Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs - Chapter 351

Chapter 351: The Art of Strategic Disappearance
Tommy stood by the gate door, laptop bag hanging off his shoulder like a dead weight, eyes wide with the kind of betrayal only best friends can inflict—personal, brutal, like being stabbed with a shard of your own childhood.

Charlotte paced near the window, Louboutins clicking against hardwood like a goddamn executioner’s countdown. They’d both been counting on me—Tommy for emotional hand-holding at his life-changing crucible, Charlotte for the united front she needed to polish Quantum Tech’s shattered reputation.

And here I was, pulling on my jacket, about to bail on both of them.

“What do you mean you’re not coming to the auction!” Tommy’s voice cracked open like cheap plastic—raw, bleeding shock. “Peter, I’ve been counting on you! You’re my best friend! My brother! My—”

“Your rich silent partner who needs to stay silent,” I cut in, mercenary, yanking my jacket straight. “Tommy, think!” Logic hammering through the guilt I could feel radiating off him like heat. “You’re about to become the tech messiah of Lincoln Heights. The API translation layer is YOUR baby. This is YOUR moment! YOU need to stand in the fucking sun, not cower behind me!”

Charlotte looked ready to garrote me with her bare hands, eyes blazing with the cold fire of a thousand betrayals. “Peter, I need you there! The Rivera partnership meeting and piranhas start circling the second the gavel falls! They’ll want interviews—”

“Exactly why I shouldn’t be there!” I snapped, checking my phone—Madison’s texts already scrolling, a lifeline to my escape. “Look, you’re going to mention me, right? Tommy Chen’s mysterious best friend—the ghost coder—too shy for the spotlight? Perfect! The myth is better than the man! That’s the image we want!”

The truth was more twisted than simple impatience… though Jesus Christ, I’d been jacking off to fantasies of that estate for weeks—every night closing my eyes to infinity pools, entertainment wings, a master suite that dwarfed our old house or this one… a private kingdom where I was fucking king before I become the actual King of the world.

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Charlotte hissed, spitting each word like venom. “You’re abandoning us for real estate porn, you degenerate prick!”

Guilty. So fucking guilty it hurt. But also… strategic. Like 30% strategic, 70% desperate to taste my new land before noon. “It’s been WEEK” I protested, feeling the excuse crumble even as I said it.

Do you know how many nights I’ve spent imagining that place? The pool glowing like liquid jewels under moonlight … the entertainment room big enough to house a fucking tank … that bedroom … Christ, I could fuck a harem in there and still have room to pace while watching them sleep from the balcony…

“You’re abandoning us for real estate porn!” Tommy snarled, voice flat as a coffin lid slamming shut—the sound of friendship dying in his throat. You have no idea.

“And Sofia,” Madison added helpfully from the couch, her tone sickly sweet, like honey laced with cyanide. “She skipped school and wants cuddles.”

Tommy threw his hands up, palms out in defeat. “Oh great! So you’re ditching the most important moment of my life for property and pussy?”

“When you put it like that…it sounds bad,” I gritted out, the excuse collapsing like wet cardboard. But the defenses rose fast—cold and hard. “Think about it—what would I even do there? Stand around smiling like a trained monkey? Get interviewed about shit I can explain without revealing too much? You want me to go on Rivera Next Media partnership meeting and how will you explain why a sixteen-year-old nobody helped create revolutionary software and even sit in their meeting?”

But beneath the greed lurked the system’s warning—a cold knot in my gut. Public exposure wasn’t just risky… it was fucking radioactive thanks to Lust’s glitch that worked through screens too.

[DING! MASTER, YOUR SUPERNATURAL ATTRACTION TRIGGER IS NOT LOCATION-DEPENDENT! OR FACE TO FACE LIMITED, IT OPERATES THROUGH RECORDED MEDIA AND REAL- TIME STREAMING PLATFORMS.

WARNING: PUBLIC APPEARANCE WILL AMPLIFY YOUR LUST PRESENCE EXPONENTIALLY. ESTIMATED SOCIAL MEDIA IMPLOSION RISK: 97.8%] That was before I left Miami

“That’s… a concern,” I managed, feeling cold flood my veins as my cocky defenses shattered like glass against a sledgehammer. A fucking walking bio-weapon broadcasting desire through screens? Mass hysteria waiting to happen.

“But you know what’s worse than missing the auction?” My voice dropped, turned to granite and steel resolve. “Me bailing on my woman, sorry, Tommy, no can do. She needs me.”

Tommy stared at me, all the betrayal replaced by dawning horror at the actual fucking scale of what I was talking about. Charlotte even paled, her architect’s mind already calculating the PR catastrophe in real time. Madison just sat back, crossed her legs, and smirk—that fucking smirk—like she knew exactly how bad I wanted to go to that goddamn house and comfort my Little Ghost.

Yeah, the last thing I needed was going viral as “that guy who made every woman in America question their relationships during an interview.” I turned to Charlotte…

“I operate better from the shadows,” I said, going for mysterious instead of cowardly. “Peter Carter doesn’t need fame. Eros Velmior Desiderion handles the spotlight when necessary. But Peter? Peter’s just Tommy’s shy, wealthy friend who prefers privacy.”

Madison stood from the outside couch, stretching like a cat in sunshine. She’d been pushing the car thing all morning—pointing out that borrowing Mom’s Mercedes made me look like what I was: a teenager playing with adult money. A proper car would cement my image, make the wealth look natural instead of sudden.

But car shopping meant hours at dealerships, test drives, insurance paperwork, all the bullshit that would keep me from finally seeing the estate that had been haunting my dreams.

“Madison, talk sense into your boyfriend,” Charlotte tried.

Madison stood, stretching like a cat in sunshine. “Actually, I want to see the estate too. Plus, Sofia needs us.” She walked over, wrapping her arms around my waist. “Besides, Charlotte, do you really want Peter there as Eros your partner when every female reporter starts eye-fucking him through the camera?”

“That’s not—” Tommy started. Of course he did not know what we were talking about.

“That’s exactly what would happen,” Madison continued.

“We should buy you a car first,” Madison suggested as we headed for the gate door. “You can’t keep borrowing your mom’s Mercedes.”

“That takes time,” I said quickly. “Research, test drives, paperwork—”

She laughed. “You’re such a bad liar. You just want to get to the estate ASAP.”

“Can you blame me? It’s been killing me waiting.”

Ten minutes later, Madison’s house driver pulled up in her black Audi. We slid into the back, leaving him standing on the curb looking confused but well-paid enough not to ask questions.

The modest two-story looked even smaller than I remembered when we used to live there, like reality had shrunk it while I wasn’t looking.