Chapter 10
She blew out a breath harshly. “Bianca, just put him on the phone.” Layne’s fuse was running short as she held the phone to her ear while sitting inside her office at home.
The polite yet stern voice of the woman on the other end repeated itself. “Mr. Corelli is unavailable. I can take a message if you’d like to leave one for him.”
Layne gave a soft growl as she summoned the last of her patience. “Bianca, I swear on all that is holy, if you don’t go get Andrew, I will come down there myself. We both know he’s standing right there next to you. Tell him if he doesn’t get on the phone with me, I will make a special delivery to the New York Times pointing out his inability to properly file taxes because he’s too busy jacking off to underage girls.”
There was a pause as the call was placed on hold. Just when Layne thought she had been disconnected, a male voice came on the phone.
“Hi, Layne.” Andrew almost sounded like he was expecting a pleasant conversation. Oh, how wrong he was if that was what he thought.
She leaned back into her seat feeling partial relief that he had finally grown a pair to talk to her. “Where’s my money, Andrew? I’m all out of patience.”
He began to rattle off the excuses. “There’s been some unexpected business expenses, and I was going to send it to you.”
“The fuck you were. I’m getting tired of the bullshit. If I don’t get it today, I’m going to be pissed that I have to come down there and get it myself in whichever creative ways I come up with.”
There was a long pause followed by a defeated sigh. “Look, I didn’t want to say anything but another, um, business partner approached me.”
She sat up in her chair. “What do you mean someone approached you? When?” Layne didn’t want to jump to any conclusions and needed him to spell it out to her as plain as day.
Andrew cleared his throat on the other end of the line. “I am working with Russell Spencer now. He said if you had any problems with it, to take it up with him.”
Russ Spencer and his crew were one of a few factions that had been not so quiet about speculating on the end of the O’Reilly era. Once word had gotten out that the great Scott O’Reilly was on a massive health decline, Russell began making moves to take advantage of the shift in leadership. The bastard was playing with fire and beginning to pick off their income sources one by one. It seemed that Andrew was the latest acquisition.
Layne didn’t even bother to try to hide her displeasure at this news. “Believe me, I’m going to take it up with him.” She hung up on Andrew without a further word.
“FUCK!” She tossed her phone down onto her desk in front of her. Monetarily, this was a hit they couldn’t afford to take. Layne leaned over, her elbows on the edge of her desk as she put her head into her hands. Her fingers scrunched up and got lost in her silky locks of chestnut hair as she tried to wrap her brain around this devastating blow.
She shook her head and pulled open a drawer on her right, seeing a spare bottle of pills nestled inside. Her eyes stared down at the easy escape that was calling out to her. The image of Joey losing his shit on her was still fresh in her mind.
Layne grunted as she slammed the drawer shut, leaving the pills untouched.
Still riding the coattails of anger and frustration, she slammed her car’s shift knob into park after coming to an abrupt stop in front of a large retail storefront. Layne got out of her car, slamming her door shut so hard it would have likely amputated any fingers that got caught in it.
She was not giving a shit that she should have done the political thing and called Russell Spencer first before showing up here. If he was going to underhandedly start stealing her business, then she was going to step foot in his territory without one fuck given.
Was it stupid? Yes. Did she care? No. She also should have gone to Liam first, but she wasn’t in the mood to add to her long list of things that pissed her off today.
Layne walked into the retail storefront ignoring the girl at the cash register scrolling through her phone. Layne stomped towards the backroom and past all the iconic New York heart-laden merchandise on the shelves, Statue of Liberty souvenirs, and Empire State Building toothpick holders.
She shoved the door open, walking through the stock area full of plain cardboard boxes. In front of her was another door, but this one required an electronic keycard access. One of her fists began to pound on it repeatedly. “Open the goddamn door!”
She looked up at the camera mounted right above the door with a deadly glare set in her eyes. “I’m not fuckin’ around! Open the door!”
