Chapter 53
“ G OD FUCKING DAMNIT!”
As soon as I got outside her apartment and out of earshot of Claire McLendon, I laid into the nearest trash can I could find, punching it so hard I knocked it to the ground, creating an indentation with my knuckles and what was sure to be a giant bruise in the morning.
Oh, my hand hurt like hell. In fact, I dared to say that it might have even been broken.
But that was nothing compared to the unfathomable rage I felt toward Edwin Hunt at that moment. I had it in my right mind to head over to Hunt Industries, procure an elevator to the top, and wait until the old man got in and beat his ass to a fucking pulp.
It was one thing to come after me. It was another thing to go after Morgan, as cowardly as that was. But it was an entirely fucking different thing to go after an innocent girl who did nothing more than make an investment deal with a guy she had an attraction to. How fucking dare he.
I felt like the Hulk about to bust out and let loose on anything and everything I saw. If I could have, I would have found the nearest taxi cab and smashed the hood in until it looked more like a Slip n Side.
“FUCK!”
I kicked another trash can. This time, it felt like I stubbed my toe. I cursed even more, slumped against the wall, and cursed the name of Edwin Hunt.
A couple of people looked at me, but my scowl toward them eliminated any possibility of small talk. I didn’t want to speak to a damn soul in this world. I just wanted to scream.
And, I soon remembered, not only had this night cost me Claire McLendon, it had cost me Layla Taylor. Maybe that was for the best, but goddamnit, I wanted it on my terms.
Eventually, I picked myself up, if for no other reason than that I didn’t want to spend the cold night on the streets of Manhattan. But under better conditions, I might have just remained in the streets until my anger ran out or I passed out, neither of which seemed particularly likely.
I felt my phone buzz and saw that Sarah had messaged me on Facebook, but even this didn’t arouse me as much as it had before.
She called me handsome, again, but I wasn’t in the mood.
She’d be in town in a week anyways, and I could blow off some steam with her before moving on with the rest of my life.
I limped back to my apartment, a walk that took twice of long because of the self-inflicted injury.
It gave me plenty of time to mope. More than a few people seemed to move far away as I walked down the street, perhaps terrified of the dark expression on my face.
Good. I didn’t want to deal with society.
I didn’t want to deal with anyone for a long fucking time.
I would gladly have traded a few nights in the dumps or behind bars if it meant I got to land a good right hook on Edwin Hunt.
Finally, after what seemed like half of the darkness of night, I made it to my apartment. I slowly opened the door and saw Morgan on the couch.
“Dude,” he said, sounding judgmental.
Honestly, he probably wasn’t. But it all came together in that moment. His waffling. Who his father was. Claire’s situation. Layla and I. What I had experienced.
“I fucking HATE your father!” I roared.
“Dude, calm down,” Morgan said, clearly taken aback by my aggressive tone. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on,” I said, snorting and laughing sarcastically.
Poor Morgan looked terrified—maybe he’d be terrified enough that he’d stop being a bitch for his father and join me when he knew it was the right move.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on. You know how your father is fighting dirty with us?
Trying to get us to quit? Well, it’s not enough for him to go after us.
He wants to go after those associated with us.
So, guess what? He hired away all of Claire’s employees at Rising Sun.
She’s got no one but herself. She’s going to have to return our investment money and close the business. ”
I started laughing again, only to yell “FUCK!” again and smash our trash can over.
“Chance! Get it together!”
“No, fuck you Morgan, don’t pull that card on me!” I roared, pointing my finger at him. “You keep saying you want to go back to Edwin, but he’s a fucking bully and you know it damn well. Just because you’re being a goddamn bitch about it doesn’t mean you get to lash out at me!”
“What the fuck has gotten into you?!?” Morgan yelled back. “Do you think it’s so black and white? Did you ever stop to think about why I’m doing what I’m doing? Did you ever think I want the same thing, but rather than burn the whole building down, we just evict him and keep the building?”
“Not good enough, Morgan,” I said. Nothing is good enough from you right now. “Even if that was true, he just destroyed Claire’s dream business as a fuck you to us. What the fuck more proof do you need?”
“Do you have proof of this?”
“I don’t need proof!”
I knew how ridiculous that sounded, but really, come the fuck on. All half-dozen of Claire’s employees hired away on the same day? All quit on the same day? Only after MCH had made an investment? There was coincidence, there were miracles, and then there was the goddamn truth of what this was.
A game pulled by Edwin Hunt to ruin us.
“Chance, please, for the love of God, calm down,” Morgan said.
He had at least given me a few seconds to catch myself. In that anger, I decided to act with frustration in putting our trash can back up and redisposing of the materials that had fallen out.
“Look, if that’s true, then yes—”
“If?” I growled. “Six employees, gone, one day. You think that’s an if?”
“Chance, just… just go with me, OK?”
I didn’t say a word, which was as good of an acknowledgment as Morgan was going to get at this moment. My keeping my mouth shut was as good as me agreeing with him.
“If that’s true, then I will do whatever you want to do short of inflicting physical harm on my father. If that’s true, then dad is doing more than hurting us, he’s hurting innocent people. I won’t stand by that. But we need to prove that.”
“Morgan…”
“Chance, seriously. You want my honest opinion? It sounds like something he would do. But if we act recklessly and accuse him of it, he’ll know we suspect it and then he’ll cover his tracks even more carefully.
