Page 102 of Broken Brothers

She wasn’t just setting up plans now. She was flirting and unabashedly so.

This was definitely the Sarah Hill I had gone to middle school with, but still, seeing someone so honestly flirt on social media felt odd to say the least. I may have been the generation most likely to use this type of media, but then again, I was far from the typical Millenial or Gen Xer or whatever the fuck I was. I was just Chance Hunt—mysterious, confident, and never quite at home in any one location.

I found it curious that she seemed so eager to message me and find out about me and Morgan, especially since she could have easily found Morgan under my friends and requested him or just requested him without using me. I didn’t think anything beyond the initial weirdness, though, so I just wrote back short.

“Life’s good. Business is looking good. Morgan is doing good too. Hope all is well.”

It sure sounded like I was blowing her off, but nothing could be further from the truth. I just knew where I best functioned, and in a chat room like a typical teenage girl was not the spot.

A loud clang came from the kitchen followed by Claire loudly swearing. I kicked my sheets off and ran in, not even bothering to put clothes on.

“You good?”

Claire, who looked like she had stubbed her toe, grimaced, turned to me, and then went wide-eyed.

“I mean, I am now, looking at you,” she said, unable to hide her arousal. “Go back in there before I burn this place down because I pounced on you.”

I laughed, gave a little wiggle that drew a yelp of pleasure from her, and then headed back in the room.

Back with my thoughts.

Back with the knowledge that in the same apartment that I made someone feel so good in, I was flirting with another woman.

Was it cheating? Not in the technical sense of the word. But it sure felt wrong, and after everything that had happened to me in the past couple of months, I had to do everything I could to avoid what felt “wrong” before I turned into someone like Craig Taylor or Edwin Hunt.

43

The problem with thinking about my adoptive father was that it already gave him a modicum of a victory over us.

If Edwin Hunt’s goal was to ruin us, then he could obviously do that by destroying our reputations, hurting those we loved, and otherwise wrecking havoc in our daily lives. He wasn’t stupid enough to do something that could land someone in jail, and he certainly wasn’t stupid enough to have his hands directly tied to it. Money had a way of separating someone from the chaos in that manner.

But he also could ruin us simply with the threat of it. I realized now that just by thinking about the possibilities of what he could pull, he had gotten in my head and established semi-permanent residency. And, unfortunately, I was justified in this.

I could never negotiate my way out of this. A man like Edwin Hunt didn’t negotiate when he wanted to see his enemy beaten down. No, the only way Edwin would ever negotiate was when he realized he had lost or was in a position to lose. And for that to happen, we needed a hell of a lot more money than we had at the moment or we needed a miracle to occur.

Thinking about this didn’t make the fear of Edwin Hunt coming for me any smaller—it’s not like being aware meant I could rationalize the extent to which he could hurt us. If anything, it made me more fearful of what was to come, and as I left Claire’s place following a breakfast I just couldn’t enjoy as much as I wanted to, I feared the worst at my place.

Maybe I was going a bit too far imagining that Edwin had ordered someone to ransack our place, but it wasn’t out of the question, especially since Melanie and Morgan were helping to cover my expenses. Morgan’s slush fund could help cover us for a lifetime, but the more expenses we added onto that, the less likely we were to have the funds to grow our investments firm as we wanted to. This wasn’t about just making enough money to live comfortably—this was about making enough to crush Edwin Hunt.

If that made me more like him… so be it. I only had deigns on crushing one psychotic old man, not on anyone who dared to offend me.

I left Claire’s place with a quick kiss on the lips and an exit that probably looked a lot smoother than I actually felt. Everything with Sarah and everything with Edwin had turned my mind into a hurricane of paranoia, in which the eye of the storm felt like nothing more than an illusion—that I could see the oncoming trainwreck and it was only a matter of time before it all went to hell. And by a matter of time, I mean I could all but literally see it all coming into utter chaos.

I kept glancing over my shoulder for spies or for anyone looking at me leaving this building, but I didn’t see anyone. It didn’t assuage me—Edwin could go beyond just men in the streets watching me. He could, and would, do anything.

At some point, it occurred to me that maybe I should have just give one giant non-fuck and shrugged my shoulders at it all. Edwin would trail me… and? He would ruin a business deal? Istill had the relationships he would never have. He might win in the short-term, but when he went to bed at night, wouldn’t it be enough to know that he would have a wife that didn’t truly love him and his only biological child estranged from him?

No.

It’s not.

Even if we wish it was, we don’t live in a fairytale land in which you can forgive and forget. This is the world of the rich, Chance. You want to play on the big stage? Then you better be ready for some major league shit to go down.

And you better be ready to swing right back when the time comes.

The thought did do one thing to me, though. It made me realize my greatest weapon against Edwin was not showing concern or affection from anything done to me. Edwin could break me, but his greatest moment, in his mind, was seeing Morgan and I beg for mercy and forgiveness. I would not crumble. I would never crumble.

But Morgan… I worried about Morgan.