Page 173 of Broken Brothers

“So,” she said. “You gave my email out to a colleague, huh?”

I nodded.

“I just worried Edwin would hack my account and I didn’t want that anywhere other than in an email, and—”

Layla came up to me, eyed me real seductive, and came close to my ear.

“Babe, you know I’ll do whatever I can to help make you happy,” she said breathlessly. “Anything.”

I exhaled in delight… and then felt myself pushed to the touch.

“But, you should have known to ask first,” she said. “Don’t worry, I still like you. I still want you. But… not quite as much as I did ten minutes ago.”

“Babe—”

“So, no sex tonight,” she said with a smirk. “I might change my mind later if I’m feeling up to it.”

“Layla—”

“Good night, Chance!” she said with a giggle before blowing me a kiss and shutting the door.

Well fuck.

I guess I deserve that.

I slumped against the couch, punching it in some frustration, though admittedly the frustration felt a bit fake since I’d accomplished the most important goal from the previous halfhour—to get Andrew on my side and to send me any dirt that he had at a later time.

I just wish it hadn’t come at the expense of sex.

It really didn’t help matters that probably less than five minutes later, I heard Layla moaning through her door—a deliberate tease, I knew, because she would have come out and grabbed me if she wanted to actually have sex. It got me rock hard and tempted me to blast through that door and have my way with her, but that seemed just a bit on the border of acting on her without permission.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait much longer for a better distraction.

I saw a text from Andrew come through “check her email.” Immediately, I hurried over to Layla, knocked on her door, and begged to be let in.

“You missed your chance, Chance!” she said, giving a fake laugh.

“It’s related to Edwin,” I said. “Andrew sent something to your email.”

A few seconds later, I heard her footsteps coming to the door. She now had on a nightrobe, making it clear that the party in her pants was closed for the evening to any other visitors.A different night. It’s there whenever you want it.

She let me sit—though not lie—on her bed as she opened her laptop and her email. Sure enough, there was an email from Andrew with no text, just a single attachment.

An audio file.

“Play it,” I said, a mixture of trepidation and nervousness filling my ears.

Would it be nothing? Would it be something? Or could it be everything that I ever needed to take down Edwin Hunt?Please, Andrew, have shown some guts.

The file started with the boisterous sound of background noise in a restaurant, making me fear that the file would be all but impossible to hear. Fortunately—though not exactly pleasantly—Edwin’s country voice came through moments later.

“You can’t be serious,” he growled. “You’re gonna let that son of a bitch remain the primary investor in my company?”

“I, uh, just believe it’s best,” Andrew replied. The poor dude sounded so nervous that I imagined he was on the verge of a breakdown of some kind. “I have a, a strong relationship with him and I want that to continue.”

“That piece of shit is nothing more than human garbage. He’s no son of mine.”

I felt Layla’s hand go to mine, but this was nothing that I needed support on. It was no secret to me how Edwin felt about me—but boy would it be a bad look to the world if Edwin was caught on tape talking that way about me.Or… we could leave it up for interpretation and say it’s about Morgan.