8. Liam
LIAM
The call with Redwood wraps in under twenty minutes. No surprises, no resistance. It’s exactly how it should be on a Saturday morning.
Max sits across from me with his jacket off, sleeves rolled, one ankle resting on his knee. My home boardroom isn’t a replica of Hunt & Hunt headquarters. It’s a place where things get done, comfortably.
I swipe the blinds open.
The bay stretches out beyond the glass, blue and open, sunlight moving across the water as sailboats drift at their own pace. This is why I chose Long Island. Work and life overlap here, but neither crowds the other.
Max joins me at the window. “So,” he says, glancing out. “What’s in store for the rest of the day? Saving more four-legged friends?”
We leave the boardroom and step outside. The main house sits apart from it, connected by a covered walkway that runs alongside a collection of orchids brought in from as far as Papua New Guinea. They thrive here without much fuss.
“Well,” I say, “Barabas the shepherd has made a full recovery. Mr. Johnson’s ferret found a playmate and hasn’t staged a jailbreak in three days. Everything seems stable.”
“A miracle.”
“Which means,” I continue, “I’m free to pursue my other hobby.”
He bumps my shoulder. “The sheriff fantasy.”
“Dream,” I correct.
He grins. “Alright, brother. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Where are you off to?”
“Lunch.”
“Date?”
Max grimaces. “Has anyone ever told you lunch is the friendship zone?”
“Huh.”
“I’m meeting Mara.”
I stop walking. “Max. That woman is walking down the aisle in two months.”
“I know. Dinner might say I’m playing with fire. That’s why it’s lunch.” He’s too composed for someone playing that close to the edge.
Max lifts a shoulder. “Anyway. What about Helena Mercer and your friend Victor? All that mess with the attackers. You checked in on them? Or…her?”
“I don’t play with fire,” I remind him, and keep walking.
Because the truth is, I still see her in that tight velvet dress, shoving a man twice her size and kicking off those heels to run after Victor. There’s been a “breakthrough,” according to the media. The suspect was some rich fool with a history involving her sister.
I’m glad it’s over. For her, and for Victor.
It isn’t my concern, but that doesn’t stop the muscle in my cheek from ticking.
Max watches me. “Even a spark,” he says, “can turn into something bigger. Just saying.”
I follow him outside. He unlocks his Porsche then gets in, confident, unscarred by the weight he used to carry. For a second, I miss the version of him who needed me to tie his shoes and stay close.
He toots twice as he drives away.
I was better at being a big brother when he was six.
I cross into my study and slide the concealed panel aside. The cabinet moves out smoothly from behind the bookcase.
The contents are practical. A shotgun set up for clays. A couple of handguns tuned for paper and steel. No hunting rifles. No trophies. Nothing here has ever followed a living thing into the field.
What did isn’t in this room anymore.
There are lines you cross when someone you love is standing on the other side of them. Now, I shoot for discipline and repetition.
I take out the one I use most. A Glock, familiar in my hand, chosen for the same reasons I admired the badge when I was a kid.
When I close the cabinet, my phone rings.
Victor.
“Hey, my favorite Hunt,” he says. “What are you up to today?”
“Heading to the range. West Side. You want in?”
A laugh crackles through the line. “Between landing at Newark and now, firearms haven’t exactly been top of mind.”
“Fair.”
“So,” he says. “Alternative?”
“Lunch?”
“That’s disappointing,” he says. “I was hoping you still knew how to make bad decisions.”
I chuckle to myself.
“Casino,” he adds. “Prove me wrong.”
“I’m not in the mood to lose money recreationally.”
“Lost your edge?”
“No,” I say. “I’ve learned the difference between risk and noise.”
“Ouch. You used to enjoy the noise.”
“I used to enjoy being thirty.”
A low chuckle. “Ah. Maturity.”
I’ve already had my fill of that word today.
“Fine,” Victor says. “Your move.”
“My place. Five courses. Open grill.”
“Bold choice,” he says. “Are you planning to sacrifice your upholstery to smoke?”
