Chapter 276: Liberation Holdings: The Birth of an Empire

The penthouse’s smart TV bled LIBERATION HOLDINGS LLC across the wall like a curse whispered in gold leaf. Three words that either meant revolution or delusion—a teenage fantasy forged in Delaware paperwork and ARIA’s digital alchemy.

"What the fuck is Liberation Holdings?" Madison shot up from the sofa, her abandoned champagne flute trembling on the table. She leaned into the screen’s glow, tracing the tentacled org chart with painted nails.

Charlotte unfolded herself from the couch like a coiled viper, exhaustion evaporating into razor-sharp focus. "You incorporated a company?" The question wasn’t surprise. It was accusation.

"While we were handling this whole chaos." I claimed my seat at the table, chopsticks hovering over Soo-Jin’s cooling kimchi. The air reeked of vinegar and ambition. "ARIA filed in Delaware three hours ago. Expedited processing, naturally."

"Naturally." Charlotte’s dryness could’ve sandpapered marble. "And what exactly does this holding company do?" Her knuckles whitened on the sake glass.

I speared a piece of kimchi. "Everything. Nothing. Whatever we need it to." I gestured at the screen with my chopsticks. "Picture it: a legal black box. It can buy anything. Stocks. Real estate. Entire companies. Patents. Art.

"Yachts owned by shell corps in Panama. It can hide assets in 47-layered shells so deep the IRS drowns before finding the bottom. It can sue someone into oblivion, then vanish. Or merge with a shell corp to absorb liability before a lawsuit hits. It’s a weapon, Charlotte. A corporate ghost that bleeds money when needed."

Charlotte’s eyes didn’t leave the screen, dissecting the org chart like a battlefield schematic. "This... is actually brilliant."

She breathed out, a flicker of raw admiration cutting through her anger. "A holding company is a shield and a sword. It owns

the assets, so main company stays clean. It can acquire competitors without triggering antitrust red flags until it’s too late. It can license your IP to itself, siphon profits offshore, then reinvest them anonymously. You’re right. It is a blank check. For power. For destruction. For anything."

"Master is being modest," ARIA interjected, her voice cool as liquid nitrogen. "Liberation Holdings is structured for unlimited scope: investment, acquisition, litigation, intellectual property warfare, even hostile takeovers cloaked as friendly mergers. I will operate it. Officially," her tone turned sly, "I don’t exist."

"How can an AI run a company?" Amanda’s voice was a lost whisper, swallowed by the room’s sudden gravity.

"Same way I trade millions. Shell corps," ARIA replied simply. "Automated signatures. Digital executives with falsified backgrounds. Human lawyers who think they work for a recluse in Singapore. Seventeen identities already active. Plausible deniability baked into the code."

Madison snapped her fingers. "Like my family! They hold oil fields under Shell Corp A, shipping under Shell Corp B, the cash under Shell Corp C. If Corp A sinks? Ship B keeps sailing. Cash C stays hidden. Tax havens. Liability shields. It’s how real wealth protects itself."

"But your daddy holds those keys, Madison," I cut in, turning on her. "Liberation Holdings’s keys are ours. ARIA’s. What do you own that isn’t signed away by your trust fund?" She flinched. Silence answered. Heiress, not architect.

"This is what ARIA can do," I continued, pulling up ARIA’s specs.

The TV bled new text:

SHADOW CEO ADVANTAGES:

Contract Analysis: 0.003s/doc

Market Prediction: 98% accuracy (24hr)

Ownership Obfuscation: 47-Layer Shell Matrix

Negotiation Mgmt: Simultaneous Unlimited Deals

Risk Assessment: 10,000+ Variables Real-Time

"ARIA runs it," I said, voice low electric. "She sees fraud in a contract before a lawyer finishes the first page. She predicts market shifts before the bell rings. She can buy a competitor, bury it under litigation shells, and strip its IP before regulators know what happened. She never sleeps. Never hesitates. Never gets emotional. This isn’t just a holding company, Charlotte. It’s a predator. With ARIA as its brain."

Margaret Thompson, silent as a tombstone, finally spoke from the shadows, her voice slicing through the triumph: "This is securities fraud on a scale that makes Wall Street blush."

"Exactly." I gestured with chopsticks like a maestro conducting chaos. "Charlotte—here’s the thing. You don’t have one."

Silence. The neon outside sizzled. The Atlantic held its breath. "CEO of a multi-billion-dollar tech company. No personal holding company? No diversification? Just Quantum Tech and your checking account?"

Color flooded Charlotte’s cheeks. "I’ve been running my company. Not building shadow empires."

"Which is why Quantum Tech bled forty percent in six hours." No judgment in my tone. Just facts. Cold. Hard. "All your eggs in one basket. No hedge. No shield. No backup."

"Now we have Liberation Holdings. ARIA runs it." My voice cut through the data-dump. "Most sophisticated CEO on Earth. Never sleeps. No emotions. Processes more data in a second than humans in a lifetime."

Margaret Thompson, silent until now, rose from the shadows by the window. Her voice sliced through the triumph—soft, lethal, and utterly certain: "This is securities fraud on a massive scale."

"This is capitalism working as intended," I corrected, slicing the stale air like a blade through silk. Morality was a luxury; leverage was art. "We’re not doing anything Goldman Sachs doesn’t do—we just have better tech. ARIA doesn’t insider-trade; she pattern-recognizes. She doesn’t manipulate markets; she participates efficiently."

"The best part," ARIA added through the speakers, her voice purring like a server rack with attitude, "is that I can hide ownership so thoroughly our competitors won’t know what we’re acquiring until it’s legally awkward. Forty-seven shell companies across seventeen jurisdictions, each one dressed like it’s innocent."

Charlotte got to her feet and drifted to the window, the Miami skyline reflecting in her eyes like the glitter on a predator. "What would we even acquire?" she asked, all silk and steel.

"Right now?" I said, joining her at the glass. "Quantum Tech stock while it’s bleeding? Rivera Media’s carcass when they fold next month? Distressed real estate in markets we already know will boom. Pre-Series-A startups before the VCs put price tags on their dreams. The professors’ papers they’ll sell for quick cash. Anything undervalued that we can turn into untouchable."

"Like women," Amanda said, voice small, then flushed. "I mean, you transform undervalued things into... never mind."

Madison laughed — the kind of laugh that tasted like adrenaline. "No, she’s right. Eros has a hobby: finding broken, ignored stuff and making it priceless. Companies, people, whatever."

"So, what are you proposing exactly?" Charlotte asked, pivoting to face me.