Page 131 of Broken Brothers

I limped back to my apartment, a walk that took twice of long because of the self-inflicted injury. It gave me plenty of time to mope. More than a few people seemed to move far away as I walked down the street, perhaps terrified of the dark expression on my face. Good. I didn’t want to deal with society. I didn’t want to deal with anyone for a long fucking time. I would gladly have traded a few nights in the dumps or behind bars if it meant I got to land a good right hook on Edwin Hunt.

Finally, after what seemed like half of the darkness of night, I made it to my apartment. I slowly opened the door and saw Morgan on the couch.

“Dude,” he said, sounding judgmental.

Honestly, he probably wasn’t. But it all came together in that moment. His waffling. Who his father was. Claire’s situation. Layla and I. What I had experienced.

“I fucking HATE your father!” I roared.

“Dude, calm down,” Morgan said, clearly taken aback by my aggressive tone. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on,” I said, snorting and laughing sarcastically. Poor Morgan looked terrified—maybe he’d be terrified enough that he’d stop being a bitch for his father and join me when he knew it was the right move. “I’ll tell you what’s going on. You know how your father is fighting dirty with us? Trying to get us to quit? Well, it’s not enough for him to go after us. He wants to go after those associated with us. So, guess what? He hired away all of Claire’s employees at Rising Sun. She’s got no one but herself. She’s going to have to return our investment money and close the business.”

I started laughing again, only to yell “FUCK!” again and smash our trash can over.

“Chance! Get it together!”

“No, fuck you Morgan, don’t pull that card on me!” I roared, pointing my finger at him. “You keep saying you want to go back to Edwin, but he’s a fucking bully and you know it damn well. Just because you’re being a goddamn bitch about it doesn’t mean you get to lash out at me!”

“What the fuck has gotten into you?!?” Morgan yelled back. “Do you think it’s so black and white? Did you ever stop to think about why I’m doing what I’m doing? Did you ever think I want the same thing, but rather than burn the whole building down, we just evict him and keep the building?”

“Not good enough, Morgan,” I said.Nothing is good enough from you right now.“Even if that was true, he just destroyedClaire’s dream business as a fuck you to us. What the fuck more proof do you need?”

“Do you have proof of this?”

“I don’t need proof!”

I knew how ridiculous that sounded, but really, come the fuck on. All half-dozen of Claire’s employees hired away on the same day? All quit on the same day? Only after MCH had made an investment? There was coincidence, there were miracles, and then there was the goddamn truth of what this was.

A game pulled by Edwin Hunt to ruin us.

“Chance, please, for the love of God, calm down,” Morgan said.

He had at least given me a few seconds to catch myself. In that anger, I decided to act with frustration in putting our trash can back up and redisposing of the materials that had fallen out.

“Look, if that’s true, then yes—”

“If?” I growled. “Six employees, gone, one day. You think that’s an if?”

“Chance, just… just go with me, OK?”

I didn’t say a word, which was as good of an acknowledgment as Morgan was going to get at this moment. My keeping my mouth shut was as good as me agreeing with him.

“If that’s true, then I will do whatever you want to do short of inflicting physical harm on my father. If that’s true, then dad is doing more than hurting us, he’s hurting innocent people. I won’t stand by that. But we need to prove that.”

“Morgan…”

“Chance, seriously. You want my honest opinion? It sounds like something he would do. But if we act recklessly and accuse him of it, he’ll know we suspect it and then he’ll cover his tracks even more carefully. This is something that can only happen if we take our time to gather evidence. We need to go and talk to those employees who got hired away. If we pretend we’re justrecruiters or something to that effect, we can find out where they now work and see if Hunt Industries has a piece of them. Even if not, do you know how easily people share information on social media? It won’t be hard.”

I hated that Morgan was making a ton of sense, especially because it meant that I would have to slow down my actions. I couldn’t act so rashly and boldly if Morgan made this much sense.

“Goddamnit,” I said. I couldn’t acknowledge that anyone was right except me with how much anger I felt.

“How did Claire take it?”

“How the fuck do you think she took it?” I said. “She doesn’t want to see me anymore. And on top of that, I saw Layla, and—”

“You saw Layla? Dude, what the fuck?”