A smart man didn’t throw his lot in with a bunch of shady characters, even if one was a half-brother, as long as there were other options. What Tom had done for them was already above and beyond. Any debt he owed to his blood was paid. If this was the last he saw of either of these two, he would almost certainly be better off. So why was he considering doing more? Could he really be thinking that Markowitz’s left-viewed paranoia might have a basis in reality?