This is something that can only happen if we take our time to gather evidence.
We need to go and talk to those employees who got hired away.
If we pretend we’re just recruiters or something to that effect, we can find out where they now work and see if Hunt Industries has a piece of them.
Even if not, do you know how easily people share information on social media? It won’t be hard.”
I hated that Morgan was making a ton of sense, especially because it meant that I would have to slow down my actions. I couldn’t act so rashly and boldly if Morgan made this much sense.
“Goddamnit,” I said. I couldn’t acknowledge that anyone was right except me with how much anger I felt.
“How did Claire take it?”
“How the fuck do you think she took it?” I said. “She doesn’t want to see me anymore. And on top of that, I saw Layla, and—”
“You saw Layla? Dude, what the fuck?”
I sighed but couldn’t get angry at Morgan here. He didn’t know anything of her past. He didn’t know anything of her other than that she was the woman who had made a mockery in front of much of the New York City business crowd. In his eyes, Layla was probably the devil.
And, frankly, it was very possible that he wasn’t wrong if she was still lying about things.
“I know, I know, that’s a conversation for a different day. It doesn’t matter, she’s not going to see me right now.”
“I fucking hope so,” Morgan said. “I wouldn’t trust that woman to hold my bottle of water, let alone talk to about business.”
I bit my lip, looking to avoid escalating another fight.
“Fucking a,” I said, having to laugh at myself as I examined my swelling knuckles. “At least Sarah Hill is coming in next week.”
“Wait, who?”
I knew Morgan recognized the name immediately—he just couldn’t believe the name. In his defense, I also could barely believe it when I saw the name pop up.
“Sarah Hill,” I said, registering a small smile. “The one from middle school.”
“For real?”
“Yep, we’ve been flirting on Facebook back and forth,” I said. “She’s even sent me some photos. Apparently she got into some modeling in New Zealand.”
“Really,” Morgan said.
“Oh, yeah, dude, I’ll show you some other time when…”
I pulled out my phone. I realized I had never responded to Sarah’s message.
I also thought about the optics of showing my brother a naked pic of a girl who was going to be spending time with me soon and decided better of it—better to save it after she had left.
I didn’t want to risk the chance that she would appear, my brother would blurt something out, and then I wouldn’t get anything.
“When she’s gone,” I said. “Some secrets are best left for after the fact.”
“You could say that,” Morgan said. “And she’s coming here?”
“Indeed,” I said, proudly wearing a smile on my face.
“Huh, weird,” Morgan said. “I thought she was at a program in Oxford for the fall. Didn’t realize she’d get the free time to come down to New York City.”
“Maybe she’s on fall break or something,” I said, although I found it a bit strange that Sarah hadn’t mentioned anything about her being at an MBA program.
Then again, she hadn’t mentioned much besides us flirting back and forth.
It was like we were two teenagers who couldn’t have given a shit what the other one took for classes—we just wanted each other’s bodies.
“Well, regardless,” Morgan said. “Sorry about tonight. I’ll talk to Claire and do some investigating. Don’t worry, Chance. I swear to you. I’m on your side. You may not believe it. We have different ways of tackling this. But I swear I’m on your side.”
As if to prove a point, he stood up, walked over to me, and offered his hand. I took it, shook it, and then shook my own hand to get rid of the pain.
“You really fucked up your hand, huh? Who did you box?”
“You don’t want to know. And you’re asking the wrong question?”
“You went MMA on someone?”
“It’s more like what did I box.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Yep, this one’s going to hurt like a fucker the next few days. But it’ll be fine.”
I suddenly felt extraordinarily tired, and why wouldn’t I? I’d had drinks with Layla, had an emotionally turbulent night with Claire, and had all but come to blows with my brother. It was hard to think of a more physically demanding evening that didn’t involve sex in some capacity.
“Dude, I think I’m going to bed,” I said, taking my phone. “Sorry for blowing up.”
“I would have too if the roles were reversed,” Morgan said. “So don’t sweat it. Get some sleep. We’ll come up with a strategy in the AM.”
“Deal,” I said, moving past Morgan and into my bedroom.
I plopped onto the bed and was half a second from falling asleep in my clothes when my phone buzzed. I looked down and saw that Sarah had messaged me again. Deciding there was no harm to answering, I looked.
It was either the best decision I made all night or the one that would keep me up, because she had sent me a classy nude that had her face hidden and her groin covering her legs but had her breasts for my entire eyes to see.
“Oh, damn,” I said.
“Your turn,” she wrote back.
Well, damn, what was I supposed to do at that point? I wasn’t going to deny a lady a fair trade, most especially a fair trade like this.
Still, I wasn’t quite ready to send a dick photo on Facebook, not with everything going on. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t take a conveniently placed photo of my naked body.
And so, stripping down, I posed in front of the mirror, taking care to just tilt my front leg forward enough to hide my hardening cock.
I snapped the photo, examined it carefully to make sure nothing of my junk showed up, and smiled.
I may have had a lot of shit in my life, but I took damn good care of my body, and it showed.
Sarah would thoroughly enjoy what I had to offer.
I clicked send and sent a kissy emoji—which was rather unlike me, but it only seemed appropriate.
“Mmm,” she wrote back. “Can’t wait to take advantage of that.”
I laughed, but fatigue was now really getting to me. I wrote back, “And the same to you ;-)” and before I could write anything else, I passed out naked on my bed, not even making it under the covers.