Chapter 275: Nightly...

The Fontainebleau penthouse hung over the Atlantic like a tomb with a view. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed an ocean that didn’t give a damn. Marble floors reflected dead presidents and worse regrets. The air? A cocktail of ozone, stale champagne, and the ghost of too many bad decisions. Somebody buried their guilty conscience under gold leaf and called it luxury.

Charlotte collapsed face-first onto Italian leather that cost more than a human soul. Her Louboutins dug in like grave markers. Phone dead? Strategically dead. Easier than facing the wolves – boardroom hyenas, tabloid vultures, and scavengers who’d smelled blood in the water long before tonight.

Meanwhile, Soo-Jin was already in the kitchen, going from "traumatized trafficking victim" to "K-drama domestic goddess" in under twelve hours. The way she moved through the chrome kitchen like a surgeon in a back-alley clinic. She arranged organic micro-greens and artisanal cheese in the Sub-Zero fridge with hands that didn’t shake. Not on the outside.

Her focus was a cage. "Mr. Eros," she said, the name scraping cheap in her throat. "I am going to make dinner. You eat. Tomorrow... needs bullets." Not a request. A lifeline thrown from a sinking ship.

Margaret Thompson sat slumped at a glass table that could’ve been disinfected in hell. She swirled wine the color of dried blood in a goblet that probably belonged to a fallen dictator. She hadn’t said much since we dropped off Alice Kirkman and Rebecca Chen at a discreet hotel after recording their testimony. Unlike them, Erin had left soon after we saved her.

Charlotte had casually thrown half a million at each professors’ wives — partly as trauma compensation, mostly as a polite bribe.

"I still can’t believe you gave them that much money," Margaret said, sipping like she was trying to wash the day out of her bloodstream.

Charlotte didn’t lift her face from the leather. "Cheaper than funerals, Mom. Cheaper than the lawyers lining up to carve us open. "Mom, they were tortured because of our family name. Half a million is cheaper than therapy." Her words were muffled, final. A closing argument.

Amanda drifted out of the master bedroom wrapped in silk that felt too clean for this mess. Her eyes weren’t red from crying. They were bruised. Whiplash. One day Harold’s fiancée, next... just another ghost haunting a rich man’s broken toy. She sank onto the couch beside me, smelling of expensive soap and dread.

"Is it always this insane around you?" she asked, sliding onto the couch beside me like we were co-stars in some trashy Netflix original.

I gave her a smile that didn’t touch my eyes. "This? This is the quiet part. Usually, there’s screaming first. Bleeding second." Outside, the neon of South Beach bled orange into the smog.

I pulled out my system earnings. The interface glowed like a bad omen in the shadows. After Amanda’s penthouse sex and the lust mode, I hadn’t checked so much.

[SYSTEM INTERFACE]

SP BALANCE: 109,820

USD EQUIV: $10,982,000

Over ten million dollars. Dirty magic. Counterfeit fortune. Enough paper to bury a city block or bribe a legion of devils. Chump change for a sixteen-year-old who should’ve been worrying about acne and algebra tests, not body counts and blood money.

But that mountain of zeroes? Child’s play. Pocket lint compared to the real ugly thing pulsing underneath. The thing the numbers were just screaming to hide.

The Miami heat pressed against the penthouse glass like a mobster’s promise—sticky, inescapable, and smelling like money left out in the sun. Every breath tasted like ozone and decay. And in the center of it all: me. The black hole. Everything, every goddamn thing, bent around my gravity.

"Master," ARIA chimed through the penthouse’s speakers, voice silky and smug. "I should update you on our trading positions."

Charlotte’s eyes snapped open like someone had flicked the lights on in a courtroom. "Please tell me you haven’t committed more securities fraud."

"I prefer ’aggressive market participation,’" ARIA replied. "And technically I’ve been busy. After consolidating all of Master’s available capital before Sunday’s close, I’ve been maximizing leverage across seventeen brokers."

"How much?" I asked, already wishing I hadn’t asked.

"Current floating positions across all accounts: $10.3 million."

Madison choked on her champagne. Bubbles popped like tiny skulls. "Ten million—?"

"Ten point three," ARIA corrected mildly. "I’ve been particularly successful in forex. The Euro–Dollar pair was deliciously volatile. Options on Quantum Tech stocks were also lucrative. I’ve allocated two hundred thousand in Bitcoin as a hedge against traditional market instability."

My phone buzzed with the tiny, mundane vibration of a life that used to be normal. Today — a Monday I should have spent memorizing algebra formulas. Lea Martinez should be calling me a man-whore. Sofia Delgado’s laugh should be chipping away at what’s left of my soul. My system points were staring at me like an accusation.

"This is insane." My voice felt like gravel in a cement mixer.

Madison curled against me, silk on sweat, clinging like a limpet to a sinking ship. "You’re not insane, Eros. None of this is... uh, okay partly but not so insane. You’re a center stage. They’re all just orbiting you." Her breath was hot on my neck. Possessive. Desperate.

"This is insane, Madison" I muttered. "I’m sixteen. I should be worried about SATs, not securities fraud."

"You’re not sixteen," Madison corrected, curling up against me. "You’re Eros. Age is just a number when you’re basically a god."

