Caleb Grant wasn’t sleeping. That much had been the truth and nothing but the truth when he’d given it as explanation to Elsie Morrow. He couldn’t remember why it had been necessary to offer a reason for his behavior, only that it had been, which he found more than a little bit troubling. One thing Caleb had always prided himself on was his memory for faces and people. It had always helped him out, ever since he was young, and it was one of the reasons he had been so successful in a business that was driven by people. Even when he’d started partying hard, partying on more than just your average social level, he’d always been able to get up and do his thing, shaking hands with people he’s only met once and remembering not only their names but their pertinent details. He would remember every detail of the last conversation they had had, and they would walk away feeling special. But his conversation with Travis and Elsie? That was little more than a blur, and he had no idea why. Some of it really was a lack of sleep, and he knew it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t unsettling. Was it the boozing? Was it finally starting to catch up to him? Or was it maybe something else that he hadn’t yet been able to put his finger on?

No, Caleb Grant couldn’t sleep, no matter which of his multiple bedrooms he tried to do it in or how many pages of his book he read. He briefly considered just throwing his clothes on and heading out on the town, but that wasn’t going to help anything, and he knew it. Besides, he was feeling strangely raw, vulnerable to the elements and the unsavory side of New York City. Going out and getting sloshed was a very tempting prospect, but it wasn’t going to make things any better, and it sure as shit wasn’t going to help him sleep. And so, he continued to toss and turn, and when his assistant called him at three o’clock in the morning, for the third time that week, no less, he was awake to answer the call. He sighed the heavy sigh of a much older man and hit talk, shutting his eyes before bringing the phone up to his ear.

“Go for Caleb.”

“Mr. Grant, I’m so, so sorry. I can’t believe I’m having to call you again in the middle of the night like this, really.”

“I think it’s technically the very early morning. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

“No! No, of course not. You’re absolutely right. Still, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“Brad.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Stop apologizing.”

“Right. Sorry, sir.”

“Brad?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You’re still doing it.”

“Okay. I know. I’ll stop.”

“Good. Give it your best shot, at least, or else you’re going to drive me up a wall.”

“I will.”

“Good. Now, care to tell me what warrants me this early morning call? And before you start, let me just put your mind a little bit at ease and tell you that I was already awake, so there’s no need to beat yourself up over ruining my beauty sleep.”

“Oh good! I mean, not good that you aren’t sleeping, I don’t mean it like that, but I’m glad I wasn’t the one to wake you.”

“I understand what you meant. Just go ahead and tell me what’s going on.”

“Alright, but I’m afraid you’re not going to like it.”

“News delivered at this hour is rarely the kind people like getting. Don’t worry about that, just tell me. The suspense is going to kill me, you know?”

And so Brad, the poor, frazzled assistant did exactly that. He told Caleb exactly why he’d had to call, and by the end of the conversation, Caleb found himself wishing he had just ignored the phone call altogether. It wasn’t a rational thought, and ignoring Brad’s call wouldn’t have made the content any less pertinent, but three o’clock in the morning was not a time for rational thought. It was a time for the sort of thoughts that only made sense when it was dark outside, the sort that struck you as completely off the wall once it was daylight outside again. As Brad spoke, these were the kinds of things running through Caleb’s head. He wanted to go back. Back before the whole mess that had required him to seek out the assistance of Travis and Elsie to be sure, but also further back than that. He wanted to go all the way back so that he could keep himself from ever becoming the kind of man he found himself to be today. He wished this so fervently that it took him several moments to realize that the other end of the line had gone silent. He cleared his throat, waiting to see if his nervous assistant was going to start off again. When he didn’t, Caleb wondered to himself just how long he had allowed this silence to last. Was it an awkward length of time? He could ask Brad, but there wouldn’t really be any point. The man would tell him that everything was kosher—even if he’d gone mute for a full half hour. That was just the way he operated. Instead, he made a mental note to get it the fuck together, at least until he was off of the phone, and moved forward with the conversation as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place at all.

“So let me see if I’m hearing you right. We’ve had another security breach?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And we have no idea who it is that’s doing these things? Not even the faintest clue?”

“No, I’m afraid we don’t.”

