Chapter 272: Unleashed

The Maybach purred through Miami like a predator cutting through minnows, leather sighing, city lights blurring into a congratulations banner for chaos. I grinned because everything was folding exactly how I’d scripted it. ARIA had put the universities’ arrival in reach of Helena’s surveillance net — subtle enough to tempt, blunt enough to trigger. She thought she was the hunter. She was the fly, and we’d rolled out the red carpet.

"Master," ARIA reported with that smug AI tone that sounds suspiciously like pleasure, "Quantum Tech is down twenty percent. Algorithms are throwing tantrums trying to price in the scandal."

Madison tucked into me in the backseat, Versace silk immaculate, the kind of woman who makes disaster look couture. "Twenty percent? That’s like—"

"Two billion in market cap gone," Charlotte finished from the front, voice calm like someone narrating their own funeral. "If momentum holds, forty percent in two hours." Her hands didn’t shake. Titanium ovaries, still true.

"Oh, it will," I said, thumb flicking through ARIA’s predictive charts. "Tech’s a bungee-jump without a cord. Add two Ivies to the panic and the algorithms start competing to see who can jump first."

Helena Voss was brilliant — CIA polished, ruthless, and surgically efficient. But she’d made the classic tactical error: she picked the wrong battlefield.

"She pulled the professors’ footage," I said, loud enough for both women to hear and enjoy the little prickle of dread it sent through the front seat.

"Did her people air it?" Charlotte asked, calm and cold as a morgue.

"Confirmed, Master. Rivera Next Media received the footage forty-three minutes ago but legal killed it immediately. Clean, professional interviews with Professor Manning and Professor Chen Wei-Ming discussing Charlotte’s academic record. Very damaging testimony. But with Alice Kirkman and Rebecca Chen now free and capable of testifying that their husbands were coerced, broadcasting it would be... problematic."

Madison’s eyes widened, the gears visibly turning. "So, they have footage that looks legitimate but can’t run it because the women can say it was coerced?"

"Bingo." I felt the satisfaction spread like warm venom. "Perfectly staged interviews showing Kirkman and Chen reciting a narrative. Deadly — except Alice and Rebecca are now free, credible, and capable of exposing coercion in court. Airing the footage would hand us ammunition: you publicly run coerced testimony, your source credibility dies, and you’re sitting on a defamation crater."

Charlotte’s mouth curved into that small, legal-brief smile she reserves for people about to be sued into oblivion. "So they’re stuck between publishing fake news and owning an obvious forensics problem."

"Exactly." I pocketed the phone like a weapon. "Run the footage and we pile on the coercion proofs. Don’t run it and you look like you sat on a scoop because your legal team smelled molten guano. Rivera’s lawyers either force the tape live and pray for plausible deniability, or they bury it and admit — by omission — they have nothing uncoerced. Either way, they’re dead in the water."

Madison leaned her head on my shoulder, voice soft and vicious all at once. "Which means what?"

"Which means," I said, because saying was doing, "we hang them on their own hubris for another beat longer. Then we bury them. Public records, authenticated transcripts, the professors’ live testimony, and a lawsuit so pretty it’ll make their legal teams cry into expensive scotch."

Charlotte turned in her seat, confusion clear on her face. "But that would destroy me completely. Why would you want—"

"ARIA," I interrupted, letting my voice drop to that commanding register, "we’re going to help Rivera Next Media. Release their footage through their own channels."

"What?!" Charlotte’s composure cracked.

"You heard me. ARIA, access every Rivera Next Media platform. Their broadcast channels, their website, their Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube — everything. Release the professors’ interviews through their own outlets. Make it look like Rivera is doubling down on their story."

"Master," ARIA practically purred, "that’s deliciously twisted. The footage shows Rivera’s senior investigative journalist Lawson interviewing Professor Kirkman and Chen in their main studio. Very professional. Very credible. Very damaging to Charlotte. Preparing for deployment."

Charlotte looked like I’d just shot her. "You’re destroying me!"

"I’m saving you," I corrected, calm as a man signing his own autograph. "Trust me. This hurts now but wins later."

The Maybach eased into the Four Seasons parking structure as ARIA began her operation.

"Initiating now," she announced. "Rivera Next Media’s main broadcast... playing footage in three... two... one..."

On my phone, Rivera’s channel suddenly cut to Patricia Lawson sitting across from Professor Kirkman in their signature studio.

