The Reading of the Will
The Quiet Partner

Back Office

August 25, 2026 · Part 4 of 10 · 2 min

The office fractured into noise. Holden was on his feet, chair scraping, voice climbing into territory Elias recognized from a hundred childhood arguments where being loudest had always meant being right. "You've been going to the plant? For two years? And nobody told me?"

"I didn't exactly send a memo," Elias said.

"This is exactly what I mean." Holden turned to Farida. "This will isn't valid. Dad was on painkillers half of last year. Someone got to him. Manipulated him."

"Are you accusing your brother of manipulating a dying man," Farida said evenly, "in front of his attorney?"

"I'm saying it doesn't add up." Holden's voice cracked slightly, the first honest thing he'd said all morning. "I gave that company fifteen years. Fifteen. And he gives it to—" He stopped himself, but not soon enough.

"To what?" Elias asked, and the question hung there, sharper than anything Holden had said.

Odette, who hadn't spoken in almost a minute, finally found her voice. "This isn't right, Elias. Not because of—" she gestured vaguely, uselessly, at the chair, at him, "— I just mean, none of us saw this coming. That's not normal. Dad kept secrets from all of us, apparently, and I want to know why."

"So do I," Elias admitted.

Farida closed the folder. "There's a formal transfer process. Thirty days for any contest to be filed. I'd advise against filing one without grounds, Holden, but that's your decision."

Holden grabbed his laptop bag and left without another word, the door swinging hard enough to rattle the frosted glass. Odette lingered a moment longer, studying Elias like she was seeing him for the first time — which, in a way, she was — before she followed her brother out.

Elias sat alone with Farida for a long moment. "Did you know?" he asked. "About the will. Before today."

"I drafted it," she said simply. "Two years ago, after your father came to me half-panicked about a bad quarter that nearly sank the company, and told me his son had quietly fixed it without anyone noticing."

Elias's aide wheeled him out through the lobby ten minutes later, his mind still catching up to the last hour, when a familiar voice stopped him at the elevator.

Callum Bryce stood there in his plant coveralls, cap in his hands, looking like a man who'd been waiting for this moment for two years and dreading it in equal measure.

"He knew," Callum said quietly. "He always knew what you were doing back there. And I think it's time you saw the office he never told you he kept for you."

Continue the story Part 5: The Office Nobody Knew →

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