Chapter 12 Asher
ASHER
The beta launch party is a glitzy, loud, inefficient nightmare.
I stand near a structural pillar on the edge of the terrace, holding a glass of scotch I have no intention of drinking.
It’s a prop. If you hold a drink, people assume you are participating. If you have empty hands, they assume you are available for conversation.
I am not.
I scan the crowd. There are two hundred and fifteen people here. Forty percent are “Influencers”—people with ring light reflections in their eyes, documenting the Mosaic beta launch. Thirty percent are investors, circling Ethan like satellites fighting for a signal. Twenty percent are staff.
And ten percent are people like me—hiding.
“You look like you’re plotting a murder,” a voice says from my left.
I don’t need to turn. I know the voice. It’s Owen.
“I’m calculating the structural integrity of the balcony railing,” I correct him. “If twenty more people crowd onto the north corner to take a selfie, the load-bearing capacity will be exceeded.”
“Relax, Ash,” Owen says, clapping a hand on my shoulder. He smells like champagne and expensive cologne. He’s in his element, radiating charm like a sunlamp. “It’s a party. We’re celebrating. The download numbers are insane. We hit our monthly target in six hours.”
“The servers are handling the load,” I say. “But the latency is spiking in the European clusters. I should be at the office.”
“You’re forbidden from the office,” Owen says firmly. “Ethan locked your credentials until midnight.”
“I could breach the firewall in six minutes,” I say. “But I promised Harper I would behave.”
“Good boy.” Owen grins. “Go charm a venture capitalist. Or at least stop glaring at the DJ.”
“The DJ is mixing a 128 BPM track with a 130 BPM track,” I mutter. “It’s mathematically offensive.”
Owen laughs, squeezing my shoulder. “Try to have fun. Or just fake it. That’s what the rest of us do.”
He pushes off the pillar and wades back into the crowd. I watch him go. Within five seconds, he’s stopped by a blonde woman in a silver dress. He smiles, leans in, touches her arm. She laughs.
I look away, scanning the room again.
I tell myself I’m monitoring the Brand Lead to ensure she’s managing the press.
That’s a lie.
I’ve not spoken to her properly since Monday. Since the War Room. Since I told her she was inside the system.
She has been avoiding us. She comes in early, leaves late, and keeps her office door closed. She talks to Owen only when necessary, and her voice is tight. She doesn’t look at Ethan at all.
But she looks at me.
I catch her watching me when she thinks I’m focused on my screen. I see the confusion in her eyes. The curiosity.
And there she is.
She’s standing near the bar, talking to a group of tech journalists.
She’s wearing the black dress tonight.
It’s a long, sleek gown with long sleeves and a high neck. From the front, it looks architectural. Armored.
But then she turns to grab a napkin, and I see the back.
There’s no back. The dress dips all the way down to the base of her spine, exposing bare, smooth skin that glows under the string lights.
The black is safe, I told her in the text.
I was wrong. This dress isn’t safe. It’s a challenge. It says, Look, but don’t touch.
My fingers twitch against the glass of my scotch. I remember how she felt in her apartment. The silk of her blouse. The heat of her skin. The way she gasped when I kissed her neck.
Owen had her. He spent the night with her. He touched her in ways I had only calculated.
A sharp, cold spike of jealousy builds in my chest. Owen is my brother. We survive because we don’t overlap.
But looking at the curve of Tessa’s spine, the logic fails.
For the first time in my life, I don’t want to share.
“Mr. Branson!”
A high, nasally voice cuts through my thoughts.
I stiffen.
A man in a velvet blazer is standing in front of me. He’s holding a phone that is recording.
“Greg Miller, TechStream,” he says, shoving the phone in my face.
“Big night for the Phantom Trio. The beta launch numbers are solid, but are you ready for the global release? You’re the quiet one, right?
The coder? Tell us, what’s the secret sauce behind the matching algorithm?
Is it AI? Is it true you’re harvesting biometric data? ”
My heart rate spikes. Eighty-five BPM. Ninety.
