Page 172 of Broken Brothers

“You should at least see who it is,” she said. “Might be an emergency.”

“There’s no emergency short of this building burning down that is gonna make me quit this,” I said as I reached into my pants and pulled out my phone. “The fuck, Andrew? What the hell—”

“Babe, take it,” Layla said. “I’m just gonna be thinking of you as I keep myself aroused. OK?”

I really, really, really did not want to take it. I really, really, really wanted to go down on Layla and go back to what we’d had, except with much better honesty and transparency. And I was also really, really, really goddamn horny and barely able to stop myself from getting inside her right now.

“Babe.”

“Fuck!” I said in frustration, though I did smile to assuage her. “Fine. I’ll be two minutes, tops.”

I moved out, kissing her breasts once more before I answered the phone, trying to collect myself to be pleasant—I didn’t think it would be very professional to tell Andrew I was in the middle of eating out a love interest when he was calling.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I said. “Can you make it quick?”

“Well, Chance, you need to know something,” he said. “I’m in a restaurant bathroom right now. I’m at dinner with Edwin Hunt.”

Are you fucking kidding me?

“Jesus Christ, seriously?” I groused, trying my best not to swear on the phone. “OK, let’s… tell me why. Tell me what’s going on. Just lay it all out for me, Andrew.”

“OK,” Andrew said.At least he’s still more or less beholden to what I have to say and recommend. He’s not just going to keel over and take everything Edwin says. He’s in my corner.“He’s saying a lot of nasty things about you. He’s saying you are untrustworthy and that the reason he took over MCH was because of your fiscal irresponsibility. He said that you lost your home because you couldn’t handle being an adult, and… Chance, is it true?”

“No,” I said, which I believed was technically accurate. It was not true that I had lost my home because I couldn’t handle being an adult—and he had not asked if any element of that was true. “It’s not. Listen, Andrew, is there any way you can get rid of him?”

“I don’t know, we just sat down.”

“Damnit,” I said. “OK, Andrew, this is what you need to do.”

I was making this all up as I went, but then again, how the hell could I have expected for Edwin to pull something like this?

“He is going to pressure you to give him a majority of the company. No matter what happens—no, matter, what, Andrew—you cannot give anything to him. It is all lies. He is going to use some nasty tricks and some pleasant tricks. He’s going to jocularly call you an idiot and a fool. He’s going to get angry with you. He’s a master negotiator, but only on the surface level, because everything he does is designed to benefit him at the expense of you. And if you really do feel pressure to take the deal, wait. Edwin will say many things designed to make you believe that if you don’t take his offer right then, that he’ll pull it off the table forever, but I’ve never seen that be the case. And no matter what, Andrew—again, no, matter, what—do not take any deal.”

“No matter what?”

“Yes, no matter what,” I said, having visions of Edwin doing something insane like offering thirty million dollars for a majority control—enough to make Andrew feel fine… untilAndrew saw that it would vest over a term of like thirty years or some other bullshit that he wouldn’t notice until it was too late. “I can promise you, Andrew, I have never said this so strongly to you before, but any deal you make with Edwin Hunt is a deal with the devil.”

“I just feel powerless, Chance,” Andrew said. “I want—”

“Listen, Andrew,” I said, realizing I had to roll the dice. “Truth is, I’m working on an expose for the Wall Street Journal about Edwin Hunt’s behavior, which ranges from unethical to probably illegal in some fashion, at least as far as if you follow the money. This is what I want you to do, OK? Send me everything you hear from the meeting. Everything. If you can record the meeting, even better. Then…”

I had a terrible suspicion that Edwin would eventually find a way to read my emails if he hacked them; I didn’t quite believe he had the capability, NSA-style, to listen in to my phone calls, although such a revelation would draw no surprise from me.

“Send them to my girlfriend’s email address. Layla.Taylor95 at gmail dot com, OK?”

“Got it,” Andrew said after repeating her email back to me. “Chance, I’m scared.”

I took a deep breath. For once, I could sympathize with Andrew’s timidity in the face of something. This time, the threat was real.

“Just do what you can, OK buddy?” I said, realizing that on some level, even if Andrew caved and gave a percentage to the company, my eventual revelation would force Edwin to sell anyways. “Just stay strong and send whatever you can to that email address.”

“Got it. Thank you, Chance. You have always been a big help.”

“I’ll be thanking you more if you’re able to help with this, bud.”

With that, I hung up, bouncing the phone in my hand for a bit. I realized that I had just given Layla’s email—while calling her my girlfriend—as part of a mission to take down a corrupt billionaire. Such a move was… well, it might have been a bit wrong.

I turned to see Layla standing in the doorway, a smirk on her eyes. She was still in nothing but her underwear, and goddamn was it a beautiful sight—except for the fact that I was also pretty sure that she was going to kill me.