Sweet Pain (Amatucci Family #3) - Sadie Jacks Page 0,106
waved that away. “Unless you obtained it through illegal means, I don’t fucking care where you got it.”
“Then my associate can proceed with immunity?” Nico asked.
Jerrod rolled his eyes. “Yes.”
“Witnessed,” Turo said immediately.
“Witnessed,” Tali said.
The rest of the Amatucci siblings verified their witness.
Jerrod snarled. “Yes, you’re all a bunch of law abiding citizens. Give me the source.”
Nik tried a smile. “I’m sure your techs would have gotten there sooner. I’m just better. And faster. We got the information from Errington’s drives.”
Jerrod looked at Ryker. His face was blank with budding rage. “You told me that information was secure and that it hadn’t been downloaded prior to my tech retrieving it.”
“And it hadn’t,” Ryker said honestly.
Nik cleared her throat. “I did a simultaneous download to one of our secure servers.”
Jerrod pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “Do you realize what you’ve just done? What you’ve admitted to?”
“She has immunity,” Nico said.
Jerrod shot to his feet. “And you might have just put the entire case against Errington in jeopardy! The seventy-three victims…they might lose their justice. Anything you retrieved from those drives is part of my investigation.” Jerrod paced around the room like a hungry caged tiger.
I looked at Ryker, felt the blood drain from my face. I shook my head. No. This couldn’t be happening. Not like this. I couldn’t pick and choose which person to vilify. They were all guilty. They all needed to wear their sins in public.
“Wait,” Ryker said as he gripped my hand. “Technically, those files belonged to Willow. Before we copied them to you. Is that right?”
Jerrod stopped pacing, looked at my man.
Ryker nodded. “Then until the moment we transferred them to you, they were still under her legal right to distribute how she wanted. Yes?”
Jerrod narrowed his eyes. “Was she in the room or in hearing distance when I gave you the order not to touch or transfer the files?” He looked at me. “Willow needs to answer.”
I shook my head. “No.” I wanted to say more, to clarify, but Nico’s glare over Jerrod’s shoulder made me bite my tongue.
Jerrod studied me for a long moment. “I’ll need sworn statements from each of you.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “I’ll need an accounting of what and when and who was where when I gave that order.”
Nik raised her hand. “If we can coordinate call logs, I can give you footage that will guarantee Willow was not there. You can send it through any kind of testing filter you like for alteration.” She raised her right hand as if she were swearing on a stack of bibles with her left.
Jerrod nodded. “That could hold up in court.”
I felt my rib cage relax. “Do you want us to tell you the rest of it, or do you want to take this and travel your own path?” I asked. At this point, I was willing to give up the idea of publicly humiliating my parents at the gala if it meant they would actually pay for their crimes.
Jerrod walked over to Nik. “Do you swear that what you’ve found is available in the records we pulled?”
She nodded firmly. “Yes.”
“Do you swear that you did not break any laws in obtaining the information in your evidence?”
She nodded again. “Yes.”
Jerrod’s shoulder dropped slightly. “Then fine, show me the rest of your evidence.” He plopped down into his seat.
Nik went through the presentation again for the DA. At a couple points, I saw him clench his hands into fists, but he didn’t interrupt her.
“And all of this data was on Errington’s computer?” Jerrod asked after Nik was finished.
Nik nodded. “Yes. I’m sure your techs will get to it eventually. I was actually digging for any more information for Willow. When she was giving us a brief rundown, she mentioned some words that I thought would be good general keywords for a broad search. Assistant, subject, combination, experiment.” She flipped out a finger for each one as she said it.
Jerrod looked at me. “Those were the words you used in your statement.”
I nodded. “Those are the words he consistently used, so they became part of my vernacular. They helped me distance myself from everything.”
Jerrod nodded. “I can understand that.” He turned back to Nik. “And you found all of these girls in his data files?”
Nik snapped. “Do you want to see them? I can outline the steps so we can move on to a more salient portion of the presentation.” She winced. “Sorry.”