Chapter 56 #2
“First of all, Morgan has agreed to come back to Hunt Industries and give me his shares of Morgan & Chance Holdings, effective in three months, in return for a seven figure salary.”
“You bastard!”
I didn’t yell at Edwin but at Morgan, who still could not look me in the face. What in the actual fuck was wrong with him? He had $50 million in the bank and he sold out for a salary two percent of that? He gave our company to his father?
What the actual fuck…
“This means that in three months time, you and I will be equal partners at the company, Chance,” he said. “And frankly, I don’t like to operate businesses that aren’t turning a profit. So I may just shut the thing down.”
If I could have killed a man with my stare, I would have done so for Morgan.
“Second, it has come to my attention that your rent is currently being paid for by my wife and my son. If you do not accept a real working job—with benefits, six figure pay, and opportunity for advancement—I will take it you are not interested in working and will have to kick you out so you can figure it out on your own.”
“Fuck this,” I said, finally cracking. “I’ve been trying to figure it out on my own this whole damn time. Morgan, you’re a sellout. Edwin…”
I almost said so many things, but the fear I was being recorded and watched prevented me from saying more. It did not stop me, however, from standing up and preparing to leave.
“Chance, before you go—”
“What, what could you possibly tell me?”
“I am here to tell you you need to consider all factors,” Edwin said, smiling. “I haven’t told you everything yet.”
Morgan’s face turned red. I had a terrifying feeling of what was going on.
“It’s come to my attention, Chance, that you have a propensity for carrying your bad behavior to the Internet.”
Nothing more needed to be said. I felt a soccer kick to the gut and wanted to throw up everything. I knew immediately what he meant as it all came together in my mind.
The Sarah Hill I had spoken to… that wasn’t the real Sarah Hill… it was a fake profile used to get me to send incriminating photos… the real Sarah Hill would never have done something like that… I had been used by women again… no, worse, by a man using my childhood crush to manipulate me…
How…
Fucking…
Could…
“We have here photographic evidence which, heavens, I know I wish I—”
“FUCK YOU!”
I slammed the chair to the side and lunged over the table. I felt someone tackle me to the ground and I struggled to get up. Morgan had me on the ground.
“Chance! No! This is not—”
“Fuck you too!” I yelled, punching him in the face.
“Security!” Edwin yelled into something.
“Chance! Stop! Please! You need to calm—”
“I need to calm down?! Is that what you’re going to tell me?
!?” I said, shoving Morgan off. I stood.
I had just a modicum of self-control not to hit the old man, though I did glare at him and point with my finger.
“You are a fucking evil soul, you know that? I don’t know if there’s hell but if there is, you’re going to enjoy getting fucked by Satan every day for the rest of eternity.
You don’t do what you just did, you sick fuck. ”
But I knew the game by now. I knew that Edwin did just this. I turned to Morgan, whom I had not expected to do what he had done. He, more than anyone I know, had left me bitterly disappointed.
“Morgan, what the fuck man? Why?”
Blood streaming down his nose, bruises forming on his eyes, he did something that I did not expect.
He shed a tear.
“This was the only way, Chance,” he said.
“The only way what?”
But he didn’t answer me. He just sat in a chair meekly, like the fucking coward that he was.
“You were my brother, my best friend,” I said, and now I began to feel my eyes welling up, which probably delighted Edwin so much. “You were the only stable thing in my life. I trusted you when I couldn’t trust women or this fat old fuck over here. And now… you too?”
Morgan let out a long sigh to try and push back any further tears from coming. He shook his head.
“Promise me you remember what I told you yesterday.”
Oh, yeah, a lot fucking good that did. He had told me he’d be on my side no matter what. That promise didn’t even last a full fucking day. I don’t know if it had even made it 12 hours.
At least Layla had had the good courtesy to stretch out her promise over the course of a week or so before shattering it.
What did it say that she was the most stable and present part of my life now?
“Of course I remember,” I said. “It’s too bad I’m the only person at this table who can keep a promise. I loved you, Morgan. I really did. But…”
But now you, like everyone else in my life, turn out to be a massive fraud who just wanted to use me.
Why, though? You didn’t even have anything to gain out of this. The money doesn’t matter. You don’t love your father enough to give him MCH. Maybe there’s a reason for the three months?
I don’t know. I don’t care. Fuck it all. Fuck this.
I turned my attention to Edwin Hunt, the true devil of my world.
“I am not taking your offer,” I said as I heard security coming out of a nearby elevator. “I’d rather be homeless on the streets with my dignity and the truth than your money and your sack of lies. I’ll die knowing I lived well.”
“And I’ll die knowing I lived fully,” Edwin said, a deliberate smirk on his face.
“Fully in what? Opulence and greed? Doesn’t matter, Edwin. I have the truth on my side. I’ve made mistakes, but I own them. Someday, the truth on you is going to come out. And the fallout will kill you.”
Security arrived and grabbed me.
“I’m sure it will,” Edwin said dismissively. “Take him outside. No need to call the police. He’s a big boy now. He can fend for himself.”
Oh, I could. And oh, I would.
But as I got pulled away and saw Morgan unable to look at me, I realized that I would truly have to fend for myself.
I didn’t just lack a woman in my life.
I now lacked anyone in my life.
I should have known that this would come down to this.
As security held my arms tightly and as the elevator went to the bottom floor, it just made too much sense.
I was adopted, which meant love for me would always be conditional, never perfect.
Weirdly enough, Edwin was just being honest when he never showed me that love.
Morgan, though…
That one would sting for a while.
“Come on, let’s go,” security said as they escorted me to the front.
“You don’t have to,” I said, pulling myself free. “I don’t have any connection to this place anymore.”
I didn’t have a connection to anything. I was just Chance Givens, an anonymous man like so many others in the streets of New York City.
What lay ahead, I did not know. But I knew one thing for sure. I knew one thing that I should have known for many years prior but at least now could see so clearly it needed no further refinement or clarity.
I would go at it alone.