Page 185 of Broken Brothers

“And Chance gets in the will with an equal amount to me,” Morgan said.

“Morgan, are you—”

“I mean, you can not do it, and then I’ll give him the money anyways.”

Morgan really has been on my side this whole time. I’ll be damned. It was all a setup, all a part of his plan to topple my adoptive father.

I just can’t believe this actually happened. People never follow through on their promises to me. They always abandoned or hurt me.

And yet, here we are.

“Very well,” Edwin said.

“And let me make one thing clear, boy,” I said, using his derogatory term that he so liked to apply to me. “You will make this announcement tomorrow. If I do not receive word from Morgan that you have announced your resignation, effective within one month, then I will send all of this to both the police and the Wall Street Journal, and you can kiss all of this goodbye.”

“And if I do resign?”

“Then so long as nothing else shady happens for the rest of our lives, these tapes and notes will remain confidential,” I said. “But don’t think just because you agree to our terms that we’re done forever. If I see people following me or trying to kill me, or if I think that you’re trying to hack my email or intimidate me, the deal is off and I’m going to the press. You got it?”

“Yeah,” Edwin said.

The part that I didn’t mention, just because it sadly would not have resonated with Edwin as much, was that his greatest loss was losing the love of his wife and his son. It had been thought before but it could not be thought enough. There was no greater counterexample of how to live than Edwin Hunt.

If I lived my life completely opposite of Edwin Hunt, then I think I’d have a pretty damn good life.

“Shake on it,” I said.

I stood over him, making sure the message was clear—I was the one in charge now, and so was Morgan. My brother came and stood by my side. Edwin looked up into my eyes, gave a long sigh, and gave the limpest handshake I had ever felt in my life.

“No wonder you’re so weak,” I said. “I’ve felt a harder handshake from dogs.”

“By end of day tomorrow, Dad,” Morgan said. “And remember the rest of the deal.”

With that, I headed out the door, cradling the recording close to me. Morgan followed me to the elevator, clasping a hand on my shoulder.

“Didn’t I tell you to believe me no matter what happens?”

I just laughed. What else could I say to that?

“You really stretched my belief in you, you know,” I said. “But I’ll be damned if I ever doubt you again.”

74

Isat down the next day, with no alarm clock set, at Joe’s Latte, finally free to sit in this goddamn coffee shop without having to worry about hiding from Edwin’s lackeys, without having to worry about spies, and without having to worry about much of anything, really.

Although I don’t think I had read a physical newspaper in perhaps a decade or so, I found that today was a good reason to do so. I grabbed a copy of the Wall Street Journal, smiled at the main headline, and leaned back into my booth.

“Edwin Hunt, Founder of Hunt Industries, to Retire End of Quarter.”

Admittedly, it wasn’t exactly what Morgan and I had requested. But the board had pushed back on Edwin’s abrupt request, saying that one month was too short a time. Unlike Edwin, we had consideration for what was only fair and what was outside the control of the individual. We weren’t going to make the old man go to jail just because the board would not allow him to resign two months earlier than it wanted.

And besides, the most important part of this all was that it was now public. There was no going back on such a claim nowthat the whole world now, most especially since Edwin had cited his health and his desire to relax a little bit more. No one was going to believe that a man of his age was suddenly healed and feeling better, most especially while going through a public and probably soon-to-be bitter divorce.

Most of all, though, I had won.

No, actually, that wasn’t the most important thing. It was a very important thing, but the whole game had left me a little jaded to the extremities of competition. The most important thing was that when Layla and Morgan had asked me to believe in them and love them no matter what, they had actually followed through.

Almost no one had ever done that for me in my life. It just felt so far-fetched to believe people when they asked you to make promises, and with Edwin as the father figure in my life, that made all too much sense. But now, thanks to their actions, I had just a little bit more faith in humanity.