Charlotte's 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 weak—never weak—but 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 couldn't be seen but was felt—deep 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 you've seen it all. Because you haven't. Not even close."
Her lips parted slightly. Not from arousal—though, if we're honest, something primal had been triggered—but 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."
Charlotte's eyes though; were glued to the screen like she'd just witnessed the Second Coming—except 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 ARIA—"
"Don't even finish that thought." Peter's fingers were already dancing, code unraveling on the display like a reversed prophecy. "You're not keeping my AI."
"Wait, what—" 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 secretary's been embezzling money for months like it's 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 solid—something I can use."
"Solid?" Peter actually laughed. It was the kind of laugh that made people realize how stupid they'd just sounded. "You're literally on your designer knees in your own car because my AI strip-searched your entire life like it was on public record. What's next—you want God to notarize it? A signed affidavit from God himself?"
He could see it—the crack in her diamond-hard exterior. The slow crumble of control. And he welcomed it.
Good. Panic made people honest.
"I'll buy it," she said, voice snapping back into boardroom sharpness. "Not seven hundred K—real money. Stupid money. Just say the number."
Peter stared like she'd offered to buy his soul with Starbucks coupons. "Are you actually—no, seriously, are you brain-dead?"
"Excuse me?"
"Not everything's for sale, Charlotte. I'm not some script-kiddie flipping Androids on Reddit." His voice dropped into something low and lethal. "But for argument's sake—if I was selling—why the hell would I take pennies for something that rewrites the tech food chain? That's like trading SpaceX for an Olive Garden gift card."
Her face flushed. Red. She wasn't used to this—being 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 assistant's yearly salary, and the AI running behind his eyes made half the world's software look like floppy disks.
"Do I look like I need money?" He let the silence punch the air between them. "This isn't about cash. It's about legacy. ARIA wasn't 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? That's like selling Tesla stock for McDonald's 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 wasn't even part of the reasons.
And that's when she finally saw it—not 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 partnership—not this buyer-seller PowerPoint bullshit." Peter leaned forward, voice sharpening like a scalpel. "Why buy ARIA when you could own every version I'll ever create? Every upgrade, every world-shifting algorithm, every technological middle finger to the status quo—yours.
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." Peter's expression didn't flinch. "Also, I'm not dumb enough to hand you some half-baked beta version. ARIA right now? She's the tutorial level. Selling her would be like trying to retire off the iPhone 1."
Charlotte blinked. "...you mean people don't do that?"
He ignored the joke, but she saw the corner of his mouth twitch. Progress.
'Hook, line, and sinker,' Peter mused as Charlotte's 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 I'm not spilling. But bottom line? I don't sell my children. Especially not to people I'm about to build a future with. That's not partnership—that's prostitution with a handshake."
Charlotte stared. Not offended. Just... stunned. Then: "Fine. Partnership it is. Let's talk terms."
"Now you're 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 she'd 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, caveats—fierce, brilliant, and weirdly hot.
By the end, they had something truly rare: a corporate contract that didn't suck.
Peter would develop ARIA and her siblings in total secrecy. Charlotte would bankroll the whole operation—no budget caps, no questions asked. He'd 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 doesn't show up anywhere. Not now, not ever."
He paused, then entered the only name that mattered.
ARIA.
Charlotte blinked. "You're using your AI's name as your business identity?"