Chapter 13.
Brian set his fork down beside the half-finished steak and leaned back in his chair.
The private dining room was quiet except for the soft clink of silverware and the distant hum of the city far below the tower.
Afternoon light poured through the tall windows, turning the polished wood of the long table a warm gold.
Constance sat to his right with her tablet resting beside her plate.
Holly was on his left, posture relaxed but attentive.
Dani occupied the seat that had quietly become hers, close enough to speak, far enough to keep her professional edge when she needed it.
He looked at the three women for a long moment.
“I am going out.”
The words landed with quiet finality. All three pairs of eyes lifted to him at once.
Dani already had her phone in her hand before the last syllable finished. “Where to?”
Brian smirked, the expression slow and genuine.
He picked up his fork again, cut another piece of steak, and chewed thoughtfully before answering.
“One thing I miss from working a factory job… and yes, I know it’s only been nine days.
” He took another bite, swallowed, and leaned back once more.
“I want to go to a bar. Have a cold beer. Sit somewhere that smells like spilled lager and old wood instead of marble and money. I want to feel the noise of people who still punch a clock, who talk about rent and overtime and whether the Dodgers have a shot this year. I want to remember what it felt like to be just another guy at the end of a shift.”
Dani’s brow furrowed. The phone screen lit her face as her thumbs hovered. “Sir… I cannot secure an entire bar. Not properly. Not with the kind of visibility you now carry.”
“I know.” Brian’s voice stayed calm. “Have a team with you. Small. Discreet. They stay close but they don’t clear the room or make a scene.
I am having a beer in a bar. Hell, I might buy a round for the whole place if the mood hits me.
But I need to get out of this tower for a few hours.
The walls are starting to close in, no matter how expensive they are. ”
Dani exhaled through her nose… a short, controlled sound of professional resignation.
She was already texting Gloria. The message chain would be long.
Logistics, advance scouting, exit routes, contingency plans for a public space full of unknowns.
It was going to be a security headache of the highest order, and she knew it.
Constance’s voice came softer, almost private. “Brian…”
He turned his head. She had slid the tablet across the polished wood until it rested near his plate.
The screen showed the document Frank Willstadder had left for him days earlier…
the succession papers, the blank line still waiting for a name.
The one person who would inherit everything if something happened to him.
“You still have not added a name,” she whispered. “The one who takes over if the worst occurs.”
Brian stared at the empty line for several seconds. The weight of it settled over the table like a physical thing. He closed his eyes.
Images rose unbidden. The factory floor.
The smell of machine oil and burnt coffee.
The sound of Danny Hollinger’s rough laugh carrying over the noise of the line.
Years of shared shifts, shared complaints, shared cheap beers after overtime.
Danny had known him when the sum total of Brian’s net worth was a dented car and a mountain of student debt.
Danny had never asked for anything. Never angled.
Never treated him differently once the news broke that Brian Thomson had become the owner of Dranning Corporation.
Brian opened his eyes and smiled… small, certain, and almost private.
He reached out, touched the screen, and began to write.
The stylus moved in clean, deliberate strokes.
Danny Hollinger
Constance watched every letter form. She had been through every corner of Brian’s life in the days since the will reading… background checks, financials, personal history, the thin file of people who had actually mattered to him before the tower. She knew the name. She knew exactly who the man was.
Her voice dropped even lower. “You are sure?”
Brian nodded once. “Send one of the girls from legal. Not one of the senior partners… someone sharp, professional, and young enough that the conversation doesn’t feel like a corporate execution.
Blonde. He has always had a weakness for blondes.
” He glanced sideways at Holly, whose eyebrows had lifted slightly. “No. Not you. You are mine.”
Holly’s mouth curved into a slow, unmistakably pleased smile. “Yes, Boss.”
Brian turned back to Constance.
“She goes to him in person. She tells him everything. The will. The contingency. What it means. She does not sugar-coat it and she does not rush it. Then she stays. However long it takes. If he needs the night, she gives him the night. God knows the man has been lonely long enough.
But listen carefully… this has to be a willing girl.
Truly willing. Not someone who is just following orders or collecting a paycheck.
She has to be willing to fuck him if that is what he wants or needs.
She has to be willing to become his personal assistant in the same way you and Holly are mine…
at his side, handling what he cannot or should not handle alone, living in the new reality with him.
I will pay her salary, her housing, everything.
The money comes from me. But her loyalty and her presence belong to Danny.
She stays with him the way you two stay with me.
Make sure she understands that before she ever walks through his door.
And make it clear to him that this is not a transaction he has to earn. It is already done.”
He leaned forward slightly, voice hardening with quiet intensity.
“Five hundred million. Liquid. Transferred the moment he signs the acknowledgment papers. That money is his whether I live another fifty years or die tomorrow. It is not a loan. It is not a test. It is the first concrete proof that his life has changed. After that, if something happens to me, he inherits the rest… the corporation, the holdings, all of it. Full control. No board games. No interim nonsense.”
Brian looked at Dani.
“And security. Permanent. A detail on him at all times from the moment the legal girl makes contact. I want him protected, not smothered. They stay close enough to stop a threat and far enough that he still feels like a free man. I also want eyes on whether the sudden money and power turn him into someone who starts calculating how convenient my absence would be. I do not believe it will. Danny is not built that way. But I am not a fool either.”
Dani’s storm-gray eyes held his for a long moment. Then she smiled… small, genuine, and edged with professional respect.
“I am pleased you thought of that,” she said quietly.
“Most men in your position either name a family member and hope for the best, or they refuse to name anyone at all. You named the one person who already proved loyalty when you had nothing to give him… and you still built safeguards. That is the right way to do it.”
Brian nodded. The decision settled into place inside his chest with surprising calm. He looked at the three women again… Constance with her tablet already active, Holly still carrying that soft, claimed smile, Dani shifting fully into operational mode for both the bar outing and the new protectee.
“I want the process started today,” he said. “But I understand the reality of it. Danny is four hours away by car. The legal envoy has to reach him first, sit with him, explain everything properly. That means his life does not change tonight. It changes in the morning.”
Constance’s fingers moved across the tablet with practiced speed. She pulled up maps, traffic projections, and the current roster of junior attorneys in the legal department who met the criteria Brian had set. Blonde. Attractive. Intelligent. And, most importantly, genuinely willing.
“I’ll select her within the hour,” Constance said quietly.
“Background, personality profile, confirmed willingness for the full scope of the role… assistant, companion, and whatever else Danny needs. She leaves this afternoon with a security escort. They drive through the night if necessary. She makes contact first thing in the morning, before he even leaves for his shift. That gives her time to talk, to stay, to let him process without the pressure of an audience or a clock.”
Brian watched her work for a moment, then looked at Dani.
“Security detail moves into position overnight. Discreet. They do not approach him until after the conversation has begun and he has had a chance to absorb the first shock. Once the legal girl is with him and the papers are in motion, the protective team becomes visible enough that he knows he is covered, but not so heavy that he feels hunted. Five hundred million transfers the moment he signs the acknowledgment. After that, the detail stays permanent.”
Dani’s thumbs were already flying across two separate threads…
one to Gloria for the evening’s bar operation, another more encrypted chain for the overnight team that would shadow Danny Hollinger from the moment the sun came up.
“Gloria is spinning up a six-person rotation. Two on him at all times, overlapping shifts, local safe house already being prepped within ten minutes of his current address. They’ll be in place before the legal envoy arrives.
He won’t even know they’re there until it’s time for him to know. ”