Victor has seen my city apartment. When he disappeared to Europe, it was still my primary residence and this place was unfinished. He knows my taste. He doesn’t yet know the scale.
“Long Island,” I say.
A quiet second passes on the line. “Long Island,” he repeats. “So it finally stopped being future tense. You cook?”
“You hungry or not?”
“Very well,” he says, conceding the point. “Lead on, domestic god.”
Victor arrives on time. His car appears on the discreet monitor beneath the cabinetry as I pull ingredients from the fridge. It then stops beneath the sweep of the facade. He steps out in a jacket that fits like it was tailored this morning, sunglasses in place.
One of the groundsmen approaches before Victor heads to the front entrance. He courteously redirects him toward the flagstone path that runs along the side of the house.
I step out onto the back terrace to meet him. Victor lowers his sunglasses, gazing at the Sound stretched wide beyond the grass.
“Impressive,” he says.
“It’s quiet out here,” I reply.
He turns to face me fully now. Whatever he expected at the front of the house, this wasn’t it.
I gesture toward the doors behind me. “Come inside.”
The transition from terrace to interior is seamless, glass folding away so the air moves freely through the space. The kitchen sits at the center of the house, professional-grade without looking like a showroom.
“Is that an almond cake?” He nods toward the counter.
“It will be.”
He steps closer, glancing at a prepared pan rests beside a bowl of glaze and a scatter of sliced almonds. “You bake.”
“For dessert,” I say. “Once it’s finished, we’ll have it with Baileys over milk and ice.”
He removes his sunglasses, eyes narrowing as he takes me in instead of the cake. “I leave you alone for a few years and you turn into someone’s husband.”
“Relax. I’m not knitting.”
I set the timer, leave the cake in the oven and steer him back outside.
The terrace opens into the yard in a series of shallow steps, stone giving way to grass and then to the outdoor kitchen. The patties rest on a tray beside the built-in grill, seasoned and ready.
“Burger?” Victor asks.
“Your favorite.”
He lifts a brow. “You don’t know my favorite.”
“I used to,” I say. “Back when we went to that place in Brooklyn with the cracked red stools and the owner who refused to write anything down.”
“That place shut down.”
“He retired,” I say, flipping the patties. “I asked for the sauce before he set sail to Jamaica. I told him I wouldn’t ruin it.” I step in front of the outdoor fridge and open it. “Lager? Or San Pellegrino.”
“Sparkling.”
We begin with light starters. Something from the sea. We talk idly about New York commuting, about where the boat could reach from here. Then I turn back to the grill, working the heat and timing without needing to think about it, letting the conversation continue alongside.
“You don’t swing like you used to,” he comments.
I smirk. “I learned when to.”
“To visible effect,” he replies, taking in the house and the water beyond.
The burgers come together cleanly. Melted cheese, toasted buns, the sauce brushed on at the end. I plate his first and pass it across. He takes a bite, chews, then pauses.
“Jesus, Hunt,” he says around it. “I don’t care how you swing now. If you keep feeding me like this, I might reconsider everything.”
I chuckle. “Let’s not get emotional.”
The next courses pass without hurry. After I bring out the cake, I pour the Baileys over ice and milk, and slide the glass toward him.
Victor leans back in his chair, taking it all in now.
“So,” he says. “What do you think of her?”
“Who?”
He scoffs. “Catch up, Liam. Helena Mercer.”
“She’s fine,” I say, keeping it neutral.
“She’s spectacular,” Victor says. “Volatile. I acquire companies with fewer moving parts.”
“That explains your success rate.”
He laughs, delighted. “She keeps me awake. Keeps me sharp.”
“She called you Jagger,” I say. “That was new.”
“Family thing. We grew up close.”
“You’re more a Mick than a Jagger.”
He scoffs. “It was because of the Adam Levine song.”
I whistle a bar of Move Like Jagger.
“That’s the one,” Victor confirms.
“Makes sense,” I reply. “You’ve always believed in first-mover advantage.”
“Honestly, she called me that because she believed hips don’t lie.”
I bark out a laugh. “That’s considerably more innocent than I expected.”
