“Why are you here?”
“Wake up before it’s too late. Martina will destroy you all, and he’s not even the only person with his eyes on a takeover.”
“What does that mean? Who else has eyes on the company?”
“Not just the company,” I say, thinking of the combination of heartache in Maggie and anger in Brandon Senior that I’ve seen today. “Your family is falling apart now, but they could all be dead later.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Martina’s right-hand man followed me today, Derek, and of course that was a threat. I’m a target. I could end up dead. And you know what? You might not care, but just so you know, I don’t want you to die, but you might. We all might before this is over.” I turn to leave, but before I can even open the door, he’s behind me, his hand on the wooden surface above me.
“No one is going to die,” he says. “Who else has eyes on my company?”
“You mean Martina’s company? Talk to Shane. Before it’s too late.” I tug on the door, and to my surprise, he allows me to leave, which I do. And at the exact moment I exit into the hallway, Shane steps out of his office, his eyes meeting mine, concern and a hundred questions in his gray eyes. I take a step toward him, and him me, but Derek overtakes me, outpacing me and charging toward Shane. And just that easily, I’ve forced a conversation between the brothers, but this one, I fear, will not end in peace.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SHANE
Only moments after Seth warns me that my mother is in the office, Derek stalks toward me, leaving Emily behind, his steps determined, his energy confrontational. His dark gray suit is less than pressed and perfect, when it’s never so much as ill adjusted. He’s rattled, on edge, ready for a fight with me, the wrong person. Martina and Mike are the enemies, but I am not sure he will understand this until it’s too late, and I won’t ever let that day come. I stand my ground, expecting some sort of snide remark about Emily perhaps before he moves on and lets me get back to trying to save us all. But that’s not what I get. He stops in front of me, his eyes level with mine. “Let’s talk.”
A novel idea that, coming from him, and about as surprising as that demand being issued after Emily’s been in his office, leaving me ever so curious as to what my woman said to my brother. Whatever the case, she got me his ear, and I’m going to use it any way I can. I give him a nod and move back into my office, standing my ground midway, expecting that confrontation to happen now.
Again, I’m surprised. Instead, my brother walks to the window and, giving me his back, stands there, looking out at the city the way I often do. I’m struck by the likeness in us, which I’d once claimed and wish I could deny now, and I wonder how many times we’ve stood at the windows of our offices, in the opposite direction. Opposite in all that we do, or so I’d thought days ago. Now I’m not so sure anymore, and I wonder how he went from being my big brother and idol to being an enemy. I step to the window myself, leaving several shoulder lengths separating us, the many spoken and unspoken words of the past few turbulent years thickening the air between us.
“Emily says you never wanted the company,” he says finally, still looking at the skyline, though I doubt he’s really seeing it any more than I am.
“She’s correct.”
“Then why come here and try to unravel everything I’ve worked for?” he asks, still not looking at me.
“I have some news for you, Derek. ‘Everything,’ as you put it, was unraveled before I got here or I wouldn’t be here.”
He glances over at me. “And yet this company, and the people working for it, managed to function for thirty years without you. Pops,” he adds, “did okay by it, and so did I.”
“Pops,” I say, giving a humorless laugh at the childhood name we’d used for our father. “He hasn’t been that person in decades.”
“He was always the person he is now. We just didn’t see it.”
“But he isn’t and wasn’t the person who made these missteps.”
Derek laughs this time, the sound bitter, choked, and in unison, as we often were in the past, we face each other. “Pops didn’t make the missteps?” he asks incredulously. “Pops is king. He calls the shots. Who do you think is behind every move I’ve made since I stepped foot in this building? And I do mean every move.”
“So he sent you to the FDA? I’m not buying it.”
“Not directly,” Derek says. “He never does things directly, but he makes it clear what he wants done and how.”
“Your hunger for power makes you take things out of context.”
“He said that I needed to convince the right people to approve that drug in whatever way necessary. Does that sound like I took his directive out of context?”
“And getting involved with a drug cartel?” I say, far from convinced. “Am I supposed to believe he told you to do that too?”
“He flung a picture of Teresa on my desk, along with her biography, and then told me he thought she needed a good fuck.”
“Bullshit, Derek.”
“You think I could even make this shit up? Really? Because I guess my imagination has run wild while good ol’ Pops suddenly became a Boy Scout?”
I step to him and he to me. “If this is true—”
“It’s true.”
“Why the fuck would you do it then?”
“Which ‘it’ are we talking about?”
“All of it. Any of it.”
His lips thin. “There are reasons.”
“What damn reasons?” I demand tightly. “Make me understand.”
“He has ways to destroy me.”
“You’re his son,” I say. “Your scandal becomes his reputation, so I’m not buying that.”
“He has ways around his own demise, I promise you. Why do you think the board, Mike Rogers included, stays so damn loyal to him? He has a file on everyone. He’ll have a file on you too soon.”
“His threats do not justify your bad deeds.”
“Says the almighty Shane Brandon.”
“That’s not how it is.”
“Isn’t it? Well, talk to me a year from now when you aren’t that person anymore. He’ll change you if he lives long enough.”
“That’s a cop-out.”
“Ask Mike Rogers about cop-outs. He’s as captive as I am, which is exactly why I have his vote.”
“Well, you must be proud to have the vote of the man fucking your mother. I guess nothing matters to you anymore.”
He blanches. “What the hell are you talking about? Mom wouldn’t do that.”
“That’s what I said too,” I say, relieved that he’s genuinely shocked rather than approving. “But it’s true.” I walk to my desk and pull open a drawer. “Seth provided proof.” I remove a folder, flipping it open and tossing it onto my desk, a picture of my mother and Mike kissing on top. But Derek still stands two feet away, frozen, as if he dreads the truth I’ve just offered him. And I wonder if he too has her on a pedestal.
Finally though he caves to what I recognize as a need for answers, and crosses to my desk and looks at the photo, his jaw and pretty much every muscle in his body tensing. Abruptly his gaze cuts to mine. “When was this taken?”