Page 9 of Stay In Your Layne

“Stay!” He yelled at her. “Goddamn, woman!” He groaned, making it clear he still was feeling quite uncomfortable from the unexpected shot she made and pissed off about it.

Layne tried to steady her breath as she now found herself on her ass on the cold and damp floor looking up at him. “What are you going to do to me? I don’t know shit about your stupid project.”

She expected an answer involving torture and death, but he said nothing as he looked down at her.Something switched in his demeanor, and what came out of his mouth next was not what she expected.

“…Fuck.” A sigh followed.

“I’m…sorry?” Layne was confused as to what part of her question had given him this pause.As much as she wanted to take credit for whatever crisis he was having, she wasn’t sure that she could.

He yanked his mask down away from his face to around his neck and knelt on one knee in front of her. Revealing his face was never something he did while working his assignments, it was part of the many protective measures he took to keep an added layer of safety for himself.Even those who hired him went through an intermediary and didn’t get to see him without the getup.

One look at that face underneath the mask and she found herself with her jaw hanging open and in a wordless stupor.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Joey? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” The stupid, annoyingly hot as fuck guy from McGregor’s Pub. Joey. Joey motherfucking De Luca. She should have known. The scent of cheap whiskey, the boots, the eyes, and the way he called her Layney. She should have picked up on it all, but then again, she wouldn’t have ever pegged him for being involved in this level of shit.

Layne felt played like a naive little fiddle. It wasn’t a feeling she was accustomed to, but hell if she was going to let it happen again.

After her brain processed the sheer confusion of how they both ended up here, her speechlessness no longer became a problem. “Oh, you asshole, motherfucker, son of a bitch jackass!” There weren’t enough curse words in the Merriam-Webster for her to spew at him. She swung her bound hands in his direction, but he easily captured them in his grasp and held them still.

“Stop being a little heathen! Just let me explain.”

Her heart was palpitating even harder than it had been moments ago, but now it was because she was fuming. Who the hell did he think he was? Was his conversation with her in the bar all part of some scheme? There were a million questions and scenarios zipping through her mind.

Each attempt to physically lash out at him was a failure as he expertly kept her hands still.

“Layne, give me a minute, will ya?” His eyes darted over towards the door, confirming they were still alone before looking back at her. “I didn’t know it was going to be you here. Franzetti hired me, told me to come here to take care of some business, and get some answers out of you.” He decidedly left out the part where he had been instructed to dump her body off the docks afterward. “Jesus, why didn’t you say something at the bar earlier, huh?”

She was not going to take any fault for this. “Are you kidding me right now? What was I supposed to say? ‘Oh, hey, in case you might be involved in a kidnapping later, you should know who my dad is’?”

He grumbled and rubbed his forehead while he tried to process this unforeseen complication.

“Look at me.” He reached out to gently take her chin in his grasp so he could convey his intentions. “We can fix this.” Joey stood up on his feet. When he tried to assist Layne up onto her own as well, she pulled back from him and did it on her own.

“We? I missed the part where this was a team effort.” Her hands still clinched together via the uncomfortably hard plastic, managed to brush off the front of her pants of dirt they picked up from the likely unsanitary floor.

“Stay here.” He pulled his mask back up over his face and walked away. The door creaked as it opened and shut. Not more than two minutes later, it repeated the sound and he came back to her with his knife in his hand. Joey grabbed her wrists and yanked her closer to him. The tension in her body made her stiff as a board.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you as long as you keep your hands to yourself.” Yeah, famous last words before a lot of serial killers did indeed hurt people, Layne thought.

“Don’t move.” She wasn’t sure if it was his tone or the look in his eyes, but she fought every urge to distance herself from him as much as possible. With wary eyes, she watched as he expertly maneuvered the blade with one precise motion slicing through the zip tie that bound her wrists together. The piece of plastic fell to the ground and he let go of her.

She rubbed each one of her wrists now that they were experiencing freedom. Perhaps he actually was trying to help her. “Thanks.” Her voice was calmer now but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still irritated. There may also still have been some skepticism, but she was willing to at least wait to see what was going to happen next in this grand plan of his.

“I sent Marco and Victor to the hardware store to grab a few things to buy us a little time. Here’s what’s going to happen; you’re going to get in the Challenger out front and get the fuck out of here.” Joey dug around inside his pocket and pulled out a set of keys.

She looked at the set of keys in front of her and took them. “Fine, but there’s one problem.”

“What’s the problem?”

POP!

Layne’s fist swung and made contact with Joey’s jaw. It was clear it caught him off guard and left him stunned slightly. Deep down there was a bit of satisfaction of getting that out of her system after what he had put her through.

His hand rubbed his jaw. “Christ! What the hell? I’m trying to help you!”

“I figured if the story is that I got away, it should look half believable. That is, unless you’re really shitty at what you do even on a good day.”

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