Chapter 4 - The New Commander
The transition was immediate, and Garrett wasted no time. Within forty-eight hours, his debts were wiped clean, his shop’s lease was secured for the next five years, and he was officially given full authority over the security division of Vance International.
His first order of business was assembling the existing security detail in the building's underground tactical training facility. Twenty-five heavily armed, physically imposing men stood in a neat line, looking at Garrett with a mixture of amusement and resentment. They knew he was a mechanic pulled from a small-town diner, and they had no intention of taking orders from an outsider.
Standing at the front of the line was a massive man named Briggs, a former black-ops mercenary whom Julian had personally hired to lead Eleanor’s personal protection detail.
"Alright, listen up," Garrett said, his voice carrying the ironclad authority of a military commander. "As of today, the security protocols of this company are being entirely overhauled. I’ve reviewed the logs from the past six months. Your response times are abysmal, your perimeter sweeps are lazy, and the fact that Ms. Vance was able to walk into a public diner alone without a shadow detail is a catastrophic failure of duty."
Briggs stepped forward, towering over Garrett, a mocking smirk on his face. "Listen here, grease monkey. We don’t take orders from a guy who spends his days changing oil filters. We are elite contractors. We know how to do our jobs. If the old lady wants to slip out the back door, that’s her problem, not ours."
The room went dead silent. The other guards watched to see how the new boss would handle the challenge.
Garrett didn't blink. He stepped directly into Briggs’s personal space, his gaze locked onto the larger man's eyes. "Briggs, you were discharged from the private sector in Africa for reckless endangerment and insubordination. You aren't elite. You're lazy, you're arrogant, and you're drawing a massive paycheck for doing absolutely nothing."
"You want to test that theory, mechanic?" Briggs growled, balling his hands into massive fists.
"Right here, right now," Garrett said calmly, unbuttoning his jacket and tossing it onto a nearby chair. "Hand-to-hand. No weapons. If you win, I resign, and you can keep running this circus. If I win, you pack your locker and get out of this building before sundown."
Briggs laughed, throwing a sudden, devastating right hook aimed directly at Garrett's jaw.
But Garrett was already moving. His reflexes, forged in the fires of specialized elite combat, were flawlessly sharp. He slipped inside the punch, deflecting Briggs’s forearm with his left hand, and drove a brutal, precise palm strike directly into Briggs’s solar plexus.
Briggs gasped, the air violently exploding from his lungs as he stumbled back. Before he could recover, Garrett swept his leg, catching Briggs behind the knee, and brought him crashing down hard onto the concrete floor, locking his arm into a flawless, inescapable submission hold.
Briggs groaned in agony, tapping the floor frantically. Garrett held the lock for three more seconds, ensuring the lesson was fully absorbed, before releasing him and standing up, completely unfazed.
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The remaining twenty-four guards stood frozen, their mouths slightly open, a profound, immediate respect washing over the room.
"Anyone else think I'm just a grease monkey?" Garrett asked, looking down the line. No one moved. "Good. Briggs, pack your things. The rest of you, gear up. We have a real mission to run, and the threat is already inside the house."
