Hollywood Taxes: A Tycoon in TV Land

Chapter 32: The Airplane Incident

"Ron, you wanna come have some fun with us tonight?" Howard asked, wearing his usual sleazy grin.

"Fun?" Ron blinked in confusion. Didn't this guy just beg me to introduce him to some girls? And now he's already found some fun on his own?

Howard nodded enthusiastically. "Yep, we're going to look for women."

As he said it, Ron felt that Howard's scrawny little frame seemed to loom tall among the group of nerds—like some kind of demigod. Because in this tribe of bookworms, anyone with access to the opposite sex was practically divine.

Even the tech giants of Silicon Valley weren't immune. After all, look how many of them got dragged into the Epstein scandal—even Bill Gates, the eternal mentor-figure, didn't walk away unscathed.

"Nah, I'm skipping this one," Ron said, closing his laptop. "I've got some interviews lined up with potential agents. Maybe I'll find someone decent today. Anyway, you guys have fun."

Ron grabbed his coat and headed for the door.

Hector—once Toretto's sidekick, now Ron's Head of HR—had been sending all kinds of bizarre candidates his way. But so far, none had impressed him. And Ron was growing increasingly impatient.

Thanks to intel from Hector's street-racing crew, rumors were surfacing again about a blue powdered drug hitting the market—eerily similar to the one Ron had worked so hard to eliminate. It felt like someone was deliberately mocking him.

What he needed was a real team—competent agents. It didn't matter if they specialized in stealth, combat, or were accounting geniuses like Andy. As long as they were useful, Ron welcomed them.

But the applicants?

Mostly petty thugs or delusional nerds who thought watching a few superhero movies made them field-ready.

"Mr. Scott, thanks for coming in. Do you have any particular skills?" Ron asked the pale young man sitting across from him—his skin so ghostly it looked like he hadn't seen sunlight in years.

"I..." the man stammered. His voice trembled with nervous energy, but he gathered enough courage to answer. "I've read all the Marvel and DC comics. My dream is to join the Birds of Prey. Is your agency anything like that?"

Ron facepalmed. Another one of those guys who thinks spy work is just cosplay with real bullets.

"Why don't you head to the comic book store, maybe chill there a bit, then go home—your mom's probably just finished putting on fresh sheets for you."

The disappointed geek slunk out, leaving Ron to sigh deeply. He glanced at the time—he'd already been working four hours straight. Enough. Time for his version of fun.

Curious about what kind of mischief Howard had gotten into, Ron pulled out his phone and called Leonard.

"Ron?" Leonard's voice came through, muffled by loud music and background chatter.

"Leonard, sounds like you guys are having a blast! Is that a party? Where'd Howard take you? Should I come join you?" Ron asked, a little envious.

Sure, he already had a pair of gorgeous women in his life—long legs and large assets included—but who said no to more? That wasn't being a player—it was just committing the universal male mistake... willingly.

"Party?" Leonard sounded on the verge of tears. "You should really come see for yourself. Howard brought us to a dance studio. We're learning Latin dance."

"Latin dance?" Ron perked up. "Why didn't I think of that before? That's genius! I bet the girls who dance are all in amazing shape, right?"

He sounded genuinely impressed.

"They probably were, back when they were young…" Leonard mumbled bitterly.

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(To be continued)

Chapter 32: The Airplane Incident (Continued)

Ron was still confused. "Wait—what do you mean?"

Leonard practically shouted in despair, "Ron, this dance studio is part of a senior community center! Every single woman here is over fifty!"

He vented his frustrations at Howard's questionable tastes. As Ron imagined being pinned under someone older than his own mother, he shuddered from head to toe.

From the phone, Howard's cheerful voice rang out, "Leonard! Ms. Wendy's been watching you all evening. She seems really into you. Why not give it a shot? Trust me, I have plenty of experience with this kind of thing… Wait, are you on the phone? Is that Ron?"

"Hey! Ron!"

Ron immediately ended the call with a dry, "You're on your own, man."

Sitting stunned at his desk, Ron couldn't help but mutter to himself, Howard… that guy's not to be underestimated.

He was about to head out to find his sweetheart Max for a little quality time, when suddenly—a massive boom outside his window made him spin around and rush over.

BOOM!

Two enormous passenger jets had collided mid-air above the city, bursting into twin fireballs and plummeting from the sky, trailing smoke and flaming wreckage.

It was a scene of jaw-dropping devastation. Debris rained down like a fiery storm, and worst of all—the collision had happened right above Ron's office.

"FXXK!"

Ron kicked his chair aside and dove under his desk.

KRA-KA-BOOM!

Violent impacts pounded the roof overhead. He looked up just in time to see part of a jet's fuselage scrape past his window. A second later, a hail of random, flaming junk exploded through the glass and came flying straight at him like it had a personal vendetta.

"F$&#$()!!"

Ron unleashed a rapid-fire string of F-bombs and yanked the fallen chair back upright, using it like a shield. Pressed between the chair and his desk, he formed a makeshift barricade.

THUNK!

Something slammed hard into the chair—but thankfully didn't break through.

Then came a final, earth-shaking BOOM, and… silence.

Ron peeked out from behind the chair, half-expecting the worst.

What had crashed into him?

Lying on the floor in front of him, half-charred and still faintly smoldering… was a pink teddy bear.

"A teddy bear? I almost died because of this thing?"

Ron picked it up in disbelief, staring at it like it had personally insulted him.

But his instincts kicked in immediately—something big had just gone down. He grabbed his phone and called Jack, the guy he'd worked with during the Andy case.

"Jack! Did you see those fireballs in the sky? What the hell is going on?! Is this another 9/11?!"

"Jesus Christ, I have no idea!" Jack's voice crackled through, full of panic. "Who knows what the hell those terrorists are doing now—or maybe that damn corn-brained president of ours said something insane again and set them off! I don't know anything!"

Click.

Jack hung up furiously.