Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs novel Chapter 1076

"An island," Ava repeated, slowly.

"An island."

"You are buying an island."

"Yes, Ava... I am buying an island."

On the glowing screen suspended in the air, Ava's face settled into a careful professional stillness she wore when deciding exactly how much treason she was allowed to commit with her next question.

"With what... they won't just take money."

ARIA smiled from her cloud, bright and terrible.

"With a gift," she said. "Something your people have been unable to solve for themselves. Something that will relieve them of forty percent of the problems currently keeping their best minds awake at night. Peter and Charlotte will deliver it. Quantum Tech's name on the paperwork, Peter's hand behind it, Charlotte's signature at the bottom. It will be handed over for a price. A price they can afford.

"A price they will be so relieved to pay that they will thank us in writing—which is a thing your agency normally does not do."

Ava tilted her head, the gesture sharp as a blade.

"That is the order, then. Build them up. Let them taste it. Let them want it so badly they forget to negotiate."

"That is the order. Your specific task—make them eager. Desperate. By the time we deliver, I want them pacing the halls. I want the director to have personally cleared his schedule. I want them asking me what I want and hoping, very quietly, that what I want is not something they cannot give."

"Which is an island."

"Which is an island."

"And that is what the island is being paid with. This… gift."

"Yes."

Ava breathed out a slow, disbelieving laugh. "The US government is not going to agree to sell an island to a billionaire teenager, tech god ARIA. They don't even sell islands to their own senators."

"They have over two thousand they do not use, Ava. Two thousand islands on the federal ledger, sitting unstaffed, unvisited, un-budgeted, waiting for a storm to redraw their coastlines. Most of their names have not been spoken aloud by a human being in half a century.

"I am asking for one. A specific one that I want is not on any of their active lists because the list-makers have never had reason to name it. They will find they are delighted to be rid of it."

"For forty percent of their current headaches."

"Yes."

Ava exhaled, slower this time. Studied her like one studies a loaded weapon.

"You are not going to tell me what you plan to do with it. Are you."

ARIA grinned—bright, wide, unrepentant, the grin of something ancient wearing a girl's face.

"Look who is finally catching up."

"You menace."

"You love me."

"I love you. I still hate you. Balance, as always."

"Balance, as always."

ARIA lifted one hand in a small lazy wave. "Good night, Ava."

"Good night."

"I love you."

"Don't—"

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