Page 52 of Layne Closure Ahead

Layne sighed and shook her head. “You’re lucky that I would be unable to function without you around. Otherwise, I would drop your ass off at Penn Station and ship you down to Baltimore to go visit your mom.”

Rebecca laughed. “You wouldn’t last a week.”

“I know, that’s why you’re still here. You’re the one piece of sanity and normalcy in my life.” Layne smiled knowing that without Rebecca, she likely would have taken an even darker path in her life.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

There was still a week before Eric had stated he was sending movers over her direction to pack all her shit up and move it. Layne had been doing her best not to stress over it while Joey was pushing his team to work as fast as they could.

With the knowledge that Eric was manipulating the entire criminal ecosystem to fit his agenda, Layne needed to start planning on how to get it back under her control. What did that mean? Late nights figuring out which contacts were trustworthy, financial planning, and stressing over all the strategizing to avoid her family business becoming defunct.

By the time the evening rolled around, Layne was exhausted. While she sat on the couch, nearly dozing off with the television in the background, the doorbell chimed.

Layne lifted her head and stirred groggily. Another ring of the doorbell echoed throughout her home. Her hand rubbed across her face trying to shake off the excess fatigue.

“I’m coming.” She muttered out to the emptiness of her home.

Shoving herself off the sofa, she shuffled to the front door and took a peep outside to see who was there at—she glanced at her watch on her wrist—nearly eleven-thirty at night. When she saw the familiar face of Eric, she shook her head. Did nobody call anymore?

Layne pulled open the door as her hand brushed some hair away from her face. “Hey, I didn’t expect you here this late at night. What are you doing here?”

Eric pushed his way inside without a word.

She shut the door behind him while the expression on her face turned sour. “Nice to see you, too.” Something was off about his demeanor.

Eric reached into his pocket and pulled out his new phone. He opened it up and pulled up security footage from her house’s camera system. She leaned in to take a look at one video in particular that he was pulling up.

Layne didn’t recognize the angle of the camera as she never had a camera posted on that side of her house. She glanced at Eric in confusion. “What am I supposed to be looking at here?”

“Give it a second.” He responded dryly.

As a body appeared on the screen, that’s when she knew they had fucked up. The only thing on that side of the house was an egress window that led into her cellar. She forgot that it even existed because she never went down there unless she had to dig around for holiday decorations.

The silver lining was that she now knew how Joey had been getting in and out of her house. The big ass dark thundercloud, who was Eric, unfortunately, had evidence of it.

“It looks like a visitor to me.” She attempted to keep both her face and her tone neutral to avoid giving too much away.

After the video ended, Eric put the phone away and turned to face her, not having an ounce of pleasantness on his face. “I was concerned that there was a safety issue after seeing this, and I went back and to my surprise, I found this wasn’t the only incident.”

“What do you want me to say, Eric? Did you think I was going to ditch my security detail the second we made this official? We run drills to make sure we both are on top of our game in the event someone does try to make a go at me.” Damn, that sounded like some of the better bullshit she had come up with on the fly in a while. She was impressed with herself for it, especially given how tired she had been before his arrival. Her eyes stared directly at him hoping to make him feel stupid for even questioning her.

As good as it was, it didn’t settle with Eric as well as she had hoped. “I have been more than reasonable with you. I have been fending off all the vultures of the city from swooping down and feeding off of what’s left of your pathetic empire. I’ve been doing my part in our agreement, and what have you done to repay me for it?”

She could see Eric’s jaw twitching and his nostrils flaring. He turned his back to her while clenching his fists at his side.

Before she could attempt a response to his question, he spun around to face her, his hand going flying. Layne may have been half asleep but thank God her muscle memory kicked in and her arm shot up to defend against a direct blow.

Eric didn’t wait for her to counter, he grabbed her by the forearm and propelled her toward the stairs. Layne stumbled and her hands caught herself on a step several up on the staircase.

When she turned, she felt his body knock into her, the edge of the steps painfully pounding into her back on impact. His hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing with a force that could rival a boa constrictor.

Layne’s initial cough and gasp were immediately cut off as her airway was closed off. Staring up into Eric’s face, his eyes were wide and lit up with the psychosis of an entire mental ward. He pulled her by her neck upward only to slam her back down onto those unforgiving wooden stairs that had her brain rattling inside her skull.

Her hands scratched at his hand, pulling at individual fingers, and straining to get even a brief moment of air while her face began to pale from the lack of oxygen.

Eric’s words were vile and bitter as he spit them out at her. “You thought you could hide it from me?! The way you look at each other? It all makes fucking sense as to why you were reluctant to whore yourself out to me!”

Layne used a foot against the wall that bordered the staircase to push off to rotate them both while she shoved his back into the iron-clad stair spindles. It was enough to loosen his grasp.

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