“And do we know what information has been compromised this time? Do we have any clue about that?”

“No, I’m sor-no, Mr. Grant. We don’t. We’ve tried to track it, but we don’t seem able to do so.”

“And you’ve put the tech department on it? You’ve alerted them of this new security breach?”

“Oh yes, sir! Right away. I alerted them before I contacted you. I hope it’s alright that I took the liberty to do that; I just thought that with matters like this one sooner is better than later.”

“Of course, that’s fine. That was the right thing to do. They would be the ones to talk to, seeing as we pay them to take care of shit like this.”

Silence on the other end. Had he been too harsh? Had he pushed this nervous little man too far? The idea that he might have was aggravating to say the least. Sometimes he felt like he was the only one in his immediate circle who was even attempting to play adult, despite the fact that he paid the majority of them to do things so that he wouldn’t have to. He was tempted to fly off the handle, very tempted indeed. He wanted to unload all of the stress that had been building up inside of him, and he wanted to unload it on Brad. Lord knew he could have used the release, and he was very tempted to take advantage of the fact that—by nature of his position—Brad was not free to just hang up the phone when he got to feeling like he was being abused. The thing was, Brad was just a kid. It would have made more sense to call him an intern rather than an assistant, seeing as he looked like he couldn’t be more than twenty years old. He was basically still a kid, and Caleb liked to think he hadn’t yet gotten to the point where he would bully people just because they couldn’t fight back. Keeping this in mind, he took another deep breath and tried to ignore the beginning of yet another brutal headache taking its place in the base of his skull.

“So I’m guessing, based on this call, that the tech people don’t know what’s going on, like, at all?”

“No, I don’t guess they don’t. That’s why they asked me to call.”

“It’s good that you did,” Caleb said in a kind voice, making a mental note to chew out the head of the tech department for putting the task of calling him off on someone else when it should have been him. “I’m glad. Thank you for letting me know, Brad. Really, you did good. Just make sure you let me know if there are any changes. I want updates.”

“Of course, sir! It’ll be the first thing I do.”

“Good. I’ll be into the office early this morning, around seven o’clock, I think. There’s no point in lounging around here all morning if I’m not going to sleep. Will you be there?”

“You bet I will! I’ll be there at six!”

Caleb thanked Brad, wincing a little at the extremity of his enthusiasm, then hung up the phone with a hand that felt much too heavy. He was tired of all of this crap. He was tired of being the one in charge of everything around him while others scrambled around like chickens with their heads cut off. He was tired of having to grapple with the knowledge that he wasn’t quite cutting it as of late. This was knowledge he dealt with day in and day out, and yet he somehow still seemed unable to rectify. Most of all, he was tired of being afraid and feeling like there was nobody on the planet he could talk to about it. With his head spinning and his heart struggling with phantom fingers of heartburn, he scrolled through his phone’s directory listlessly. When he landed on his brother’s number, he stopped.

Marlin Grant was Caleb’s older brother by five and a half years.  When the two of them were younger, Caleb had basically idolized Marlin. Marlin had been different than Caleb in almost every way a person could be different. Where Caleb had been rather quiet, a boy who had constantly looked to his parents for approval and who had come apart at the seams when his father had passed away, Marlin had been gregarious and yes, just a little bit wild. Marlin had been the one to sneak out of the house and to get himself in trouble for drinking under aged. He had received all of the same lectures from their father about appreciating the things they had and living in a way that showed gratitude—but none of it ever seemed to stick.

At the age of eighteen, the same age that the Grant boys’ trust funds became their own, Marlin left home and never looked back. He would pop back in to see the family he had left from time to time, but his visits were never long and were completely unpredictable. Sometimes it would be six months between visits, and sometimes it would be two years. Their mother had pleaded with him to just write Marlin off time and time again, and Caleb had seriously considered doing so. For some reason, however, some reason he probably wouldn’t ever be able to figure out—without extensive therapy (which he wasn’t willing to do)—why he couldn’t ever make himself pull the trigger. Instead, he had kept him in his life and was now preparing to call him in his time of confusion.

“What the fuck?” he whispered to himself, feeling absurd for whispering when he was all alone and doing it anyway. “Might as well give it a shot, right? He’s always got an interesting take on things, at least.”

