong to.
She exited through the side gate, hailed a cab like it was just another day.
Dante’s blood thrummed.
He climbed onto his matte-black motorcycle, boots hitting asphalt like a countdown.
Helmet. Ignition. Tail. Quiet. Precise.
He followed her for ten blocks. She never noticed.
Didn’t even glance back once.
She got out at the subway station.
Waited.
Alone.
Dante watched from across the street, arms folded, waiting for the right moment.
Then—he crossed.
Trouble wore leather and a smirk today.
He adjusted his black hoodie, stubble sharp, gaze sharper. His boots hit the pavement with a confidence most men faked. And when he approached her at the crosswalk, he made sure his voice was warm.
Like honey. Poisoned.
“You heading somewhere special?” he asked, tilting his head.
She blinked up at him, clearly flustered. Late twenties, maybe early thirties. Pretty in a sad, underfucked kind of way. The type who'd been working too long, waiting too long, dreaming too small.
Exactly his type—for now.
“Oh,” she laughed nervously. “Just… off-duty. Work’s been hell.”
“What do you do?”
“I work for… well, a billionaire.” She giggled, waving him off like it was nothing. “It’s boring, honestly. But today’s my day off.”
He leaned in, just enough to let his breath tickle the shell of her ear.
“I don’t think anything about you could be boring.”
That was all it took.
She went crimson, her knees almost giving out. It was pathetic.
And perfect.
He made her laugh once.
Twice.
It was easy. Almost too easy.
She looked like she hadn’t had attention in months.
Like she’d been overlooked her whole life.
By the time they sat across from each other in a dingy café nearby, she was swooning.
The girl was stirring her tea too fast, giggling every time Dante so much as blinked. She leaned forward, too far, her blouse dipping low.
He wasn’t paying attention to her words anymore. Just watching her hands. Her badge. Her purse.
He’d spotted it earlier.
Blackwood Estate ID.
She worked inside.
“I’m sorry, what did you say you do again?” he asked, laying the charm on thick.
She puffed her chest. “I’m in service. Laundry, cleaning, sometimes private duty stuff when Mr. Richard or Miss Ivy need extra help. But honestly, it’s more peacekeeping than anything else. That place is always so tense.”
Interesting.
“You know, I could take you away from it all,” he said, his voice dropping low internationally, to get a reaction from her.
She laughed again. Then looked at him through her lashes.
Giddy. Horny. Stupid.
He could smell the desperation on her. Like a virgin dying for sin.
“Still," she added with a soft, almost dreamy smile, "I love working for the Blackwoods. No matter how chaotic it gets, it always feels like home somehow—like I'm part of something bigger."
“Must be nice,” he murmured, brushing his finger against hers.
She blushed. Her legs shifted.
Dante leaned in, whispered something dark and seductive into her ear—just low enough to make her shiver.
Her breath caught, then she blushed.
He leaned closer again. “You ever want to disappear from it all?”
Her laugh turned breathless. “Sometimes.”
“Wanna disappear for a few minutes? With me?”
She nodded.
Obedient lamb.
To the altar.
To the kill.
He led her toward the restroom like a lover. But his mind was already calculating how to silence her, how to strip the intel from her head, how to leave her unconscious and dump her phone’s GPS history for entry points.
Or better—how to use her as a gate pass. A direct, unwitting escort through the front door of the empire he planned to gut from the inside.