Page 141 of Broken Brothers

Why, though? You didn’t even have anything to gain out of this. The money doesn’t matter. You don’t love your fatherenough to give him MCH. Maybe there’s a reason for the three months?

I don’t know. I don’t care. Fuck it all. Fuck this.

I turned my attention to Edwin Hunt, the true devil of my world.

“I am not taking your offer,” I said as I heard security coming out of a nearby elevator. “I’d rather be homeless on the streets with my dignity and the truth than your money and your sack of lies. I’ll die knowing I lived well.”

“And I’ll die knowing I lived fully,” Edwin said, a deliberate smirk on his face.

“Fully in what? Opulence and greed? Doesn’t matter, Edwin. I have the truth on my side. I’ve made mistakes, but I own them. Someday, the truth on you is going to come out. And the fallout will kill you.”

Security arrived and grabbed me.

“I’m sure it will,” Edwin said dismissively. “Take him outside. No need to call the police. He’s a big boy now. He can fend for himself.”

Oh, I could. And oh, I would.

But as I got pulled away and saw Morgan unable to look at me, I realized that I would truly have to fend for myself.

I didn’t just lack a woman in my life.

I now lacked anyone in my life.

I should have known that this would come down to this. As security held my arms tightly and as the elevator went to the bottom floor, it just made too much sense. I was adopted, which meant love for me would always be conditional, never perfect. Weirdly enough, Edwin was just being honest when he never showed me that love.

Morgan, though…

That one would sting for a while.

“Come on, let’s go,” security said as they escorted me to the front.

“You don’t have to,” I said, pulling myself free. “I don’t have any connection to this place anymore.”

I didn’t have a connection to anything. I was just Chance Givens, an anonymous man like so many others in the streets of New York City.

What lay ahead, I did not know. But I knew one thing for sure. I knew one thing that I should have known for many years prior but at least now could see so clearly it needed no further refinement or clarity.

I would go at it alone.

57

Iwandered over to my apartment, convinced that Edwin was pulling a bluff on me.

I didn’t even get inside the main building, though, because the fob that I had used did not work to grant me entrance. The front desk saw me, came to me, and shook their head.

“We’ve evicted you, Chance,” the woman said. “I’m sorry.”

Jesus.

“Morgan has your stuff. I would get in touch with him about it.”

Oh, yeah, I’m sure that’ll go over great. Go see my Judas of a brother whom I punched in the nose and demand my stuff back. That will be a pleasant conversation.

“OK,” I said, turning away quietly.

I had no home. I had no friends. I had family.

I had nothing.