Page 159 of Broken Brothers

Just as I felt Layla start to reach down to my ass, I pulled back, keeping my gaze with hers as I pushed my forehead to hers.

“You matter to me,” I said softly. “But I want to do this right. I want to make sure that this is what’s right before I go back to you.”

Layla understood the difference now between why I had stopped her here and stopped her before. This was a case of going down this path the proper way; before, it was all about the question of even going down this particular path. She wore that beautiful smile of hers as she ran her hand through my hair.

“I understand,” she said. “Thanks, Chance.”

She leaned up to kiss me, which I gladly returned, confident and certain she wouldn’t try and push the issue.

“Just do me a favor,” she said with a smirk. “Let me take a nap cuddling you. I’ve had a long ass morning and afternoon.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I’ll have to think about that,” I said with clear sarcasm in her voice.

She giggled, kissed me once more, and then shuffled the sheets so that I was on my back and she was cuddled up against me.

If even doing this much was a mistake, it was a mistake I certainly didn’t mind living with.

65

The rest of that day, leading up to after dinner, felt like an exercise in what my retirement might someday look like. With all of my clients caught up, no further clients to recruit at the moment, and a healthy bank account, I simply spent the day with Layla on the couch, catching up on Netflix shows, the occasional news bulletin, and sports scores.

We still weren’t doing anything beyond a casual kiss here and there, but this actually felt better in some ways than the erotic flamethrower that was our first series of hook ups. This felt like a more gradual, slower burn, the kind of thing that would help both of us in the long run. If we took our time and waited for things to gradually come into being, I had a feeling it would be longer lasting than the last time.

We wound up getting pizza delivered as well, and while it wasn’t obviously the healthiest choice, as a nice “stay in and enjoy a slow evening” kind of meal, it worked perfectly. I got mushrooms and sausage; she got a vegetarian’s pizza, even though she wasn’t vegetarian herself. I teased her gently aboutspoiling herself more fully, and she shot back with a joke about how much I loved sausage.

It all seemed perfect, because for that particular moment, it was perfect. It wouldn’t be perfect in a week’s time or a week ago, or perhaps even tomorrow, but for this particular night, I’m not sure we could have done any better than what we had done tonight.

And it was a good thing, too, because at around 7:30 p.m., retribution for what I had done with Virtual Realty came running back to me.

At that time, I was slumped down, more lying on the couch than actually sitting down. Layla had gone into the shower, leaving me alone for the previous five minutes. I had mindlessly turned on some random cop drama show from the 2000s whose name I had already forgotten, mostly as a way to just enjoy the spoils of my day.

And then my phone rang, as if trying to spoil my day.

I looked down at it and groaned. “Edwin Hunt.” But there was no reason to ignore the call, not when the whole point of my strategy was to ultimately take down Edwin Hunt for the betterment of all society. I just had to make sure that whatever I said didn’t give anything of value to that old cocksucker.

“Hello,” I said, trying to feign politeness in case Edwin did the same.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to in the slightest.

“You fucking cockroach piece of shit asshole,” he began, leaving me to almost laugh at the absurdity of what had just happened. “You’re a goddamn little shithead, you know that, Chance? You would have thought that everything that happened yesterday morning would have taught you a goddamn lesson, but it seems like you can’t ever learn shit! I know what little stunt you pulled with Virtual Realty. You think you’re fucking smart?”

Damn! He’s real pissed!

Given that Edwin wasn’t exactly thinking clearly, I decided to troll him a little bit, have some fun at the old man’s expense.

“I’m not sure what you are talking about, Mr. Hunt,” I said, my voice oozing with so much sarcasm I would have suffocated in it if it were a real liquid. “Why, I’m just fulfilling my obligations and duties to Andrew Patel as—”

“Cut the goddamn bullshit, Chance, you and I both know full well what you did!” he roared. This time, I actually had to move my phone away from my ear. “You think your little maneuver in trying to get greater control will allow you to override me? You don’t even know what’s coming your way, boy. You think you’re going to win this battle? You haven’t even seen a third of the shit I will pull out on you, child.”

“Battle?” I said, again pretending to be utterly confused and again delighting in the agony that I must have been bringing Edwin. “There’s no battle here. I just want to see Andrew do well and if does well, we all do well. Surely, as a lifelong investor, that’s something that you would—”

“I’m not going to stop until you are goddamn buried and ruined,” Edwin sneered. “You’ll have to move to goddamn Zimbabwe just to get a job digging ditches. You think you can test me? You think you can push me? What I’ve done to you is nothing compared to what I can do.”

Did he… did he just admit that he’s done things to me before? I feel like that’s something I can’t not notice…

“What kinds of things have you done to me, Mr. Hunt?” I said. “As far as I can tell, you’ve just been an ignorant father—”

“You shut your goddamn bratty mouth!” Edwin screamed.