Page 184 of Broken Brothers

When I did, I saw a man who had been crying. It was almost laughable—what did he have to cry about in comparison to what he had done to everyone else? Here was a man who had absolutely no sense of perspective and deserved no pity in the world. Well, maybe he deserved pity, but not support and help.

“For all that you’ve done to me? I should have your fucking ass thrown in jail. Maybe you can learn what it’s like to take it up the ass like you’ve tried to deal with me for so long. Do you know what it’s like to go through life knowing the person who is supposed to be your father figure treats you like shit?”

Edwin glanced down.

“Hey, eyes up, fucker,” I snapped.

When Edwin refused to do so, I shrugged.

“Call the cops.”

“Fine,” Edwin said, quickly raising his eyes.

I smirked and crossed my arms.

“You know, I could handle a lot of shit from you, Edwin. I just grew accustomed to it and learned how the rules were. At least Melanie was someone I could call Mom. I had love from somewhere. And I had love from my brother, Morgan. But youknow what? I will never call you father, and that’s not my loss. It’s yours. Mom and my brother here proved they were worthy of being called those names, but you never even tried, so I never even saw it that way.

“And that’s just from the family side. For the amount of people you have fucked over in the business world, it would give people a great sense of karma and justice to see your ass locked up. You can go join Bernie Madoff in scheming ways to screw people over more.”

I let the silence weight on Edwin for a few moments as I relished how difficult this all was for him, how challenging it must have been to realize that he was defeated and there was no amount of negotiating he could do to get out of this. For once in his life, he was the one in a position where he could not get out of it; he was the one getting fucked, and in his mind, that might have been literal.

“Thus, for all of that, I should have Morgan call the cops right now.”

I should.

“But, unlike you, I have mercy,” I said. “Your greatest punishment is the fact that you’re going to die alone, knowing no one loves you. You don’t have more than a few years left in this world, Edwin. Whether you spend them here or behind prison bars makes no difference. You think you can take that money and buy a nicer home on the other side, if there is such a thing? No.”

“Chance?”

“Oh, don’t worry Morgan, I’m not letting him completely off the hook.”

I grabbed a chair, pulled it right up in front of Edwin, and met him at eye level.

“Here’s how this is going to work, Edwin,” I said. “You are going to announce to the board that you are going to retirewithin one month. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. When you retire, you are going to hand off your company stock to Morgan and I, fifty-fifty.”

“No!”

“No?” I said, laughing. “Then not only will you spend time in jail, we’ll release everything on these tapes to the world so your name will get dragged through the fucking mud. And by the way, lest you think that all we have are these tapes, I have a list of about two dozen people who are on record accusing you of unethical behavior, of you ruining them, and you berating them. So even if you find a way to weasel your way out of the legal system, the public courts will find you guilty before the police ever put you in a courtroom. And the court of the markets will drop Hunt Industries’ stock so fast you’ll wonder if there’s even a floor for you to hit.”

Edwin’s initial outburst had come not of anger but of desperation. I don’t think I’d ever seen a man who had gone so long in his life without losing, or at least such losses were so rare they barely registered. But this was well beyond a loss. This was an annihilation of his empire.

“What about seventy-five twenty-five?”

“No.”

I was surprised to hear that it wasn’t me who had said that, but Morgan.

“Fifty-fifty, Dad. That’s the deal.”

Edwin dropped his head, rubbed his hands over his face, and groaned.

“I gotta admit, boys, if I wasn’t so damn pissed, I’d be impressed,” he said. “This is the kind of business move that would—”

“That we would never do if you weren’t such a shithead,” I interrupted. “You think we wanted to do this? Unlike you, we’re clean businessmen. But we knew that to fight the devil, you’vegot to play on his terms. So say you’re impressed all you want, Edwin. We’re never going back to this.”

Edwin had no response. Good. I liked him when he had shut the hell up and didn’t have anything more to say.

“So let me understand this right,” Edwin said. “I am to resign within one month. I am to give you my shares fifty-fifty.”