Chapter 74
I sat 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 now that 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.
And speaking of Morgan…
I saw him walk through with a noticeable pep in his step, feeling as unencumbered and free as I had ever seen him.
Even though he had stayed up well past midnight with the board during an emergency meeting and had probably slept less than five hours total, he couldn’t have looked much chipper and upbeat.
“You look alive!” I said.
“How could I not be when I’m looking at the newest board member of Hunt Industries?”
I just laughed. It still felt surreal to realize that which we’d set out to do with MCH had actually happened; and not only that, Edwin would not be taking it over, meaning Virtual Realty could grow and, perhaps most justly, Rising Sun could return to what it once was.
So surreal, in fact, that I still had no idea how the hell it had all happened.
“Too crazy,” I said. “OK, so, tell me. How the hell did this all go down? I’m trying to make sense of it but boy, let me tell you… I spent a good week or so there hating your guts with every ounce of my being.”
“As I probably would have too,” Morgan said. “OK, you got everything? This might take some time.”
“Hell, I ain’t going anywhere,” I said. “Let the damn board figure out its own business with two of its members in absentia.”
“Agreed. OK, so. There came a point a few weeks ago where I realized that as much as I wanted to with you, I could never outwit my dad by being on the other side. I didn’t hate him as much as you do, but after seeing what he did to you with Burnson Investments and Craig Taylor, it felt like a straw too far for me.
Fuck over other people, yeah, not ideal, but it doesn’t hit home as hard as seeing you suffer for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It was here that I decided I wanted to see him overthrown. ”
“Makes sense,” I said.
“But, again, I just didn’t see how when we were together.
I knew I had to go back to Hunt Industries and be with Edwin, but I knew if I acted in any way other than to pretend to throw you to the curb, Edwin would see right through it.
Trust me, I felt horrible for what I did.
There were many a nights in which I just wondered if I was doing the right thing, or if I hadn’t driven you over the edge. ”
“I was never going to leave this place or kill myself, if that’s what you’re wondering,” I said. “It hurt like hell, but you know I’m a fighter. I’ve had to be ever since I came into your family.”
“That, I’m well aware of,” Morgan said, a hint of a smile forming on his face. “So, yeah, I had to put you through the hell that I did to make Edwin believe that everything I had done was a means to get rid of you entirely.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me? I could have faked it.”
“Didn’t want to risk it,” Morgan said, although he didn’t look great about that being the reason. “I felt like if you truly felt like you’d been betrayed, your anger and your behavior would seem much more real. Edwin didn’t get to where he is by falling for tricks.”
“It sure as fuck was real,” I said, followed by some boisterous laughter from both of us. “So then what?”
“Well, that’s where it got fun,” he said. “I had Layla act as the middle man between us.”
“Fucking knew it!” I said, snapping my fingers.
“Yeah, the only problem with that was that I didn’t trust Layla at all. I know that you two were getting closer again, and by the way, I need to know what’s going on with that when we’re done here, but my trust for her was shot after what happened with her uncle.”
And who could blame him? I don’t think Morgan ever knew, or even knew now, about her relationship with her uncle.
There were so many details left unsaid to him that, if properly explained, might have allowed for some empathy on his behalf for her.
But seen from the outside, from Morgan’s position, I could easily see why he didn’t trust her.
“But there was no one else I could go to, no one else whom I knew you’d be around.
Claire, maybe, but with Rising Sun dealing with so much trouble, I didn’t think she’d be up for it.
So I tested her at first with small bits of information.
Not even things you knew. Just things that she could easily refute, like joking about how you must be going out for a drink with her on a weekday.
When I saw how fiercely she defended you and stood up for you, I knew I could…
well, trust is a strong word, but have available for your sake was something real. ”
The more I heard, the more my feelings for Layla began to grow.
I still had a whole lot with her to figure out, not the least of which included if I’d give in to her wishes to move out of New York City…
but those could wait until I saw her later.
For now, I just wanted the debriefing on our greatest business triumph and our greatest proof yet that karma was real.
“Basically, she was the one I gave the recording to initially, she was the one who kept me updated on you, and… yeah. Without her, we wouldn’t be here.”
“No kidding,” I said, feeling a bit speechless.
