38. Liam
LIAM
“Damn I’m hungry!” Max says, his hand already moving toward the kofta.
I swat it. “Let it rest!”
“Ugh.” He runs a finger through the jus pooling under the meat and sucks it. “Every time.”
“Every time you try to grab it before it’s ready.”
We sit outside with heaped plates, the Long Island air rolling in from the water. Max eats in silence for a minute. That’s how I know something’s coming.
“These are good,” he says. “You always take care of people.”
“I take care of assets.”
He shakes his head. “You took care of me.”
I don’t respond.
“I still remember that night,” he continues. “Dawn. Mom and Dad were still asleep.”
“Drunk,” I correct.
“Yeah. Drunk,” he says. “You packed my clothes first. Made sure my stupid toys fit in the bag.”
I give a half smile. “We didn’t need toys.”
“You made space anyway. You left your baseball glove behind.”
I shrug. I left far more important things behind, but that glove wasn’t a sacrifice. It was a reminder of how fucked my relationship with my father was.
I nudge us out of it. “I’ll still protect you when you’re old and complaining about your back.”
He smiles. He knows I mean it.
“What is it?” I ask. “Why the nostalgia?”
“How’s it going with Helen?”
“Good,” I say. “Great.” She’s the closest I’ve come to something real. And God help me, I can still feel her, with those pale streaks on her thighs.
“That’s why.”
I look at him.
“I feel like I’m about to watch you walk down an aisle,” he says. “And I’ll be the last available Hunt in New York.”
I punch his arm. “Boxing nights aren’t canceled.”
“Here’s something you might not know,” he replies, full of wisdom. “Once you’re married, bruises don’t look as appealing to her.”
I’m about to laugh, but my brother has got a point.
He drags the last piece of lamb off the skewer with his teeth, wipes his hand on a napkin, and then looks at me. “I dug into Victor.”
“What about him?”
“His venture isn’t exactly setting Wall Street on fire, but apparently that didn’t stop him from dropping twenty-five million on a private jet.”
I put my plate away. “He what?”
“Secondhand. But still. And he charged it to the fund.”
“He didn’t pick up a house as well, did he?” I ask. “He’d been eager to play neighbor.”
“Not yet,” Max replies. “But he did something better. He borrowed against the fund. Big facility through a European lender.”
“Fuck.” I shove my chair back. “I personally asked Greigson to back him.”
Max doesn’t react. “He’s stretched. He’ll grab at anything to fill the gap. The latest shortfall is just over one-point-six.”
The same number tied to Helena’s townhouse.
“You need to talk to Greigson,” he says.
“I will,” I answer, already pulling out my phone. “He won’t lose a cent.”
But Greigson is business. This is her home.
I bring up the investment trail Anna used.
“Thought you were calling Greigson?” Max says.
“He can wait. I’ll handle him. This is Helena.”
One-point-six isn’t a line on paper. It’s her mortgage. And if Victor thinks he can let her take the fall while he saves his own ass, he’s mistaken.