Page 1 of Layne Closure Ahead

PROLOGUE

Four months have passed

Had it really been four months since the funeral took place? Layne couldn’t be sure, as everything had blurred together ever since. Since then, her life had taken a series of zig-zag turns leaving her with whiplash. Instead of trying to juggle balls like a circus performer, she was juggling politics, sticks of dynamite, and her will to keep waking up to see another day.

Yet, here she fucking was again. Her annual self-sabotage party at McGregor’s Pub had inevitably rolled around on the anniversary of her mother’s death. Now, she just referred to it as the most cursed day of her life. It was the same damn day that Joey motherfucking De Luca had encountered and ultimately destroyed two O’Reilly women, only years apart.

She slung back another shot of whiskey, no longer feeling the burn down her throat as her intoxication numbed the pain.

With concerned eyes, the owner of the pub stood behind the bar watching the worst unraveling he had seen of Layne yet on this day over the years. “Layne,” Sean gently tried to interject himself into the world of pain she was wallowing in. “Maybe it’s time to call it a night.”

Her eyes didn’t even look up at him, the emerald hues remained staring blankly at the empty shot glass cradled in her hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Layney.”

The memory of his voice twisted the knife of betrayal a little deeper into her damaged heart. Her face winced briefly before the rage reared its ugly head. She forcefully pitched the glass at the wall as she screamed out. “Yeah, I bet it fuckin’ was, motherfucker!”

Between her sudden outburst at seemingly no one in particular and the glass shattering against the wall, it elicited a flinch from Sean as he raised his arms to shield himself from any flying shards.

Layne got out of her seat, stumbling to find her drunken feet underneath her. The second she noticed Sean opening his mouth to speak she tossed her hands up wildly. “I’m fuckin’ leaving! Christ! You happy?! Because nobody else is!”

The smart man that Sean was promptly shut his mouth, standing there in silence. The remainder of the occupants inside the bar also had a hushed quiet come over them as eyes settled on the angry little Irish girl.

Thanks to copious amounts of booze, her body felt like it was floating as she left McGregor’s. Once she made it outside, she began walking without a care for whichever direction she was heading while her mind wandered.

The same day she had kicked Joey out of her life ten months ago, she had an even bigger emotional bomb dropped on her. A cruel chain of events followed, each one popped off and struck her back down anytime she tried to get back up on her feet.

Her father, Scott O’Reilly, the kingpin of the family’s criminal empire, had been taking business trips up to Boston quite frequently. As the head of the organization who had built things from the ground up, it wasn’t out of the norm for him to travel across state lines on occasion, but this had been different.

During her investigation into the Project 227 rumors to assist Joey during that time, Layne found herself digging for answers as to what had captured her father’s interest a few states away. When she got her answers, they hadn’t been what she had pictured in her wildest nightmares.

It turned out that when her gut instincts were screaming at her that something wasn’t right, she needed to listen. Through the use of her technologically inclined associates, she illegally obtained medical documentation from the top cancer center in Boston. At the top of those documents was her dad’s name. Right underneath it? Diagnosis: Stage IV Kidney Cancer. The news had struck harder than a freight train squishing an empty beer can.

He had hidden his diagnosis from everyone, including both his children. Despite that, Liam was supposed to be the one eventually taking over the family business, and he hadn’t even been told. When Layne brought the evidence to light, Liam refused to believe it. It wasn’t until she had dropped the papers into her dad’s lap that Scott O’Reilly finally revealed the full extent of his illness.

What a sick and twisted game fate was playing. Her dad’s right-hand man, Mickey Flannigan, had betrayed them all and then her dad ended up following him to the grave nearly six months later.

Sure, this business always had a high risk of death, but dying of a cancer that spread through your bones and left a path of destruction behind while it metastasized? Orthopedic surgeries to attempt to strengthen joints and damaged bones did little to stem the tide. At the end of the day? No one ever anticipated this gruesome end to the head of the O’Reilly family.

Outwardly, Liam had taken their dad’s premature passing the hardest. Currently, with his mental state on the fringe, he was handling his new role as the new head honcho as well as Layne had expected. He wasn’t handling it at all. Some days he was all in on taking leadership, and other days he was trying to issue everyone around him a death sentence. Then, there were weeks when he would abandon all responsibilities for a lick of his dick and a handle of booze.

As for Layne? She had been trying to pick up all the pieces falling around her, except those of her own. Buried in the deepest, darkest sea inside of her were all her unwanted emotions. If Layne had been capable of being honest with herself, she was holding herself together with a prayer and Elmer’s glue.

Dealing with Liam as the official figurehead of the organization made for a political shitshow while attempting to clean up his messes. Often, she found herself pussyfooting around issues, coordinating cleanups to the side, and trying to plant ideas in Liam’s head to think of as his own. Lord knew that if she tried to insert her opinion on anything business-wise, he would shut her out entirely. It was thoroughly exhausting.

Before all of this transpired, she had an anger problem. But, now? Layne was permanently pissed off. She questioned everything she had ever done in this family even after she said her goodbyes to the one parent she had left while he lay on his deathbed.

She should have been involved more. She should have asked more questions. She should have considered trying to play her role the way her dad had wanted her to. She shouldn’t have had to suffer another loss in her life. She shouldn’t have had to take on the weight of this world while the threat of the next loomed over them.

There was no fairness or logic to any of it. Her mother was gone. Mick was gone. Her father was gone. Liam was on a suicide mission and looking to bring everyone down with him. Joey was out of her life…

…or so she thought.

CHAPTER ONE

She had been in her silver Beamer sitting at a traffic light in midtown just a few blocks away from Times Square when Diego from the Brass Mirror called her in complete dismay.

He had been running the club on behalf of the O’Reilly family for the past seven years. For the most part, he knew his place, how to handle the elite clientele, and how to resolve any disruptions to the services rendered there.

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