Page 161 of Broken Brothers

“I’m in the ‘good enough’ frame of mind for this,” I responded.

“OK,” she said, sounding like a mother who just realized her eighteen year old son is going on an adventure she would never approve of. “So what are you going to do?”

“Simple, leverage,” I said, although the plan was anything but simple, relying on a lot of unknowns and a lot of other people to come through for me. It was so far removed from simple, in fact, that much of it was only coming to mind as I spoke to Layla in this moment. “There are a lot of people who despise Edwin, right? A lot of people who have been burned and hurt by him. Hell, his own wife just left him, I’m not sure what much more needs to be said than that. In fact, that’s a large part of why this could work right now.”

Like a mad genius—though I was anything but—I found myself suddenly standing and pacing, unable to contain the excitement in my voice about the possibility that this plan presented.

“People are going to want more Edwin Hunt articles, especially now that he’s going through a divorce that is very public and, judging by Edwin’s reaction to me on the phone, is going to be very acrimonious. People will want the juice. And for all that’s happened? There’s bound to be a few people that have juice. Hell, John Burnson, my old boss, will have some, based on some decade old grudge that happened.”

Then a thought came to mind I wasn’t sure I felt comfortable asking, but the fact that I didn’t dismiss it immediately told me I needed to ask it.

“Do you think your uncle would have anything? Could you reach out to him?”

“Craig Taylor?” she said, a noticeable gulp coming. “He’s not going to be happy to see me.”

“I know, and I don’t want you to if you don’t want to,” I said, not quite a true statement but the closest thing to diplomacy I could muster at that moment. “But I really think this is a chance to do some good for myself and for the world. And I’m not just saying that as some grandiose bullshit. I really do think that. I need any and all sources of information I can get, no matter how bad or ugly they might be. Of course not all of it will make it up, but… we don’t need to win the court of law, we just need to win the court of public opinion.”

Layla nodded but went into the tank to think. I kept pacing as I tried to consider all of our options. It was right now that I was reaching way back into my memory bank, trying to think of who had come through the door to my adopted parents’ mansion to close on business deals. For once, I wished I had been closer to Edwin in those times so I would have better answers.

“Make a deal with you, Chance,” she said. “I’ll do that, but I need something from you.”

“Anything.”

“A date.”

Damn. Clever girl.

“I did say anything, didn’t I,” I said, but I was wearing a smile. It would be nice. It would be right in line with what I’d thought earlier about needing to do things the right way. “Alright. You got yourself a deal.”

I went over and shook her hand, a move that was hilarious in its formality.

“Thanks, Layla,” I said.

“Thank me if I’m able to get anything.”

I wasn’t thanking her just for going to her uncle, though. I was thanking her for everything—her understanding, her generosity, her willingness to help, her everything.

Well, not quite everything. I wasn’t ready to thank her for something I couldn’t emotionally focus on…

But admittedly, in moments of relaxation, I definitely thought of those things just a little more.

66

Iagain spent the night in Layla’s bed, but just as the night before had gone, I didn’t have sex with her. I did kiss her good night, and I think she was on the verge of wanting me to go just a little bit further—she tried to reach over and my pull hips on top of hers—but I prevented it from moving any further. I’d have to face the questions about if I was really desiring her at some point, but for right now, I was focused on something very different.

How could I get enough juice together to get a raunchy or debilitating article out there?

I decided that it wasn’t going to be enough to get a kind of TMZ or Page Six article out for the world to see. Though I strongly suspected Edwin had cheated on Melanie regularly, that wasn’t exactly anything new, and unless I stumbled across a video of him in some sort of cocaine-fueled orgy somewhere, I wasn’t going to get anything of the sort.

No, I had to strike at the heart of what Edwin really valued—money. I had to show to the world that Edwin was not some business genius who had amassed a fortune, but simply something of a sick man who happened to know very well howto screw people over while also getting the most for himself. The only thing a man with money valued more than money was his reputation and how he got that money; everyone loved a good rags to riches story, but no loved a story in which those riches were supposed to belong to the neighbor next door.

I decided that based on this, the best approach was to take a story to the Wall Street Journal; of all the publications, they would seem most credible for bringing at attack from a business viewpoint, and they would be the most likely to want things that weren’t just him sleeping around. I was always open to a smoking gun right now, but a divorce wasn’t a hot enough fire to do anything other than draw a short article in the Journal.

I sat down and made a list of what I had, but unfortunately, all I had right now was just sort of heresay. I had a lot of things I had witnessed as a child, but the WSJ hadn’t made its reputation on the back of gossip and propaganda. The divorce proceedings, if they went public, might allow for some more information to get out into the world, but that was a pretty big if; right now, it seemed more likely that Edwin would pay Mom a billion to go away and never talk to him again. Not even Mom would have the desire to have her life dragged out in public, most especially knowing Edwin would fight dirty and without shame.

I did have the fact that John Burnson had gotten humiliated and tricked by Edwin Hunt, but that was more embarrassing than illegal. And even then, if something illegal had happened—which seemed far too unlikely, given my memory of how it had played out—it was more likely to fall on the shoulders of Layla’s uncle than on Edwin. It just didn’t seem like I had much.

So I decided to do something that felt more creative than productive. I just wrote down everything that I could think of, even if it led nowhere. If the idea was so much as a physical description of someone whom I thought might have gottencheated out by Edwin, I wrote it down. It probably wouldn’t lead anywhere, but what was so far?