Page 49 of Layne Closure Ahead

Brandon took the phone and smiled crookedly at her before he shuffled back to his seat and began working some sort of techie magic on it. While the data may have been on the drive Joey had taken during his break-in to the Ellis residence while she and Eric had been at dinner, it was something on Eric’s phone that was able to provide access to it.

Layne didn’t pretend to even understand the level of nerdiness required to get the data Joey had been hired to acquire. She preferred a more brute-force approach of pulling information out of people.

The cranky old man looked over at Brandon. “You good?” When he got the nod from the youngin’ they both began to type commands on their respective keyboards. After a few minutes, the monitors lit up and began processing data.

Layne leaned over and whispered to Joey. “What are we looking for?”

Before he could respond, images popped up on a few screens, driver’s licenses on another, lists of names and addresses, receipts, videos, and other large amounts of information.

Something caught Layne’s eye and she abruptly spoke up. “Wait! Stop! Go back one.” She stepped up to the desk and pointed to a monitor that had flickered with an image that had captured her attention.

Brandon clicked a few things and when the image came up, she blinked. She stood there staring at the image with her brows furrowing together while she tried to process what was staring right back at her.

Joey came up behind her to take a look at what had her giving funny looks. “Is that…?”

“Andrew Correlli,” she confirmed for Joey. Her eyes read the text accompanying the image seeing the file path indicating he was in a folder dedicated to employee bios. Continuing to soak in the data it appeared that he had started working for Eric almost two years ago, long before Eric moved to the city. It noted that he was in charge of a territory covering all of Staten Island, but doing what it didn’t say.

She shook her head. “This doesn’t make any sense. If Correlli was working for Eric, why would he want him dead?”

“I-I think I found something,” Brandon spoke up while he filtered down to some information on the central monitor.

An audio clip file appeared and when it began to play it was obvious it was a conversation between Andrew and Eric.

“How many times have I told you not to sample the product?” Eric’s voice seethed with anger.

Andrew responded like a nervous wreck under Eric’s threatening tone. “S-sorry. I just thought that it needed a quality check. To make sure it is up to standards, ya know?”

“Your goddamn job isn’t to quality check. It’s to make sure the packages move safely from point A to point B so they can be cleared to be distributed across the state line!” Eric’s voice thundered back in response. “If you ever fuck up this bad again, I will make sure that you get the ending you deserve. Am I clear?”

“Absolutely. Very clear.”

“Good. Now, make sure that you go make good on our arrangement and go make friends with Russell for me.”

The clip ended. Layne grimaced while grinding her teeth as she bowed her head down. Her hands clutched the edge of the desk so tight it began to turn her knuckles white as the realization hit her.

“He played me.” She spoke through her clenched jaw. “Fuck!” Layne pushed away from the desk only to run right into Joey’s chest. His hands steadied her by her arms and made sure not to release her, even when she pulled against his grip.

Joey didn’t allow her to squirm away from him. “Hey, hey. Hold up.” He looked past her at the two men still running an analysis on all the data. “See what else is on there that’s useful, I will be right back.”

After she felt Joey’s hands release her, she pushed past him and quickly went right back upstairs. He was quick on her heels though and once she was upstairs, she spun around to face him.

“He’s been playing me like a goddamn fiddle! I knew he had motives to strengthen his power in the city, but God knows what else he’s been doing to make sure that Liam and I were desperate!” She placed a hand on her forehead struggling to keep up with the storm of scenarios crashing into her brain. If he coordinated Andrew getting in with Russ Spencer, the potential for other puppetry was limitless.

“Layney, calm down.” Joey’s voice tried to ease her down from her escalating temper.

She glared at him as he told her the one thing that most certainly was not going to bring her temper down a notch. “Don’t tell me to calm the fuck down!”

When he reached out to hold onto her shoulders, she swiped his arms away. “I’m going to kill him, Joey. I don’t care. I will hunt his ass down, make him suffer in his freakish torture room, and he can get off on his own demise on his way down to hell.”

Joey’s eyes settled on her and he waited until she was finished. “Are you done?” When she didn’t interrupt him, he continued to talk. “He will get what’s coming to him, don’t worry about that. There’s enough data there that my client is going to want him wiped from the playing board. After a little more due diligence on the details of what he’s peddling and how far he’s peddling it, then this can be handled.”

She tried to ease her anger down with a deep breath and think a little more rationally while Joey laid out what would hopefully be the next steps.

After making sure that she wasn’t going to go off on him like an Irish car bomb, he wrapped his large arms around her and drew her in close. He kissed the top of her head reassuringly. “We will handle Eric together when the time comes. Until then, we keep the status quo. Okay?”

Layne desperately wanted to argue with Joey, but having him hold her so close managed to ease the flare of her irritability. She sighed quietly as the tension in her body melted away one breath at a time.

“I hate you right now,” she murmured against his chest as her arms wrapped around his waist.

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