The light from his phone is blinding. The crowd feels suddenly tighter, pressing in on me.
“I…” I take a step back, hitting the pillar. “The algorithm is proprietary.”
“Come on, give us a scoop,” Miller presses, stepping closer. He smells like stale coffee and cheap cologne. “There are rumors that the backend is unstable. That you can’t scale. Is that why you’re hiding the code?”
“The code is stable,” I say, my voice tight. “The latency is within acceptable parameters.”
“But what about privacy?” He’s too close. “Are you selling the data?”
My lungs seize. The noise of the party—the music, the laughter, the clinking glass—becomes a roar of white noise.
I need to leave. I need a quiet room. I need a server rack to hide behind.
“I think you’re confusing us with our competitors,” a cool, feminine voice cuts in.
Suddenly, there is a wall between me and the reporter.
Tessa.
She steps in front of me, her back to me. She’s small, but she holds the space like a shield.
“Mr. Miller,” she says, her voice smooth. She reaches out and gently lowers his phone. “I’m Tessa Hartley, the Brand Lead. I’d be happy to answer your questions about our privacy policy. In fact, we have a press kit prepared just for you with the full technical specs.”
Miller blinks, distracted by her smile. “Oh. Uh. Sure.”
“Great.” She signals a waiter. “Can we get Mr. Miller a drink? The signature cocktail is excellent.”
She deftly turns him away from me, guiding him toward the bar. She engages him in conversation, laughing at his joke, making him feel important while simultaneously removing the threat.
She saves me.
She glances back over her shoulder. Her eyes lock onto mine.
“Go,” she mouths.
Without hesitating, I turn and slip through the terrace doors.
The concrete walls of the fire escape suck the heat from the air.
The bass from the party thumps against the steel door like a second heartbeat.
I sit on the metal steps, one flight down, and put my head between my knees, forcing my system to reboot.
Inhale: 4 seconds. Hold: 4 seconds. Exhale: 4 seconds.
The door above me opens.
I hear the click of heels on metal.
I look up.
Tessa is standing on the landing. The backless dress exposes her shoulder blades, sharp and delicate like wings. She is holding two glasses of water.
“I figured you needed more hydration than scotch,” she says softly.
She walks down the steps and sits next to me. Not too close. She leaves a gap between us. Professional distance.
She hands me a glass.
“Thank you.” My voice is steady again. The static in my head has cleared, replaced by the hum of awareness I feel whenever she is near.
“Greg Miller is a shark,” she says, taking a sip of her water. “But I distracted him with data visualization. Journalists love graphs.”
“You handled him efficiently.”
“I handled him because he was cornering you,” she says. She turns to look at me. “You looked like you were about to glitch. That is the word, right?”
“I don’t glitch,” I say defensively. “I was… overstimulated.”
“Same thing.” She smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “You hate this, don’t you? The parties. The noise.”
“It’s necessary. Marketing drives adoption. Adoption drives data. Data drives the product.”
“See?” She shakes her head. “You’re doing it again. Reducing the room to code.”
“Everything is a formula, Tessa.”
“Am I?”
The question hangs in the cool air.
I look at her. The moonlight filtering through the grate casts shadows across her face.
“You are a complex variable,” I admit. “I’m still trying to solve you.”
“Good luck,” she whispers. “I don’t think I have a solution. I think I’m just a mess.”
“You aren’t a mess. You are…” I search for the word. “Vibrant. You saved me up there. You saw I was in distress and you intervened. Why?”
“Because that’s my job.”
“No. Your job is to manage the brand. Your job is not to protect the CTO from bad questions.”
“Maybe I just care about you,” she says softly.
My lungs lock. Care is a dangerous variable.
“You shouldn’t,” I say. “I’m not the brother you should care about. Owen is the one who makes you laugh. Ethan is the one who makes you… intense. I am just the one who watches.”
“You see me,” she says. “You told me that. In the car.”
“I do see you.”
I reach out. I can’t help it. I place my hand on her exposed skin.
