The conference room that had once felt like a battlefield of negotiations now buzzed with sothing entirely different—laughter.
The deal was done. The ink was drying. The first $3.75 billion had landed in Sentinel BioTech's accounts. And now, for the first ti in months—maybe longer—Matthew Borja and his team allowed themselves to exhale.
A long table at the far end of the facility had been cleared out and re-purposed for the night. Takeout boxes from the best steakhouse within military radius were spread out between whiskey bottles, bourbon glasses, and half-eaten slices of cake soone had miraculously managed to smuggle onto base.
Angel leaned against the wall, arms crossed, sipping a glass of Scotch she didn't even try to pretend she liked. "This tastes like gasoline."
Matthew, sitting nearby, chuckled. "That's because it is gasoline. The expensive kind."
She wrinkled her nose and set the glass down. "I'll stick to wine next ti. Assuming we're ever not surrounded by concrete and camo."
"You say that like you didn't enjoy watching the military squirm."
Angel smirked. "Oh, I did. I just prefer to celebrate with heels and lighting that doesn't give a headache."
Dr. Vasquez raised her plastic cup from across the room. "To harsh lighting and billion-dollar victories."
A chorus of cheers answered her. Even Daniel, who rarely lifted his head from behind a monitor, was smiling tonight. A real smile. Not the kind you give in boardrooms or during debriefings—but the kind that crept into your face when you realized sothing huge had just happened and your na was on it.
Matthew stood up, raising his glass.
Everyone instinctively quieted.
"I know we didn't plan for this celebration, and yeah—it's not exactly the Ritz." He glanced around the stark walls, the utilitarian lights overhead. "But I'd take this over any red carpet in the world."
Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Even over Paris Tech Expo?"
Matthew chuckled. "Especially over Paris Tech Expo."
Angel smirked. "You just hate press interviews."
"That too."
Matthew's smile faded into sothing more thoughtful as he looked at the team in front of him—brilliant minds, stubborn idealists, relentless doers.
"You know," he began, "when I first sketched out the concept of the Titan project… I didn't think we'd get this far. Not really. I thought maybe we'd get one prototype. Maybe DARPA would laugh us out of the room."
He paused. "Instead, we made the single most advanced piece of military technology in the world. And we did it together."
There was no dramatic applause, no slow clapping. Just a quiet respect that hung in the air as each of them took in the truth of it.
Matthew raised his glass one last ti. "To the Titan team. To changing the ga."
"To changing the ga," they echoed, glasses clinking.
—
Later that night, as the crowd thinned and the food turned cold, Angel found Matthew sitting alone at the edge of the hangar ramp, legs dangling over the steel lip, a bottle of water in hand.
She walked over quietly, holding her shoes in one hand.
"No bodyguards tonight?" she teased.
"No need," Matthew said without looking up. "The most dangerous part of the night was your whiskey face."
She laughed softly and dropped down beside him, feet swinging just above the tarmac.
For a while, they didn't say anything.
The night was quiet, but the base never truly slept. In the distance, the low hum of machinery and the rumble of military transport reminded them where they were.
Angel nudged him lightly. "You good?"
Matthew nodded. "Yeah. Just… taking it in."
"You should. You pulled off sothing impossible."
"We pulled it off," he corrected.
She gave him a sideways glance. "You do know what this ans, right?"
"That I won't be sleeping for the next ten years?"
She chuckled. "That, yes. But also that you're no longer just a CEO. You're sothing else now. This deal puts you on every radar in the world."
Matthew's jaw tensed slightly. "I know."
"You ready for that kind of spotlight?"
"I don't care about the spotlight," he said quietly. "But I care about what cos next. If we pull this off right… we won't just change how wars are fought—we might stop so before they ever start."
Angel studied him for a mont. The sa ruthless ambition was still in his voice, but there was sothing else layered beneath it now—responsibility.
"You've changed," she said.
Matthew gave her a faint smile. "I had to."
She looked down at her bare feet. "Just don't forget who you are."
"I won't," he said. "You won't let ."
They sat there for a while longer, the quiet between them not awkward but earned.
Eventually, Angel stood and slipped her heels back on.
"Co on. You're going to fall asleep out here."
Matthew rose too, brushing off his pants. "Wouldn't be the first ti I passed out on a runway."
She gave him a mock glare. "Let's not make it a habit. You're a $37.5 billion asset now."
Matthew smirked. "And here I thought I was priceless. And to correct you, that was just in our biotech venture."
—
Back inside, the team was already packing up. Tomorrow, the first official planning sessions for production would begin. Contractors were flying in. Governnt liaisons would be assigned. Military protocols. Background checks. Secure networks.
The real work.
But tonight, for just a few hours, they let themselves enjoy it.
A win this big doesn't co often.
And when it does—you drink the cheap bourbon, eat the cold steak, and laugh like it's the end of the world.
Because in so ways, it was.
The world before Titan Mk-I?
That world was already gone.
And the new one?
They were writing it from scratch.
As the last of the lights dimd and the room fell into a soft hush, Matthew lingered by the doorway, watching his team filter out—so tired, so tipsy, all victorious. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. Tomorrow, they'd wake up to headlines. To phone calls. To pressure. But tonight? Tonight, they were still just drears who built the future—and proved it was real.
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