Page 152 of Broken Brothers

In some parts of the country, this was enough to retire on. Was this my mother’s way of telling me to get away from the madness, to find peace in solidarity, and escape the life that Morgan now seemed set up on? Possible, certainly, but shehadn’t said anything about escaping anything other than her own marriage with Edwin.

No, I couldn’t just get my own place with the money. I needed to do something more substantial with it.

But what?

And then someone else walked in through the door, and immediately, even though that person and I were probably not on the best of terms right now, I knew what I could do with the money.

62

Icouldn’t fall asleep, most especially after the arousing makeout session that Layla and I had just had.

But unlike before, when I’d let my mind wander, for the most part, I just lay there in silence, letting my mind think of nothing and my body relax into the soft fabric of the bed sheets beneath me. My mind was strangely at peace with what had just happened. There was nothing to contemplate or meditate.

That told me that either I had made the exact right move, letting myself fall into my emotions just a bit but not all the way, or I had made such a terrible mistake that there was going to be no amount of thinking and reflecting that would get me out of this mess.

Either way, the mind just stayed quiet, a peaceful respite from all the thinking I’d had to have done all day.

About twenty minutes into Layla’s nap, my phone buzzed. Although I might have let such a message go otherwise, given that Layla seemed to be well into the grips of slumber, I decided to check my phone and see what it said.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that none other than Morgan Hunt, my brother—my adopted brother—had texted me.

“Sure you saw the news about Mom and Dad. Let me know if you wanna talk about it. Here for you bud.”

That’s a hell of a thing to send someone whom you just left for dead yesterday, bud.

It’s your brother, Chance. His parents, his real parents, are about to go through a very public divorce; don’t you think he deserves a little bit of sympathy?

He would if he wasn’t such a fucking rat. Asshole sold out our company to the very man going through that divorce. He doesn’t deserve shit from you, Chance.

You’d let a few days of fighting destroy what you’ve built the previous two decades?

Like I thought earlier, takes years to build, just days to destroy. Why should this be any different?

The conflicting thoughts warred in my head, a civil war of sorts that showed no signs of slowing down anytime soon. When one side appeared to dominate, the other took back control with ease. It became a bloody stalemate, with the blood being confusion that seeped into what I would actually do.

In such a spot, with uncertainty king and the king wanting a decision, I decided that I would do nothing at all—which meant I swiped on Morgan’s text, chose to delete it, and put my phone down. I wasn’t sure if this was really the right move or not, but I could say that it was a move that Morgan wouldn’t know about for some time, if at all; I could brush this off as simply having never received his message or some other excuse.

Not that that sat well with me.

I was preparing to put my phone down when it buzzed again.Damnit, Morgan, stop being so persistent.

But it was not Morgan. It was someone much more important—Andrew from Virtual Realty, by far the most important client I had and the one most likely to some day vault me above whatever Edwin had. That’s not to say absolutely he was, but of all my options, it was definitely the highest probability.

And as such, he demanded my full attention, most especially since he had asked for a phone call as soon as possible.

Leaving Layla to sleep in her bed, I sneaked out of the bedroom, closing the door gently behind me as I did. I wanted to make sure Layla knew I hadn’t just abandoned her again, so I chose to take the call in the kitchen where she would hear me. Admittedly, leaving her for business was harder than I expected—she looked so damn cute falling asleep as she did, and that we had reached something of a consensus on where we would go forward made me feel much better about what was going on in my head.

Take the call, and then go back to her.

“Hey, Chance,” Andrew said as soon as I had dialed him, far more assertive and to the point than usual. “I, uh, heard what happened with your father, I’m, uh, sorry to hear that.”

“Far more assertive and to the point than usual,” it seemed, still meant Andrew wasn’t the most direct and upfront speaker, but I could see him putting forth the effort. I thought of correcting him about Edwin Hunt being my actual father, but such details didn’t seem important to whatever reason he had called.

“It’s all good, it’s amicable right now,” I said, a statement that may have been true only because Edwin hadn’t had the chance to blow up yet at Melanie yet. “What’s up?”

“Well, I got a call yesterday evening pretty late from Mr. Hunt,” Andrew said. That he referred to Edwin as “Mr. Hunt” just pained me so much; that man didn’t deserve any amount ofrespect that anyone would dare to give him. “He said that he had purchased Morgan’s stake in your holding company. He didn’t say if anything would change, but, umm, I talked to some of my friends who had companies like this, and, uhh, they said I should be worried. What do you think?”

Of course Edwin wouldn’t have said anything about things not changing. That was how he did things—he would assure the person on the other end of the table that nothing would change, that things would remain the same, and that all would wind up better in the end. Then, when enough time went by, Edwin would go and make all those changes that he said he never would make, lying through his teeth to get what he wanted and not giving two shits if he burned everything down.