Chapter 109: Eros Velmior Desiderion

Peter leaned back like he was unveiling a masterpiece at an art gallery. "Poetic, right? Minimalist. Elegant. Also, legally untraceable."

She gave him a flat look. "And your real name just... vanishes into the void?"

"Almost. But we’ll need a secondary contract showing who ARIA really represents." He paused, fingers poised mid-air over her keyboard. Then his eyes gleamed, as if he’d just cracked the encryption on the multiverse.

He typed, deliberately: Eros Velmior Desiderion.

Charlotte stared at the screen like he’d typed a cursed incantation. "What the hell is that? Sounds like a villain who gets introduced in season five."

"Exactly," Peter said with giddy satisfaction. "Someone who doesn’t exist. Can’t trace what was never real."

He was already imagining the dossier: Eros Velmior Desiderion—Identity Unknown. Origin Unknown. Goals: Unknown. Aura: Unreasonably powerful.

’Mysterious, powerful, completely untraceable. Peter Carter stays invisible while Eros reshapes reality.’

’Perfect this is going to be my Dark Lord alias,’ he thought. ’Mysterious, enigmatic, legally bulletproof. Peter Carter stays invisible while Eros becomes the ghost in the global machine while at the same time a messiah for my women, my WOMEN!’

Charlotte pointed at the screen. "So, in the main contract, you’re ARIA. But ARIA is actually this... Eros person. And no one can connect either name to you?"

Peter nodded. "Triple-encrypted protection.

"This seems extra as hell."

"This is Fort Knox level security, your security team saw a masked teenager today, not Peter Carter. No facial recognition, no data trail, no surveillance record worth a damn. Even my digital sneeze is invisible."

Charlotte exhaled. She was impressed—and mildly concerned. "Before we talk money transfers—"

"Hold up," Peter interrupted, raising a finger. "That’s not the hard part. The real challenge?"

He gave her a slow, deliberate look.

"Introducing you to my mother."

Charlotte’s smirk vanished. "Your mother?"

"My mother. The final boss. The kind of woman who asks questions like a lawyer and listens like an intelligence operative. She’s going to want to know why the youngest CEO in tech history just offered her sixteen-year-old son an invisible seat at the global table."

Her eyes narrowed. "You live with your mom?"

"No, I’m 29." he rolled his eyes "Why would I tell you to meet my family if we do not live together." Peter replied smoothly. "But you try telling that to a woman who once made a venture capitalist cry during a PTA meeting."

There was a beat of silence. Then Charlotte actually laughed.

Peter smiled to himself. Hook, line, and sinker.

As they stepped out of the car, he made one last internal system check.

’The unlimited card stays completely untraceable?’

[Absolutely, Host! Complete financial invisibility. No digital footprint, no government tracking, no paper trail.]

Peter felt a surge of excitement that he had to keep hidden. This was it. His first legitimate seven-figure contract with profit potential in the hundreds of millions. He was about to be part of something that would literally change human civilization while remaining completely invisible.

A corporate alliance with infinite scaling potential. And yet, to the world?

He was nobody.

A ghost in the servers. A whisper behind innovation. The quiet hand steering civilization’s future—without ever showing its face.

He fixed his mask.

"Let’s go," he said, voice shifting back into control. "Time to see if you can survive the real interrogation."

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. "I’ve stared down billionaires and hostile boards."

Peter just smiled under the mask.

"Yeah, but have you met a mom with a PhD in medical, almost military training, and a sixth sense for bullshit?"

Charlotte’s eyes widened a fraction.

Peter laughed.

But more than the money, this solved everything. His trading profits, his sudden wealth, his impossible knowledge—all of it now had a perfect cover story.

’Mom is going to absolutely lose it,’ he thought with barely contained excitement. ’Her sixteen-year-old son just got personally recruited by Charlotte fucking Thompson. She’ll probably think Charlotte’s having some kind of mental breakdown or this is an elaborate prank.’

But this solved everything. His trading profits, his sudden wealth, his impossible knowledge—it all had a legitimate cover story now. His mother would never question expensive gifts again once she understood her son had secured employment that made his crypto gains look like lunch money.

All of it now had a story.

ARIA was the shield. Eros Velmior Desiderion was the ghost. And Peter Carter—Peter Carter remained the silent storm behind the mask.

His mother would never ask again where the money came from. Not once she met Charlotte Thompson and learned that her teenage son had just become the sole consultant for a bleeding-edge AI division in a tech empire worth more than several small countries.

"Ready?" Charlotte asked, one last flick of her hair, her usual calm veneer pulled tight as she stared at the Carter family’s modest neighborhood mall.

Peter gave his mask a final nudge and stood straighter. "Ready," he said, his voice steady, a tinge of mock drama curling at the edges. "Time to introduce the woman who just hired me to my mother—the same woman who still makes me return the shopping cart to the exact line."

The automatic doors whooshed open like some kind of ceremonial gateway, a mundane portal hiding what felt like an impending clash of dimensions. One one side: polished shoes, offshore accounts, military-grade encryption. On the other: house slippers, Sunday discounts, and a mother who still cut coupons with terrifying precision.

As they stepped into the building, Peter’s thoughts hummed like a symphony of schematics, protocols, and psychological escape routes.

As they walked toward the mall entrance, Peter couldn’t contain his satisfaction. This was the foundation of everything he wanted to build. In one afternoon, he’d gone from mysterious masked stranger to legitimate business partner with one of the most powerful women in technology.

’This was it. The convergence point. The thread where Old Life and New Empire knotted into one.’

He forced himself to breathe.

Not because he was nervous.

Because excitement, when weaponized correctly, was far more dangerous than fear.

Peter muttered under his breath. "No pressure or anything."

Meanwhile, Charlotte was silently rehearsing her speech again. "Mrs. Carter, your son is...remarkable." No. That sounded like she’d just discovered he could juggle knives or speak fluent dolphin.

"Your son has unique talents critical to my company’s future." Ugh. Still too formal.What was the line between

flattery

and

trying not to sound like she’d been brainwashed by a hacker prodigy in a ski mask

?

She glanced at Peter again—sixteen years old, absurdly composed, dressed like a cyberpunk detective—and suppressed the scream inside her rational brain.

"Just another casual Sunday explaining why you handed your company’s survival to a teenager with a voice modulator," she thought grimly. "Totally normal."

Peter could sense her mental unraveling and smiled under the mask.

’Welcome to the big leagues, Charlotte Thompson. You’re playing in my game now.’

Behind Charlotte’s practiced elegance and Peter’s digital armor, one undeniable truth hovered between them:

This wasn’t the end of something.

It was the beginning.

Of shadow names and real empires.Of invisible wars and untraceable victories.Of a prodigy who had just written himself into the source code of the future.

And of a mother who was about to learn that her son wasn’t just

gifted

—

—he was inevitable.