"Madison," I said, trying to keep my voice calm but failing spectacularly. Probably sounded more like a choke than an actual word.
Great, Carter. Smooth.
The phone burned my hand, warm and insistent, like it knew this was the only lifeline keeping me from losing it entirely. I pressed it closer to my ear, straining for every background soundâthere it was: faint air conditioning humming, some echo that screamed
fancy house alert
, probably marble floors somewhere in the Torres estate.
After all, everything she touches sparkles.
"Peter." Her voice... shit. Not the Madison who walks into rooms like she owns the universe. This was tired, strained, carrying the kind of weight you only notice when the world actually starts folding on top of you.
Armor with cracks. And me? I noticed.
Always notice.
I padded toward the kitchen, bare feet whispering against the hardwood. Charlotte could hear a pin drop, but fuck itâI needed space. I needed privacy, or at least a wall between me and potential judgment. The kitchen smelled like garlic, herbs, and whatever secret scent Charlotte carried that made a house feel less like a building and more like home.
"Iâm sorry I havenât called," Madison said, pacing, heels clicking against... yep. Marble. Expensive, echoing marble. The kind of floors that announce your arrival like a royal decree. "Thereâs been... trouble at home."
Trouble. That single word hit like a gut punch. Not teen drama. Not some petty fight. Business trouble. The kind that could swallow cities.
"What kind of trouble?" I leaned against the kitchen island, fingers drumming, trying to act casual. Spoiler: failing.
"Torres Developments lost a major deal today." The words emerged flat, defeated, stripped of the Torres familyâs usual corporate confidence. "Weâve been working on it for months. Thereâs this massive laboratory complex thatâs been abandoned for yearsâindustrial-grade research facility spanning nearly fifty acres in the heart of LAâs tech corridor."
I could picture her perfectly. Standing by those floor-to-ceiling windows, one hand pressed against glass, the other gesturing like she couldnât help herself. The Torres family treated the city below like a chessboardâand they played to win. Iâd been staring at a chessboard for years, trying to catch up.
"The facility used to belong to some pharmaceutical giant that crashed in the last recession," she went on, finding her rhythm again, slipping into business-mode like a ninja switching masks mid-battle. "Prime real estate, infrastructure ready, perfect for anyone wanting a West Coast HQ."
"And someone wanted it," I said, voice slipping lower, tighter.
"BioLa."
The name hit me in the gut. Heavy. Unknown, but you could feel the weight. Big money, big plans, bigger headaches. "They wanted it completely renovated. Expanded. Their crown jewel on the West Coast."
And then she paused. God, the pause. You could feel it radiate over the line.
Shit was coming.
Oh, hell. This is bad. Really bad.
"Twenty billion dollars, Peter.
Twenty billion.
"
Her voice didnât just say the number. It cracked under the weight of it, a fissure in the usual armor of Madison Torres, CEO.
Damn. Thatâs the sound of a dynasty starting to tremble.
"We beat Darlus Constructions. It wasnât even a fight. Our proposal was sharper, our financing was cleaner, we had the city in our pocket. Tomorrow was supposed to be the signing." The victory lap. The coronation.
I let the number hang in the air between us. Twenty billion. Not a setbackâa severed artery. Torres Developmentsâ last big win was that La Cherryâs branch in New York over a year ago. They werenât just stagnant; they were thirsty. And this deal was the whole damn ocean. She needed it. I could feel the pressure through the phone, a physical weight threatening to crush the receiver.
My queen is under siege.
"What happened?" I asked, my voice flat.
Keep it cool, Peter. Panic is contagious, and Iâm immune.
"Everything changed in
hours
." I could hear her pacing now, the sharp click of heels on marble turning into a frantic tap-tap-tap on a Persian rug. The acoustics told the whole story: from confident strides to cornered-animal circles. "BioLa called. Canceled. No explanation. No discussion. Just...
poof
. Gone."
The frustration in her voice was a live wire. But underneath it was something worseâthe hollow echo of genuine shock. Madison Torres doesnât get shocked. She anticipates. She calculates. If
she
was blindsided, this wasnât business as usual. This was an ambush.
"The rumors started before Iâd even hung up the phone," she said, the words coming faster now. "Darlus Construction is stepping in. But nothingâs final. The timing is too perfect. Too clean. This was a hit, Peter. Someone
orchestrated
this."
I could already see the chessboard. Some shadow player moving pieces in the dark. Calling in favors, applying pressure, maybe just writing a bigger, dirtier check. This wasnât bad luck. This was a declaration of war.
"Madison," I said, cutting through the noise. "How bad is this?
Really?
"
The silence that followed was louder than any number. It was the sound of her weighing how much truth she could afford to admit. When Madison Torres hesitates, the situation isnât just bad. Itâs five-alarm-fire, the-building-is-coming-down,
we-might-not-survive-this
bad.
And thatâs when I knew. This wasnât just her problem anymore. It was mine too.
"Bad.
Really
bad."
Her voice dropped to a whisper thin as cracked glass. "Our last major project was the La Cherryâs expansion in New York. Over a year ago. The small contracts? Theyâre life support, not a heartbeat. We need this deal, Peter. Without it..."
She didnât have to finish. I could see the obituary written in the air:
Torres Developments, once a titan, reduced to just another name on a hard hat.
Reputations arenât built on playing it safe. Theyâre built on miracles. And this deal was supposed to be theirs. Torres Developments had built its reputation on landing and executing massive projects. Without them, they were just another construction company in a city full of them.
"The family meeting tomorrowâ" I started, a thread of hope I didnât know I was clinging to.
"Postponed. Indefinitely." The relief in her voice was a tangible thing, a shuddering exhale after holding her breath for too long. "Mom and Linda talked at the hospital. They agreed to push it back until this... crisis... is handled."
A delay.
The word echoed in my skull, followed by a much darker, more selfish thought.
Time.
Time I had practically begged the cosmos for. Time to work on the magnificent, ice-cold fortress that was Patricia. A cold knot of narcissistic dread tightened in my gut. Did I just get my wish answered by watching her familyâs empire catch fire? The thought was so fucking monstrous I started to spiral.
Guilt, that pesky little ghost, wrestled with a thrilling, opportunistic darkness.
Her crisis, my opening. What does that make me?
I was free-falling into that particular abyss when a familiar, crystalline voice sang a single, pure note in my mind. ARIA. My digital guardian angel, who apparently also moonlighted as a corporate spy.
"Master, I initiated deep-analysis protocols on BioLa and Darlus Constructions three seconds ago, correlating data from your conversations with Madison. The financial patterns indicate collusion, not competition. Probability of a hostile takeover strategy: 94.7%. I have formulated a counter-strategy that would not only recover the deal but increase Torres Developmentsâ projected profit margin by approximately twenty-five percent."
The ARIAâs cool, logical certainty was a bucket of ice water. Of course sheâd been working. While I was having a minor existential crisis, ARIA was already waging the war. She probably saw this shitstorm coming before BioLaâs CEO even picked up the phone.
The spiral stopped. The guilt evaporated. Replaced by the cold, clean clarity of a predator spotting the trapâand the hunter who set it.
"Madison," I said, my voice shifting from concerned boyfriend to field general in a heartbeat. "Forget about it for tonight."
"
Forget
about twenty billion dollars?" she scoffed, but I heard the flicker of hope. She knew that tone.
"Come over tomorrow. Weâll go shopping. And weâll discuss how weâre going to get your deal back."
"Shopping?" Curiosity was now fully elbowing exhaustion out of the way. "Out where?"