“Call my attorney. Tonight, if you can reach him. Tomorrow morning at the latest.” He drew a slow, effortful breath. “I’m changing my will.”

Brandon’s expression softened into the careful patience of someone handling a confused patient. “Mr. Benedict, you should rest. You’ve had a long day, and the medication—”

“I’m not delirious.” Roderick lifted his hand off the blanket, found the phone beside him, and pressed his thumb to it. The screen woke. With slow, deliberate motions he opened one app, then another — a bank portal with a balance that made Brandon go still, then the deed records, then a brokerage account, then the corporate filings for a company Brandon had certainly heard of, because half the office furniture in the city came out of its plants.

He turned the phone so the young man could see. “There. Do I look confused to you now?”

Brandon looked at the screen, then at the frail man in the bed, and said nothing at all.

“I’m leaving it to you,” Roderick said. “All of it. The company, the properties, the accounts. In exchange, you do two things. You save your sister’s life.