If ever there was anything anyone could do to make up a public embarrassment like Layla had given me a couple of months ago… boy, had she done it and then some. She’d gone well beyond anything any reasonable person would do to make up for something so atrocious.
“A lot of smoke and mirrors,” I said. “A lot. So Mom? Melanie?”
“Oh, that’s absolutely real,” Morgan said, not looking nearly as broken up about it as I had feared.
“I think it had been on her mind for far longer than either of us would care to think about. I think she stayed with him for me and you, at first, but then she just needed something to jump ship. You fighting gave her the inspiration, and so here she is, extracting herself from him like we are.”
“Damn,” I said.
It all felt… well, it was easy for me, but I wondered how this was all weighing on Morgan.
“Is she staying after?” I said.
“Yeah, she doesn’t want the house,” Morgan said. “She just wants his money. She’s going to rent a place here in the city so she can be close to us.”
I decided not to make mention of Layla’s request here.
That was something I’d need to spend more than a few nights and weeks thinking about, given that it wasn’t just a matter of giving up my city, but now also my family—and yes, I was more than willing to say Melanie was my Mom and Morgan was my brother.
“Good on her,” I said, my mind elsewhere. “And how are you doing?”
“Me?” Morgan said, looking like he wanted to dismiss the question at first but then slowly coming back to answering it.
“That’s… honestly, maybe I should feel more guilty for saying this, but the only real relationship I’ve ever had with my father was a business one.
Thus, I can’t judge him as a son or anything like that, but only as a man who runs a business.
He failed, and not because of bad luck, but because of malpractice and everything else in between.
So I don’t really have a personal relationship to fall back on. ”
Now it was his turn to lean back into the booth, giving a long sigh.
“I suppose a therapist would have a field day unpacking that, and I suspect that it’ll play out as such when the time comes. But for right now? It’s more just acceptance that justice has been rendered on a man who deserved it.”
Morgan was right, that was a bit of an oversimplification that would need unpacking.
Not knowing my biological father had never played an especially harsh role in my life, but it certainly played a role in my feeling that life was one series of abandonments after another.
What had happened with Layla and Morgan here seemed like the exception, not the new normal…
but it had opened the door for it to become the new normal.
In any case, though, Morgan would have plenty of time to figure htat out.
“In any case, Chance, allow me to offer you a huge apology,” Morgan said.
“You went through so much hell through all of this, much of it because of my actions, but you never faltered. You never quit or asked out. You kept fighting, as you said, and because of that fight, you’re here now. So, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “The nature of our business—of the business of the world—is that feelings don’t matter, results do. It’s tiring at times and I’m glad it’s done, but most of all, I’m glad we got the result we did.”
Although I’d stated it so simply, I was beyond glad it was done.
I was feeling a little existential, to be honest. Was a series of silly, ultimately meaningless games in business all that life had to offer?
Was the world of making money nothing more than a series of bloodlettings to get to the pile of green before the other?
Was that really the world I wanted to live in?
I currently had a million dollars in my bank account from Mom and would likely have way more soon as a board member and when Virtual Realty and Rising Sun took back off.
To many in New York City, that was just a starting point, not something that someone could look at with pride.
And yet, outside of these walls of business, outside of the circle that we ran in, a million bucks was no fucking joke. It was enough to change lives.
Did I really want to play in games that the people involved in saw as quite trivial but the people affected on the outside saw as life-changing?
I didn’t have a real answer, but just the fact that I was asking these questions made me wonder how much longer it would be before I just took myself out of the game entirely.
“You know, the craziest part of this all, I know we touched on this some, but Layla,” Morgan said, his voice one of utter disbelief. “For what she did to you? I thought you’d never want to talk to her again.”
“I didn’t, not right after everything that went down. But… funny how that worked out, huh?”
And then Morgan asked me the most pointed question yet on that, the one that I knew was going to set the tone to resolve my final pressing issue.
“Indeed,” he said. “And how is that going to work out from here?”
I had no idea.
Well, OK, I had a general feeling of where things were going. But I’d push them off for so long to focus on Edwin Hunt that I had never given them the thoughts that they deserved. And now, with Edwin out of the picture, there wasn’t anything left to figure out but to simply ask one question.
Would Layla Taylor be the one?
“I guess we’ll finally get a real answer to that.”