"A god who still has to write a history essay when we get back," I pointed out.

"Master, if it helps you in any way," ARIA cut in, colder than a coroner’s drawer. "I can write your history essay. Replicate your profanity, your apathy. Your essence. World War I causes? Irrelevant. You’re rewriting this world."

"That’s cheating," Charlotte mumbled into the couch. A corpse speaking.

"That’s efficiency," ARIA hissed. "Why study history when you’re making it?"

Soo-Jin materialized from the kitchen shadows.

She moved like smoke, bearing a tray of bulgogi and kimchi that smelled like Seoul burning. Metal chopsticks clinked against porcelain—tiny gunshots in the silence.

"Eat," she commanded, not asking. Her eyes, hollow and fixed, drilled into me. Fuel for the machine. Feed the warlord.

We converged at the dining table. A tableau of broken things:

Soo-Jin: The haunting. A ghost feeding her executioner.

Margaret: The wreckage. Stirring wine the color of dried blood, her gaze glued to me. Not the view, not the money. Me.

Amanda: The not-so-bride bride anymore. Silk robe hanging loose, eyes bruised with adoration and terror. Sitting close enough to touch. Closer than protocol allows.

Charlotte: The princess. Finally stirring, pushing kimchi around her plate like she was rearranging rubble on a battlefield. Alive only because my war demanded it.

Madison: The Queen of this. Pressed thigh-to-thigh, radiating heat like a reactor humming to critical mass. Mine by proximity.

And finally, me

I laughed. A dry, broken sound that scraped against the marble walls. "What?" Amanda whispered. Leaned in. Hungry for the sound.

"Just thinking," I said, dragging chopsticks through spicy pork. "Some kid in Nebraska’s probably grinding Fortnite right now. Cursing lag. Here?" I gestured with my chopstick—like a conductor waving a baton over an orchestra of disaster.

"Here, I’ve got a trafficking victim cooking dinner, a kidnapped mom drinking away her trauma, a runaway bride playing footsie under the table, a trust-fund, a falling queen... and me." I grinned, teeth sharp as shattered glass.

"Here I am, having dinner with five beautiful women while my AI commits international financial crimes and my enemies think they’re winning."

"Speaking of enemies," Charlotte said, finally showing signs of life as she picked at her bulgogi. Her eyes—tired, sharp, predatory—locked onto mine. Only mine. "The auction committee messaged," she said. The table went still. The ocean outside seemed to hold its breath.

"Microsoft. Oracle. Salesforce..." She paused. Let the names hang like guillotines. "They’re not pulling out. Scandal doesn’t scare them." Her lips curved into something that wasn’t a smile. More like a hunting knife.

"That’s good, right?" Margaret asked.

The Miami night pressed its damp forehead against the glass, but inside the penthouse, the air crackled with something colder than calculation. Pure, uncut strategy.

"It’s perfect," I said, the words tasting like copper. "They smell blood. Think Charlotte’s backed into a corner." I swirled the ice in my glass – the only thing moving in the room except the shadows. "They’ll come crawling with bargain basement offers."

Charlotte peeled her eyes open, exhaustion clinging like cobwebs. "Exactly. They think Quantum Tech needs this as a lifeline."

"But it doesn’t," Madison cut in, sharp as glass shard. Her eyes, wide and wired, locked onto mine. "Not with Rivera’s house of cards about to fold. Not with the proof on our side. Not with—"

"—Not with what we’re building now," I finished. Sentence-stepping wasn’t just cardio; it was punctuation.

"Master," ARIA purred through the speakers, smugness practically dripping from the circuits. "Speaking of construction phases: the requested corporate architecture is complete. Blueprints rendered, shell corporations registered, financial pathways routed."

Charlotte stiffened. A flicker of something – not fear, but wary disbelief – cut through the fog. "What corporate structure, Eros?"

I pushed back from the table, the scrape of the chair loud in the sudden quiet. Walked to the window. Miami sprawled below, a glittering lie of neon and corruption. Lights like scattered diamonds hiding grime. Heist backdrop. Perfect.

"Media blackout at the auction tomorrow, Charlotte?" My voice was flat. No room for error.

"Confirmed. Private event. Bidders only. Essential staff." Her tone was clipped, efficient. Crisis-management autopilot. She was furious, and furious people make mistakes. Good. That rage was a resource I’d spend.

"Perfect." I turned, facing them. Madison leaned forward, electric. Charlotte watched me like I was a bomb she’d assembled but forgotten where she put the timer. "Madison. Charlotte. Listen close. No repeats."

They exchanged that look. The ’Eros-is-gonna-Eros-and-we’re-along-for-the-ride-whether-we-like-it-or-not’ look. It was satisfying. Like pulling a trigger.

"ARIA," I commanded. "Display the structure."

The smart TV flared to life, dominating the wall. It didn’t just show an org chart; it bled it. A complex, almost nauseating web of boxes, lines, and names – a digital Hydra sprouting offshore heads shell corporations, phantom directors, and financial conduits that twisted like intestines. It looked like a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream, or a prosecutor’s nightmare. Beautiful. Poisonous.

At the apex of the web, stark, inevitable, and stark white on the dark background, three words slammed into the room:

LIBERATION HOLDINGS LLC