“Don’t,” Benji warned.
“Benji and Noah, sitting in a tree,” Max yelled.
Benji threw a pillow at him. Max dodged, cackling, and launched himself onto the bed.
Noah picked the tray up and waited for them to finish tussling. He tried not to think back to the countless times he and Michael wrestled as children, determinedly trying to come out on top.
But they weren’t children anymore. They weren’t fighting over a toy or who got first pick of the limo seats. Michael had come for what washis, and Noah was going to protect it.
Even if he had to ruin his brother’s life.
Surprisingly to no one, Michael showed up forty minutes late. It was actually pretty punctual for him.
“Alright,” he declared as he swanned in, patting his oiled hair into place. “Who wants to catch me up on…”
He trailed off, smile fading as he looked over the room. He’d been told this was another meeting about a client. There were no clients in the room, just the Board of Directors, all sitting on one side of the table and staring at him.
Michael’s gaze lingered on Noah sitting at the head of the table. His jaw worked before his face split into another forced smile.
“What did I walk in on?” he asked. “I thought you guys weren’t meeting until next quarter.”
The woman sitting next to Noah spoke up. “We weren’t. Your brother called us in to discuss something important.”
Worry flickered over Michael’s face, there and gone. His smile widened desperately.
“Oh? Well, lay it on me. What’d I miss?”
“Nothing. We were waiting for you,” said the woman, whose name was Mrs. Wellerman. She’d been on the board since before either of them was born, and she was looking at Michael the same way she’d looked at him when he spilled a juice box on her prized poodle in first grade.
“Noah,” she said. “Would you mind outlining the situation?”
Michael turned to Noah, his smile hanging on by a thread. “What’s up, baby bro?”
Noah took a deep breath. He didn’t think about Michael and him sitting on the couch at Christmas, laughing together like they hadn’t done in years. He didn’t think about Michael sitting with him at the dinner table, patiently teaching him the difference between a salad fork and a shrimp fork. Most importantly, he didn’t think about the bruise going black on Benji’s cheek.
“We’ve received compelling evidence that you’ve been stealing company funds for your own personal use,” Noah told him. “We need you to step down as CEO, effective immediately.”
Michael didn’t move. “Do you now? And where is this alleged evidence?”
A sigh went up around the table. Most of the people here had been waiting longer than Noah had promised. A man at the end checked his watch.
Mrs. Wellerman said, “Michael, let’s not do this. It’s not exactly asurprise. If your father didn’t make such a fuss about putting you in charge, we would never have let it happen in the first place.”
“We want to do this quietly,” Noah said before Michael could come up with an angry retort. “Nobody’s pressing charges. We just want you to return the money. Do you have it?”
Michael stared at him. His upper lip twitched like it wanted to turn into a sneer.
“Yes,” he said grudgingly.
“Okay,” Noah said. “Return it within the week. If you don’t?—”
“We’ll send you to jail so fast your greasy little head will spin,” Mrs. Wellerman interjected. “Are we finished here?”
Noah cocked his head. “I suppose.”
“Good. I have a Botox appointment. Keep me in the loop with his replacement.” Mrs. Wellerman stood. Several other members of the board followed suit.
Michael laughed, panicked and breathless as people started filing out.