He nodded to himself, then hit the button to call. Ridiculously, he felt his heart start to thump uncomfortably in his chest, the way it might have if he’d gone on a two-hour bike ride. There was no reason for him to feel this way, he was only calling his brother, after all. And besides, it was now three forty-five in the morning. The odds of Marlin even being awake were slim to none. The most likely outcome of the call was that he would get his brother’s voicemail, and then he would hang up. By the time the next day was done, making this call would feel like a dream. He would wonder why he’d decided to do it in the first place, and then he would go about his business.

“Brother!”

“Marlin?”

“Of course, it’s Marlin! Why, who were you trying to call, the President of the United States?”

“Well, no but—”

“Hold on a second. Just one second, alright?”

Before Caleb had the chance to answer, Marlin had put his hand over the phone and started talking to whoever else was in the room with him. Caleb listened and then began to smile. It was a lady friend, he could tell that by the muffled sound of her voice, and from the tone she was using, she wasn’t pleased by whatever Marlin was telling her. Caleb had a feeling he knew why. He couldn’t hear the precise details of the story Marlin was feeding her, but he didn’t need to. He knew his brother. He could remember, and remember well, the sort of lies he’d told his girlfriends when he still lived at home. They had always been wild, never been very believable, and yet somehow, he had always managed to send a chick on her way without her being so pissed off that she was never going to come back again. He had a feeling something very similar was going on now, and when Marlin got back on the phone, Caleb was chuckling good naturedly.

“What’s so funny, baby brother?”

“Nothing, just...you never really change, do you brother?”

“I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t worry about it. What are you doing up at this ungodly hour, anyway?”

“What does it matter? You call, I answer. That’s really all you need to know.”

“Fine. That’s fine, if that’s the way you want it.”

“It’s the way I want it. I also want you to tell me what’s wrong.”

“Who says something’s wrong?”

“You kidding me? Caleb Grant, everyone’s favorite playboy, calling me at almost four o’clock in the morning? I don’t gotta be a genius to know that means something’s up.”

“Can’t a guy just call his brother?”

“At this time? No. That’s my answer for that, no. You should either be sleeping or banging one of those hopeful models New York’s got so many of. If you’re up and you’re calling me, something’s wrong. Now spill it. I pissed the old lady right off, shooing her away like I just did, and I’m gonna need you to make that worth my while.”

Caleb talked. He talked a lot, and at the end of it, he wasn’t completely sure what all he’d told Marlin. It was the second time in one day that it had happened to him, and in the approaching light of dawn, he was almost sure he was in the beginning stages of losing his mind. He was almost sure of another thing as well, although it was something he found almost more disturbing than the idea that he might be going just a little bit nuts. He had come away from his conversation with an almost ironclad assurance that whoever was fucking with him was working for him, and probably somebody pretty close to him as well. It was something he’d entertained before, something he believed he’d even mentioned to Elsie and Travis, but now he was as positive as a man could be. Just the idea of it made him feel sick. He was definitely an asshole more often than was called for, but he’d also made a habit of being good to the people who worked for him. That was one of the lesson’s his father taught him that had stuck, and he’d made a habit of it from the very beginning. The fact that treating them well had always been such a focus for him made the idea that one of them had betrayed him all the more unpalatable. On top of that, his unease was getting worse, even though he didn’t have a clue why he was so uneasy. So far, all anyone could tell him was that someone had hacked into his system and they couldn’t figure out who, where, or why. He didn’t even know what there was to take. What he did know, was that any person who took the time to hack him and to do it so well wasn’t playing around. They meant to hurt him, and it was just a matter of time.

“Looks like my life is in your hands, sexy Nancy Drew.”

Again, he spoke to his cold, empty home and found the inevitable absence of a response. He’d meant it to be funny, calling Elsie that, and there was no doubt that she was a sexy woman, but whatever humor he’d been going for had fallen flat. Because it wasn’t a joke, he realized, not at all. He could call her Nancy Drew all he wanted to, and he could diminish his need for her time and time again, but at the end of the day his life really was in her hands, metaphorically speaking. Although this was something he would forget by lunchtime, it was one of the truest revelations he’d ever had.