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you.”
    “It took a while. He kept wanting me to lie and break the rules for him, and I told him there was no way in hell I was going to jail for a shithead punk. So he punched me in the face.”
    “No,” came out in a gasp, even though, of course he had. Of course.
    “Which would have been my out. I could have gone upstairs and showed them my black eye, and the guy would most likely have been bumped as a client. At the very least, I wouldn’t have had to work with him anymore.”
    “Instead?”
    “I punched him back.”
    A groan escaped me, even though I knew the story had a happy ending. I’d certainly never seen the two ever bicker, much less fight.
    “Not my finest moment, getting caught in a full-out brawl in my office by a senior partner. I got fired, and Philip’s case got reassigned to another junior attorney at the firm. And he lost. The guy fucked it up, even though we should have won, and everyone knew it.”
    What a disaster. Yeah, Philip had left all this out when he’d told me he’d hired a lawyer. “What did you do?”
    “I was more pissed about losing the case than anything. And your brother hates to lose even more than I do.”
    “A match made in heaven.”
    “So that was his pitch. He approached me a few weeks later. Neither of us mentioned the fight. He said, ‘Let’s beat the bastards next time.’ I told him to triple his offer, and here we are.”
    “And you’ve never gotten into a fight again,” I said wonderingly.
    “Not yet, although if there was ever a reason, I’m sure calling his sister in the dead of night to convince her to take off her panties counts.”
    Before I could respond to that , he continued.
    “The first day I came to work, he asked me what I thought my job was. I said to keep his business safe from the people who wanted to bring it down. He said no. My job was the same as his, to keep his family safe. You and Colin. I may have been stupid and hot-tempered then, but I took that seriously.”
    My chest seemed too small, my heart overfull. He had kept us safe all this time. He wasn’t the one installing the alarm system, but the work he did for Philip was designed to keep the businesses running smoothly and the family secure.
    We took for granted that if something needed to be done, Drew would help. Hell, he was part of the family. He was the only one unrelated to us who had Philip’s implicit trust—and mine.
    And if that trust were shattered? a voice whispered in my head. It would be my fault.
    “I don’t want to mess things up between you and him.”
    “I’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
    I wasn’t sure about that, but my thoughts lingered on the promising legal career he’d given up. “Does it bother you, doing illegal things?”
    “I don’t really.”
    Snorting, I said, “Save it for someone who believes that.”
    “Fair enough, but my old firm was far more concerned about winning cases and making bank than following the law. It was about appearances. With Philip, everyone already assumes we’re doing the worst. In reality, most of it’s just ordinary business stuff. Pretty boring, typical things.”
    “Like calling out competitors’ hiring practices.” My tone said I had no doubt that the information had been obtained through questionable means.
    “For the good of the nation, Rose. We’re philanthropists, really.”
    I laughed softly, then sobered. “Is everything okay there? Philip seems more stressed out than ever.”
    “Yeah, he has more business than he knows what to do with, now that he’s picked up the contracts they dropped. But he’ll figure it out and come out stronger than ever, I’m sure. As for the other company, their assets will be tied up in legal proceedings for years.”
    A strange shiver of foreboding ran down my spine. “Guess they’re pretty pissed.”
    “They’re shitting bricks,” he agreed. “But they should’ve thought of that before they started trading on corporate secrets.”
    Again the fear dug in its