Page 96 of Broken Brothers

“Yeah, and this one was weird,” Claire said. “He quit without any notice. Like, he walked into my office at 9 a.m. and said he was quitting on the spot. He was the first hire I’d ever made, a software developer, and he was with me the last fourteen months. I could see some of the more recent hires not being on board, but this one just seemed way the fuck out of nowhere. I had never expected him to quit.”

I didn’t see disappointment in Claire’s eyes, but I sure saw a hell of a lot of confusion. I wondered if this confusion was what I looked like during the whole fiasco with the Taylors.

“Did you ask if anything was going on?”

“Well, see, that’s the thing,” Claire continued. “I asked him for an exit interview and he looked like he wanted to get the hell out, as if someone was holding a gun to his head.”

The imagery struck me immediately. But it didn’t feel… possible.

“I eventually persuaded him to sit down and told him that we would do it off the record, in that I would not write anything down or record anything we discussed. It still took quite a bit of persuading and asking to get him to agree. And when I did… it was like I was a monster to him. He said that he had discovered some lies about the company that he didn’t want to believe, but he felt he had no choice but to.”

“Like what?”

As bizarre as it sounded… well, no, it didn’t really sound bizarre anymore.

This was Edwin Hunt’s game at work.

It had to be. There was no other explanation. Instead of attacking us directly and being obvious about it, Edwin was hurting those whom we liked and loved the most, suffocating them until we tapped out on behalf of them.

But if that were true—and it was a truth that I felt justified in assuming—then how had he known about Claire and I? How had he gotten enough research on her to know who her employers were? And how had he managed to effectively reach out to them in a way that got her lead developer to quit on the spot?

“He said that I had plans to sell the company and leave them all out to dry, that I was going to sell it to someone who would take the IP and then shut down the business,” she said. “I tried to emphasize to Karl that that wasn’t the case. Yes, I was looking for investors, he saw you when you walked in, but I wasn’t looking to sell. That was very different. But Karl said that’s what I would try and say.”

“Fuck,” I mumbled.

Claire thought I was empathizing, which I was, but more than that, I was realizing just how cruel and ruthless Edwin was. We were about to enter a world with no sacred cows other than Edwin’s cash flow. Not only were Morgan and I not safe, those close to us weren’t either.

Maybe you’re just being paranoid about all of this. It’s not inconceivable. She had an employee quit before this big blowup. Maybe she just doesn’t have the experience necessary to get a business up. She did well to get it where it is, but it didn’t have the escape velocity. Maybe…

“Well, I’m no software developer, but if you need any help with the business, just say the word,” I said with a smile.

“Chance, you’re sweet,” she said. “But I think I’m good for now. I mean, it’ll be more work for me, but…”

“It’s OK,” I said.

I felt really tempted to put my hand on her shoulder or on her hand, but I consciously stopped myself, fearful and paranoid of Edwin’s spies here. Just meeting in public was a risk, but at least we had the cover of being an investor-CEO combo.

Then again, it’s not like Edwin Hunt needed a scandalous reason to hurt me and those I cared about. He already had reason enough, and if he didn’t, he could probably fabricate something.

“Right now, MCH just has you and one other client in our portfolio,” I said as I took a gulp of my drink. “We’re looking for more, but I have plenty of time to help. It’s not like I want you to fail. One, that would mean we lose six figures, and that’s not fun. And two, I like you.”

“Chance.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are, and that’s why I want you to stop before you go to far,” she said with surprising force. “I know you and I can tell a lot about you already. Don’t get too wrapped up in my world before you suffer, OK?”

I grimaced and finished my drink. I just looked down at the glass for the longest time, knowing full well she was right.

Damnit, Claire was right. I had gotten wrapped up in Sarah Hill. I’d gotten wrapped up in Layla Taylor. And now, using the pretext of our business relationship and us “just being friends” as a shield, I was allowing myself to get wrapped up in Claire McLendon.

I had to fucking stop. I had to.

“OK,” I said with a sigh.

“Hey, don’t sweat it too bad,” she said with a wink. “You still get to come back to my place later tonight. I don’t think you have to worry about avoiding getting too wrapped up into that.”

I looked up into her eyes at that moment and saw the eyes of a girl starving for me. She’d had a day from hell, and there was only one antidote.