Her skin is cool, but she burns under my touch. She arches into my hand, a small, involuntary movement.
“You wore the black dress,” I murmur, tracing the line of her spine with my thumb.
“You said it was safe,” she whispers.
“I lied.”
She turns her head to look at me. Her lips are parted.
“It isn’t safe,” I say, my voice dropping. “It’s devastating. The front is a lie. The back is the truth. It exposes your vulnerability.”
“I thought you liked vulnerability,” she says breathlessly. “Isn’t that the core of your precious algorithm?” she teases softly.
“I do.” I slide my hand up to the nape of her neck, my fingers tangling in the loose strands of her hair. “Tessa. Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Did you like it?”
She blinks. “Did I like what?”
“Being with Owen.”
She flushes crimson. She tries to pull away, but I hold her steady.
“Asher, I can’t talk about this with you.”
“Why? Because of the rules?”
“Because it’s weird!” she hisses. “You’re his brother, and you share a company.”
“We aren’t like other brothers, Tessa. What belongs to one often belongs to all.”
“I don’t belong to anyone,” she says, backing away like I’ve slapped her. She stares at me, eyes wide and horrified. “Is this a real thing? Are you actually talking about sharing me?”
The pressure in my chest spikes. She doesn’t understand the dynamic. She thinks she can isolate the variables.
“Owen won’t share you,” I say quietly. “He already staked his territory.”
“Owen…” she falters.
“Owen is emotional,” I say, stepping closer, my thumb stroking the sensitive skin behind her ear. “He reacts to the immediate stimulus. He wants to keep you because you make him feel good. But he isn’t looking at the long term.”
“And you are?”
“Always.” I lean closer. I can smell her. Floral, heavy, and mixed with champagne. “The volatility between my brothers is too high. If you choose Owen, Ethan tears the world apart. If you choose Ethan, Owen destroys himself just to spite him.”
“And if I’m with you?” she whispers.
“I’m the buffer. I’m the only neutral ground. Starting with me is the only way this doesn’t end in blood.”
“You make it sound like math,” she shudders, but she doesn’t pull away. “Like I’m a problem to be solved.”
“You’re the most beautiful problem I have ever seen.”
I turn her face toward me. I want to kiss her. I want to taste what Owen tasted. I want to overwrite his data with my own.
I lean in. She closes her eyes. Her breath hits my lips.
“Am I interrupting?”
The voice comes from above us.
We spring apart.
Ethan is standing at the top of the stairs, silhouetted by the light from the party. He is holding a tumbler of dark liquor. He looks massive, dark, and furious.
“Ethan,” Tessa gasps, standing up so fast she almost knocks over her water.
“I was looking for my Brand Lead,” Ethan says, his voice like ice. “Investors are asking for the ‘Be Seen’ architect. But I see she is busy conducting a private meeting in a stairwell.”
“I was just—”
“Taking a break,” I interrupt, standing up to shield her. “Tessa intervened with a reporter. She needed a moment.”
Ethan walks down the stairs. He moves slowly, deliberately. He stops on the landing to tower over us, looking from me to Tessa. His gaze drops to the open curve of her dress, then up to her flushed face.
“A break,” Ethan repeats. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Go back inside, Asher,” Ethan commands. “I need a word with Ms. Hartley.”
“I don’t think that is a good idea,” I say.
“Go back inside,” Ethan growls.
I look at Tessa. She gives me a tiny nod. It’s okay.
I hesitate. I don’t want to leave her with him. Not when he looks like this. Not when the hostility radiating off Ethan is heavy enough to crush her.
But I cannot fight him here. Not in public.
“I will be right inside,” I say to Tessa.
I walk past Ethan. He doesn’t move. I have to turn sideways to squeeze past him on the narrow stairs.
“Don’t break her,” I whisper as I pass him.
Ethan ignores me and continues to stare at Tessa.
I walk up the stairs and back into the noise of the party. I pull out my phone and open the tracking app.
I watch the blue dot that represents Tessa.
And I wait.