Charlotteâs eyes flickered, not blinking, barely breathing, pupils dilated like a woman staring down the edge of a revolution. She looked at Peter the way kingdoms once looked at fire, the way dying empires looked at messiahs.
"What do you want?" she repeated, softer this time. Not weakânever weakâbut no longer bargaining from the throne. She was off it now, hands brushing the floor, dust from the real world clinging to her Versace.
Peter leaned back against the car door like he had all the time in the world. His mask tilted, mirroring a smirk that couldnât be seen but was feltâdeep in the ego, deep in the soul.
"I want your fear," he said.
Charlotte blinked.
"I want your sleepless nights," Peter continued, voice low, surgical. "I want you to remember what it felt like when a kid in a hoodie ripped the laws of physics apart in your back seat. I want that feeling in your blood every time you walk into a boardroom thinking youâve seen it all. Because you havenât. Not even close."
Her lips parted slightly. Not from arousalâthough, if weâre honest, something primal had been triggeredâbut from the weight of the truth. The sheer
scale
of what Peter represented.
"I want your loyalty," he added, voice a blade now. "Not in a contract. Not in some dusty NDA your lawyers whip up in panic. I want your
conviction
. I want you to believe in something so dangerous it scares you."
Charlotteâs eyes though; were glued to the screen like sheâd just witnessed the Second Comingâexcept instead of angels, it was raw code and artificial divinity pulsing from the laptop.
The hunger on her face was almost indecent.
Billionaire desperation, dressed in Chanel and old money entitlement, practically oozed from her pores.
She turned with a tight-lipped smile that had probably negotiated mergers, sunk rivals, and charmed congressmen. "So. About ARIAâ"
"Donât even finish that thought." Peterâs fingers were already dancing, code unraveling on the display like a reversed prophecy. "Youâre not keeping my AI."
"Wait, whatâ" Charlotte lunged for the screen, just in time to watch the holographic interface glitch and collapse. Her polished corporate desktop flickered back, bland and empty. "Hey!"
Peter shut the laptop with a click that sounded like the lid on a steel coffin. "You really thought I was gonna leave a god-tier prototype on
your
malware-infested antique? In a company where even your secretaryâs been embezzling money for months like itâs lunch money?"
Her face spasmed through denial, rage, and naked panic like a Wall Street trader watching numbers tank. "But that was my
proof
! I need something solidâsomething I can
use
."
"Solid?" Peter actually laughed. It was the kind of laugh that made people realize how stupid theyâd just sounded. "Youâre literally on your designer knees in your own car because my AI strip-searched your entire life like it was on public record. Whatâs nextâyou want God to notarize it? A signed affidavit from God himself?"
He could see itâthe crack in her diamond-hard exterior. The slow crumble of control. And he welcomed it.
Good. Panic made people honest.
"Iâll buy it," she said, voice snapping back into boardroom sharpness. "Not seven hundred Kâreal money. Stupid money. Just say the number."
Peter stared like sheâd offered to buy his soul with Starbucks coupons. "Are you actuallyâno, seriously, are you brain-dead?"
"Excuse me?"
"Not everythingâs for sale, Charlotte. Iâm not some script-kiddie flipping Androids on Reddit." His voice dropped into something low and lethal. "But for argumentâs sakeâ
if
I was sellingâwhy the hell would I take pennies for something that rewrites the tech food chain? Thatâs like trading SpaceX for an Olive Garden gift card."
Her face flushed. Red. She wasnât used to thisâbeing outplayed, especially by someone younger, masked, and infuriatingly casual about rewriting reality.
"You need the money," she said, softer now. Not a statement. A guess. A plea.
Peter tilted his head. The confidence in him was practically radioactive. His fit alone cost more than her assistantâs yearly salary, and the AI running behind his eyes made half the worldâs software look like floppy disks.
"Do I look like I need money?" He let the silence punch the air between them. "This isnât about cash. Itâs about legacy. ARIA wasnât built to be sold. It was built to
change everything
."
"Even if I was selling," Peter went on, his voice dripping with Gen Z disdain, "why would I sell something worth billions for chump change? Thatâs like selling Tesla stock for McDonaldâs money. Do you hear how stupid that sounds?"
Why would he sell something that could bring him endless millions if he developed it further. And that wasnât even part of the reasons.
And thatâs when she finally saw itânot a negotiation. Not a sale. A test.
Peter watched the exact second her expression shifted. Not greed. Not fear.
Curiosity.
"What do you want, then?" Charlotte asked quietly.
"Partnership. Real partnershipânot this buyer-seller PowerPoint bullshit." Peter leaned forward, voice sharpening like a scalpel. "Why buy ARIA when you could own every version Iâll ever create? Every upgrade, every world-shifting algorithm, every technological middle finger to the status quoâyours.
Through actual collaboration."
Charlotte tilted her head, calculating. That Wall Street glint returned to her eyes. "And you get what, exactly?"
"Resources. Legitimacy. A chance to change the world without the CIA trying to waterboard me in a black site." Peterâs expression didnât flinch. "Also, Iâm not dumb enough to hand you some half-baked beta version. ARIA right now? Sheâs the tutorial level. Selling her would be like trying to retire off the iPhone 1."
Charlotte blinked. "...you mean people
donât
do that?"
He ignored the joke, but she saw the corner of his mouth twitch. Progress.
âHook, line, and sinker,â Peter mused as Charlotteâs shoulders subtly lowered, her interest finally outweighing her ego.
"There are other reasons too," he added, tone shifting from fire to fog. "Personal ones. Things Iâm not spilling. But bottom line? I donât sell my children. Especially not to people Iâm about to build a future with. Thatâs not partnershipâthatâs prostitution with a handshake."
Charlotte stared. Not offended. Just... stunned. Then: "Fine. Partnership it is. Letâs talk terms."
"Now youâre thinking like a visionary instead of an Excel spreadsheet."
Peter whipped out his phone, fingers flying like a hacker during finals week. "Time to draft something so beautiful your lawyers will write sonnets about it."
What followed was
forty minutes
of the most savage contract negotiation in modern history. Charlotte argued like sheâd been raised in a courtroom, flipping through clauses like tarot cards.
Peter countered with loophole-closing ninja moves and legal language so airtight it could survive in space.
They ping-ponged terms, percentages, caveatsâfierce, brilliant, and weirdly hot.
By the end, they had something truly rare: a corporate contract that didnât suck.
Peter would develop ARIA and her siblings in total secrecy. Charlotte would bankroll the whole operationâno budget caps, no questions asked. Heâd get a fat seven-figure salary
and
absolute creative control.
Profits would split 30-20-50 between Peter, Charlotte, and Quantum Tech respectively. So apart from the salary, he will get a split on all the profits from his creations.
And the contract? Structured like a landmine. If the board found out and tried to cancel it, the resulting penalties would bankrupt the company harder than crypto in a recession.
"Identity protection," Peter said coolly, typing one last clause. "My real name doesnât show up anywhere. Not now, not ever."
He paused, then entered the only name that mattered.
ARIA.
Charlotte blinked. "Youâre using your AIâs name as your business identity?"