Chapter 323: Get Your Hands Off Me

Durnik remained on the outside of it.

The investors had closed into a half-circle around Lucas and Matthew, shoulders turned in, attention locked on the talk. Every time Durnik leaned closer, someone shifted. Every time he smiled wider, the conversation moved past him. He was still near the table and somehow already in the wrong place.

He felt it.

If he stayed quiet any longer, the whole corner would belong to Lucas.

So he forced his way back in with his voice.

"Mr. Matthew, don't mind him," he said, too casually, too loudly. "He was just lucky with Switch. There's nothing that interesting about it."

The line landed badly.

Matthew barely turned. A short glance, then his attention went straight back to Lucas, like Durnik had been a noise from across the room.

At the table, Rebecca's face tightened. She lowered her glass and stared at her husband hard enough to will him silent. What is wrong with this old fool? Could he not feel how cheap that had sounded in front of men who were clearly not treating Lucas like a lucky idiot?

Durnik either missed it or ignored it.

He stepped in harder, forced cheer on his face, and put a hand on Matthew's shoulder like physical contact could drag the room back under his control.

"Alright, let's focus on dinner," he said. "Come on. Let's go eat before it gets cold."

That was the mistake.

Matthew stiffened under the hand. He turned his head slowly.

"Can you please get your hands off me?"

The words cut straight through the cluster.

Durnik froze.

Matthew did not soften it.

"Can't you see I'm in the middle of an important conversation? And you're talking about food? What exactly are you thinking?"

A short silence followed.

Then the other investors filled it.

One muttered that they had been learning something useful. Another said the discussion had finally gotten interesting. A third did not bother lowering his voice when he pointed out that Durnik kept interrupting. None of them made a full scene, but they said enough.

The circle did not open for him.

It closed tighter.

Lucas stayed where he was, calm, watching it happen. Durnik's hand slipped off Matthew's shoulder.

Rebecca was past embarrassment now. She sat with her glass untouched, eyes on her husband as he stood on the wrong side of the group looking smaller by the second. It was not only the interruption. It was the neediness under it. The way he kept reaching for control after the room had already moved on.

What is wrong with this old fool?

All he ever seemed to understand was appetite. Who to chase. Who to corner. Who to pull aside once the public face stopped mattering. Timing and dignity never arrived with him when he needed them. And now he had chosen this, of all moments, to look small in front of men who measured power carefully.

Her irritation only got worse when she caught herself listening to Lucas again.

He spoke without rushing and without begging for approval. The investors stayed on him. There was structure in the answers. Clarity. A quiet kind of intelligence she had not expected when he first dropped into the empty chair with wine and a teasing mouth. She had thought he was only bold. Now she was starting to see he was sharp.

That made Durnik harder to watch.

Durnik saw the gap in the circle and could not bear it. His eyes locked on Lucas through the shoulders and suits, fixed on that calm face and easy posture, on the attention that should have belonged to the host of the night.

This fool thinks he can walk into my event and take from me.

Never.

He turned away hard and left them behind.

Anyone who tried to stop him on the way got almost nothing. A half greeting. A raised hand. A brush-off already in motion. He crossed the hall fast, manners lagging behind temper, with only one destination in mind.

Security.

The two men near the side entrance straightened when they saw him. Durnik did not ease into it. He pulled out his phone, found what he needed, and turned the screen toward them.

"You see this man?"

The guards looked.

"He does not leave this place," Durnik said, voice low and tight. "Not for any reason. Not through any door. If he tries, you stop him. You hold him. I do not care what excuse he uses."

One of them hesitated. "Sir…?"

"Did I sound unclear?"

"No, sir."

"Good." Durnik's eyes moved between them. "Keep him inside. If he moves toward an exit, you move first."

They looked confused, but confusion was not refusal. This was the chairman's event and the chairman's night. Both men nodded.

"Yes, sir."

"Stay sharp," Durnik added.

Then he turned back toward the hall.

The anger had not cooled. If anything, giving the order had only stored it better. Lucas could smile, talk, and collect attention for now. Leaving would be another matter.

Durnik walked back into the event with his jaw set.

Behind him, the security men exchanged a short look and started watching the crowd much more carefully.

Near the investor cluster, the conversation had already moved on without him. Matthew asked Lucas another question about Switch's early push. Someone else wanted numbers. Another wanted to know how creator migration was being handled. Lucas answered at his own pace, never loud, never eager, and every clean reply only pulled the circle tighter.

Rebecca listened more than she pretended to.

She hated that her husband had made himself look desperate in public. She hated it more that the man in his chair was making the room respond without raising his voice. The contrast sat right in front of her, impossible to ignore. One man grasping. One man receiving.

From across a gap in the guests, Durnik's eyes found Lucas again.

Lucas did not look shaken.

He lifted his glass once, almost idly, and kept talking.

That, more than anything else, made Durnik's hands curl at his sides.

He had come back into the hall with an order in place and no relief to show for it. The investors were still there. Matthew was still there. Rebecca was still watching. And the younger man in his seat still looked like he belonged in the center of it all.

Durnik forced a smile for a passing guest, nodded once, and kept moving through the room like a host who still had control.

He did not.

Not in that corner.

Not anymore.

And the longer Lucas stayed seated in that chair, answering questions that should never have been asked at a TikTok dinner, the clearer it became that the night was no longer running on Durnik's schedule alone.

Rebecca set her glass down carefully.

For the first time all evening, she was not bored.

She was paying attention.

And Durnik, walking the edge of his own event with security now primed and pride already bruised, was already planning how to take the room back before the damage spread any further.

Whether he still could was another question entirely.