He nudges his glass toward me for more ice. “She challenges me. That’s rare.” He takes a slow sip of the Baileys, a smile forming. “I used to think of myself as her self-appointed guardian. Chasing off rude boys. Telling her what not to touch.”
“And?”
“There was a summer when she found an injured snake,” he says. “Copperhead. She couldn’t have been more than eight.”
I stare at him. “A copperhead.”
“Small one,” he says, like that helps. “I told her to leave it alone. She looked at me and said, ‘If you’re afraid of poison, you’ll be afraid of everything.’ Then she picked it up.”
“That’s not courage,” I say, though something in me admires her. “That’s reckless. She got bitten?”
“No. She wrapped it in her jacket and made me carry it to a ranger.” He shakes his head. “I don’t even know where she got the idea. But she meant it. Help what’s hurt. Deal with the danger later.”
I take that in.
“Why did you leave her?”
“Jesus, Hunt, I wasn’t going to marry an eighteen-year-old.”
I’m not certain how old Helena is now. Mid-twenties, maybe.
If that’s right, then I already knew Victor back then.
Strictly business. It wouldn’t have crossed my desk if he was seeing someone.
Still, the idea of him with other women in the Game while dating Helena sits badly with me.
But I keep it to myself. It was eight, maybe ten, years ago.
“I mean,” he adds, “the big brother thing stopped working when she turned seventeen. I went along with it. I liked her. Really liked her. We declared we’d never leave each other. But when you’re that young, you know it’s never gonna work.”
“So,” I say. “You two official now?”
“Getting there. Anything worth keeping takes patience, Hunt. I’ve learned that.”
I give him a small nod. “You always did prefer the long game.” I shelve the rest of my thoughts. Dwelling on a friend’s history is an indulgence I can do without.
The conversation slips into old territory after that.
Familiar jokes. Half-remembered nights. The years when we were younger and certain wisdom had nothing to do with age.
Victor, younger than Max, was already fluent in capital before most people understood consequence.
He’d been raised around it—father, grandfather, uncles, money treated like a second language—but proved he could play without being carried.
Victor was the first who showed me how to look past luck, and how to see structure where I’d been relying on instinct.
Back then, mistakes weren’t theoretical.
One bad call could empty more than an account.
Especially when your younger brother was still finding trouble faster than you could outrun it, and home was the place you learned to leave.
“You know,” Victor says, “maybe age does count after all. Look at you. Look at this house.” He studies the water, then the breadth of the facade. “And that Hong Kong move—I still don’t know how you pulled it off.”
“Did what I had to.”
“And not just that,” he adds. “You keep the rest of it…separate.”
“The rest of what?”
“Women. Relationships. The mess.”
“I don’t have a love life,” I say. “I have arrangements.”
“Forward thinking.” He taps the air with a finger. “That’s a kind of wisdom that comes later.”
“You saying I’m past it?”
“Oh no,” he says, waving it off. “I think you’ve got it right.” He tips his glass toward me. “Look at me. Completely distracted by someone I’ve known forever.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing.” He dismisses the word with a shrug. “I just waited too long. I thought keeping the friendship intact was the smarter play.” His mouth twists. “I did love Jess—my ex-wife.”
“What? You have an ex-wife?”
“Yeah. Married and divorced in the same lifetime how about that?” he reveals.
“Hey, sorry man. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“That’s okay, Hunt. That part was real. But when you keep stepping around the same thought, it doesn’t disappear. It just stays there.”
I let that sit. I’ve seen how marriages come apart. Want doesn’t vanish because you ignore it. It just finds another way through. Maybe I learned early to shut that door. Or maybe I never opened it wide enough to begin with.
“So you and Jess are done,” I say. “No going back.”
“Unfortunately.” He doesn’t dress it up. “I want Helen. I’m done pretending otherwise.”
I take a sip of my drink. “You’ll be fine. Just don’t forget to invite me to the wedding.”
He smiles. “You’ll be my best man.”
“I’m hard to refuse in a tux.”
“That’s true,” he says. “But mostly, I know you won’t forget the ring.”
We toast to that.