Page 65 of Chaos Luck Wrath

“Thanks. Your services are no longer required.” Layne pulled the trigger and the bullet found its home lodged into Jonathan’s heart, obliterating the critical muscle.

Sammy shook his head in disgust that out of the three of them, it was Jonathan who was working with Liam this entire time. “Layne, I had no idea…”

Sighing heavily, she nodded. “I know, nobody seemed to.”

“Dickhead,” Ethan said under his breath.

Layne returned her Glock to the holster in the back of her pants and pulled out her phone.

Gage raised a brow and came up behind her. “Who are you calling?”

“Liam,” his name rolled off her tongue drenched in disgust.

“Layney,” Joey said with a warning tone.

“Don’t worry, I’m making this short and sweet,” she reassured both of them.

Putting the call on speaker, the other end of the line rang a few times before her brother answered.

“This is a pleasant surprise.” Liam sounded far too excited to hear from her.

“Southside Storage, unit thirty-three. Come pick up your shit, motherfucker.” Her finger tapped the end call button. A moment later, she sent a picture of Jonathan’s hunched-over corpse to Liam.

The time of playing by her brother’s rules was over. Now, she was playing by her own.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

ALWAYS & FOREVER

There wasn’t a price Layne wouldn’t have paid to see Liam’s face when he received the picture of Jonthan’s dead body. She hoped he shit his pants and was prepared for her to begin executing anyone else that got in her way.

Thanks to finding an unexpected ally in one particular Russian, her brother had to know about good ol’ Nick’s demise by now. May that fucker be suffering in hell alongside Jonathan.

With two birds down, she couldn’t afford not to press forward, full steam ahead. Liam needed to feel the pressure to a point where he would royally fuck up. If he didn’t make a mistake, she sure as hell wasn’t going to stop until he did.

As for the note that her former associate had partially deciphered, it seemed they had less than a week before Liam expected her to roll up to the old Ellis residence and wave a white flag.

Good thing she didn’t plan to surrender if things didn’t go as planned. No, she would march over there beating her war drums for all of New York to hear if it came down to it.

Layne came downstairs wearing nothing but a black silk kimono robe overtop a silk lingerie set. O’Reilly Manor was expectedly quiet at eleven at night. With Gage meeting up with his friends to set up a plan to keep tabs on the perimeter of their home there on the Upper East Side, it was just her and Joey holding down the fort.

Joey had been stuck in the garage working on his car since dinner. It had been his way of busying his mind before he made the next strike in the early hours of the morning.

She quietly opened up the interior door that led into the garage and leaned against the frame as she watched him.

He was leaning over the side of the black Challenger, working on something under the hood of the vehicle. From this vantage point, she was happy to be standing there appreciating the view of his jean-clad ass.

Joey’s tee was draped over the seat of his motorcycle parked next to the car, leaving him shirtless and enhancing the already delicious sight. Each muscle in his back flexed as he worked.

Without turning to look at her, he spoke, “Eye-fucking me again, Layney?” Smirking to himself, he gave another twist of the socket wrench. Layne wasn’t nearly as stealthy as she thought she was.

After being called out, she convinced herself that if she had been trying to be sneaky, he wouldn’t have known she was there. Stepping onto the cool concrete of the garage floor, she was careful to watch where she walked to avoid tripping on any scattered tools.

“Was just seeing when you were planning on heading out.” Layne stopped at the front bumper as she looked at him with gentle green hues.

He sighed and rested his forearms on the edge of the car and looked over at her. She may have tried to silently admire him moments ago, but Joey made no such effort to conceal the way his eyes appreciated the woman standing there in the garage with him.

The silk robe was tied around her slender waist and draped over the rest of her petite figure. Its length fell to just above midthigh, making it unlikely she was wearing much of anything underneath. If he was lucky, she was wearing nothing at all.

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