An audible click was heard as the electronic lock was remotely disabled. She didn’t waste a single moment before swinging the door open and walking inside a long hallway until she came to one more door. This one was left wide open.
When she stormed into the office, she was greeted by three of Spencer’s associates, and Russ himself perched on the edge of his desk. Russ was a stocky middle-aged man, that may have been averagely handsome in his prime, but these days he carried a little extra weight around his midsection and his hair was noticeably thinning despite being clipped close to his scalp.
A small screen on the far right wall had the black and white CCTV feed where they undoubtedly had seen her coming to unlock the door for her. The remainder of the room was set up as a small meeting space with a plain table and chairs designed to hold up to six people, a mini fridge off to the right corner, and Russell’s desk centered along the back wall.
There was no stopping her, she approached the man responsible for her foul mood. Without hesitation, she grabbed a handful of his polo shirt in one hand and let the fist of her other hand propel toward his face. “You snakelike motherfucker!”
Her punch was a glancing blow as he realized that she was actually crazy enough to spring an attack on him physically, and he raised an arm to block it. Chaos immediately erupted inside the room with lots of yelling filling the air.
When the first punch didn’t land to her satisfaction, she wound up and threw as many more as she could muster in her fit of rage before two of the men struggled to pull her off of their fearless leader. Even as they grabbed her arms and dragged her back, she spat at Russ, the saliva making it onto his shirt.
The hands on her arms were gripping her tightly, but Layne’s eyes never left Russ’s face. He looked down at his shirt and shook his head before he got up off his desk and stepped in front of Layne.
After a call from Andrew, Russ had been expecting to hear from her. What he hadn’t expected was this unhinged visit. “Did your father teach you nothing? No fuckin’ respect.” His words almost sounded like he pitied her.
Russell’s hand grabbed a handful of her face, squishing her cheeks in his hand. A switchblade was pulled from his pocket and sprung open to expose the sharp edge of metal. He tapped the tip of the knife against her bottom lip.
Still trying to catch her ragged breaths from her outburst and the rush of adrenaline pulsing in her ears, she tried pulling her face back from the sharp threat teasing the softness of her lip with whispers of violence and pain.
He pulled the blade away, compressing it back into the handle until the locking mechanism quietly clicked. “If you were anyone else, I’d be teaching you a little bit about respect. But, I’m going to give you a pass this one time only, Layne. You come into my damn territory again looking to start a war, I will make sure you get one, and you won’t win. Do you understand me?” His hand still latched onto her face, digging into her skin uncomfortably.
“As long as you understand that if you ever approach any of my clients ever again, I won’t only bring the war to you, but I will have half the city at my back when I do.” Her arms jerked against the grip of Russ’s men holding her back.
“Those are big words coming from a little lady. You don’t have the resources, everyone knows it. It’s just a matter of time before what’s left of Scott O’Reilly’s grand enterprise is dismantled, right down to his two brats.” His hand finally released her face, but the red marks of his hold remained on her skin.
Layne’s eyes held all the warning they needed to. “Tread lightly, Russ. I’d hate to put you at the top of my list.”
He shook his head in disbelief and waved his hands at his two men on either side of her. “Please escort Miss O’Reilly out before she makes any other brash decisions today.”
The two goons pulled her out of the room, her feet barely able to keep up with their steps as they guided her out a back entrance that led to the alleyway behind the building. She was given a harsh shove, sending her stumbling, and nearly losing her footing until she caught hold of a chain link fence dividing this property from the next. The steel door shut behind them as the two men retreated back inside.
Layne’s fingers curled around the thin ropes of metal of the fence and pressed her forehead to the cool links as she shut her eyes briefly. Her world was on the brink of collapse and she felt powerless to stop it. One more client ripped from the O’Reilly books today, meant two more were likely to follow. At this rate, they were going to be lucky to hold their ground for another couple of months.