Page 104 of Broken Brothers

Does it for Morgan though?

Because that might determine what the outcome ends up being anyways.

“I’m sorry, Morgan,” I said. I was more sorry for his state than I was for why he was in that state, but I really did empathize with him. “I know shit sucks right now. But I’m going to have to break it to you even worse than that. Things are about to get a lot harder.”

Morgan didn’t even have the energy to groan or lean back. Instead, he just looked like a motionless statue, carved into the spot he was, like the hungover version of The Thinker statue.

“If we want to be independent and we want to succeed—which, by the way, we are with Rising Sun and Virtual Realty—then we knew this would happen.”

“Did we, though?”

I had started to turn around to the bacon to flip it over, but Morgan’s words caused me to stare off into the distance in thought. Had we?

I sure had.

Had Morgan?

“I thought this would blow over by now. You know my father. He gets uproariously angry but he’s not stupid. He knows anger won’t make him money. Yeah, he’s worth billions, so what’s a few extra million here and there? For a guy like him, as it turns out, a lot. He treats it like a game where every day he has to be doing something to give himself a little extra cash.”

“And yet…”

Morgan cleared his throat as the pan erupted from me finishing my flip of the bacon.

“And yet it seems different than before,” Morgan said. “I don’t want to lose my dad, Chance. I don’t. Nothing is worth losing family over.”

Nothing. Not even our business…

It’s different because I’ve never considered Edwin as family.

But Morgan…

“You might have to,” I said, a statement I immediately regretted for the level of honesty it produced. I could be blunt to a fault—and it could work an awful lot, especially when it came to women and business—but to say it to my half-dead brother in his current state might as well have been telling him to go fuck himself in any other state.

“I don’t think I can.”

“OK, well, let’s think on this,” I said.

I didn’t have anything else to add at the moment, but I needed to quell the bleeding from what I had just said.Fucking stupid, Chance. Real fucking stupid. Why don’t you think this through for real and not just say it?

“Can we keep your father placated while we keep doing what we are doing?”

“He’s your father…”

Now it was Morgan’s turn to feel like a massive idiot for what he said, especially because he saw the fire in my eyes when he looked up. I had more respect for the pigeons of New York City than I did Edwin Hunt. I had the same level of respect for him as I did the rats—no, at least the rats just did what they were born to do. Edwin was worse.

“Can we keepyourfather placated and keep MCH?” I said, making sure to emphasize the personal adjective as well as bite my tongue before I made a truly scathing remark about Edwin.

“I have no idea,” Morgan said.

That was fine. I did not expect Morgan to have any ideas.

The problem was I didn’t really have any ideas either. I had to give Edwin this—he was as stubborn as I was. We both knew what we wanted to accomplish, and the idea of either of us yielding was laughable.

Nevertheless, there was something to be said for our relationship freezing over into a sort of passive Cold War in which neither would bother to hurt the other for fear of reprisaland escalations. We could never go back to being a full family, but at least the bullshit Edwin was throwing our way would end.

“It’s times like these I wish we had someone objective to talk to,” Morgan said. “I need someone who knows what this is like. Who knows what it’s like to have family split apart by business. But good luck finding that. Most billionaires either know how to save face or actually have a functioning family. Most…”

I had tuned out Morgan by that point, because I was attached to something he had said.I need someone who knows what this is like.