"Professor," Lawson’s recorded voice asked clean and bland, "can you confirm that Charlotte Thompson’s academic achievements at Harvard were... enhanced through financial contributions?"

Kirkman, looking every bit the credible academic, nodded slowly. "The Thompson family’s donations coincided remarkably with Charlotte’s academic milestones."

"Their Twitter is now posting clips," ARIA continued. "Instagram stories uploading excerpts. TikTok streaming highlight reels. The footage is spreading across all their platforms simultaneously. They’re frantically trying to stop it but... no, I’m afraid that’s not possible. They’re locked out."

Charlotte’s phone exploded with notifications. Every outlet was picking up Rivera’s "explosive new evidence."

"CNN: ’Rivera Releases Professor Testimony on Thompson Fraud,’" Madison read, voice tight. "MSNBC: ’New Evidence Emerges in Academic Scandal.’ This looks terrible!"

"Perfect," I said, taking both their hands while the lobby lights blurred past. "It’s supposed to look terrible."

"I don’t understand," Charlotte said, voice shaking.

"We just helped Rivera just broadcast footage they know is coerced," I explained, patient and surgical. "They can’t admit coercion without admitting complicity in crimes. So, they have to present it as legitimate journalism. But we have Alice Kirkman and Rebecca who can testify the husbands were threatened. When we’re ready — not now, but when we’re ready — we’ll prove Rivera knowingly broadcast false testimony obtained through coercion."

Understanding hit Charlotte like cold water. "You’re loading their gun we’ll use to shoot them later."

"Exactly," I said. "The more they commit to this footage now, the more devastating it is when we prove they knew it was coerced. Tell Harvard and Stanford we will publish your documentation proving legitimacy — authenticated records, timestamps — but hold off for the moment."

"Let them dig deeper?" Madison asked.

"Let them bury themselves," I confirmed. "We could destroy them, but why settle for destruction when you can have complete annihilation?"

"Master," ARIA chimed, voice purring like an AI with a guilty pleasure, "I should mention I’ve been trading this volatility. Made about $1.3 million watching Quantum Tech bounce. Ethical concerns?"

Charlotte froze. "That’s insider trading!"

"Is it, though?" ARIA asked, perfectly innocent. "I’m just very good at predicting market movements. The fact that I’m also causing them is purely coincidental. Like a weatherman who makes it rain."

Madison laughed despite the chaos. "ARIA is committing securities fraud while we’re being slandered on national television."

"Alleged fraud," ARIA corrected. "Also — Professor Chen Wei-Ming’s interview is playing now. He’s talking about ’irregular patterns in Charlotte’s thesis defense.’ Very compelling if you don’t know his wife was in a cage at the time."

My phone buzzed. Rivera’s footage had been viewed sixty-seven million times. Their reporters were being praised for "brave investigative reporting." Patricia Lawson was trending. They smelled victory.

"How much of their own footage have they authenticated?" I asked.

"All of it, since everything have their personnel journalists in them and in their own studios," ARIA replied. "They’ve staked their entire reputation on these interviews being real, voluntary, and factual. They’re even submitting them to journalism award committees."

Madison leaned in, reading the exchange, disbelief curling her lip. "They actually think they’ve won."

"No the big guys know this is their grave," I said softly. "Guaranteed they’ll lose the war. When Alice Kirkman and Rebecca Chen testify about coercion, Rivera won’t just be embarrassed — they’ll be criminally liable for broadcasting false testimony they knew was coerced."

The narrative split: authenticated, timestamped documents versus professor testimony now glaringly suspect.

Charlotte sat rigid, dignified and exhausted, looking like someone wearing defeat the way a queen wears black. The media circus roared. They thought they’d found a smoking gun.

They’d actually loaded the barrel.

"ARIA," I said quietly, "save every frame, every tweet, every public statement Rivera makes supporting this footage."

"Already done, Master," she replied. "Building quite the evidence file. Shall I title it ’Exhibit A through Z of Rivera’s Self-Destruction’?"

Charlotte’s knees went weak as we moved toward the penthouse. "I hope you know what you’re doing. My reputation is in ruins."

"Your reputation is in strategic retreat," I corrected, voice calm and cruelly comforting. "Losing and appearing to lose are different things. We’re buying time while they dig a deeper grave."

Rivera had just agreed to commit slow-motion corporate suicide. They didn’t know they were already dead.