Page 69 of Chaos Luck Wrath

“Goddamnit, pick up,” she whispered to herself.

Finally hearing the generic voicemail switch on again, she hung up and turned to face Gage and shook her head grimly. “Nothing.”

Her stomach felt sick; this wasn’t like him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck!” She brought a hand to her forehead as worst-case scenarios began to bounce around inside of her head.

Gage came up and grabbed her shoulders, he kissed her softly. “Breathe. Let’s just try to stay level headed. There are still some good reasons why he may not be back yet.” Internally, he was feeling anything but calm. He knew as much as she did that something had to have gone wrong, and the likelihood of his brother forgetting to check-in was next to zero.

She stared into Gage’s eyes that attempted to mask his concerns, but she saw right through it. Layne’s lower lip quivered. “We almost lost him once, I can’t even?—”

“Sshh,” Gage stopped her from going down that negative path. “There are a thousand explanations.”

“All of which leads to Liam.” She pressed her lips firmly together as she tried to see past her own spiraling emotions.

His hands grabbed her face firmly as he leaned in so their foreheads were touching. “Don’t think like that,” he sternly demanded of her. Both of them couldn’t afford to be lost to their fears.

Layne’s phone began buzzing in her palm. She glanced down and saw Liam’s name appear–so much for avoiding their worst nightmares. Turning the screen to Gage, she said, “This can’t be a coincidence.”

Without waiting for Gage to provide alternative reasoning, Layne put the call on speaker. Putting on her best front she steadied her voice, “What do you want, Li?”

Her brother darkly sniggered. “What do I want? More importantly, what—well…who do you want?”

She bit into her lower lip so harshly trying to contain the rage that wanted to lash out at him that she swore she was going to break the skin. Unclear of how much silence had passed between them, she finally began assembling her strength to ask the question she needed an answer to. “Is he alive?”

Dramatically, Liam sighed. “Always with the dumb questions, Layne. If he wasn’t, it wouldn’t do me any good to try and get you down here, now would it?”

“Yes or no, Liam.” The bile was rising quickly in her throat as she waited for a straightforward response.

Liam paused before replying to her, “Yes. For now.”

The sick feeling temporarily waned as she at least had something to put her at ease, a sliver of hope. There was no telling if Liam was lying or not, but any hope was better than none.

Her brother continued, “You want him? You know where to come find him. Don’t wait too long though. When I get bored, bad things happen, sis.”

She snapped, “Don’t fucking threaten me, Liam.” A heated and violent sensation was now flowing through her veins. “You want the O’Reilly empire to yourself? I will be fucking hand-delivering it to you.” Her thumb smashed the red button on the screen to disconnect the call.

Gage opened his mouth to say something, but before he had the chance, she screamed and threw her phone across the room. It collided with her dresser, shattering the glass screen, and falling to the floor. “Motherfucking piece of shit!”

Her chest rose and fell with the sheer amount of fury boiling up inside her. It wasn’t until Gage grabbed her shoulders tightly and turned her to face him that she saw something other than blinding red.

“Look at me!” His grip on her continued to remain as firm as his voice. “I need you to keep your shit together, Layne. He knows that you’re ready to run over there with guns out.”

“Damn straight I am! He has six fucking holes in his body and I’m going to put a bullet in every one of them!” Layne was prepared to go on a murder spree and take out anyone who got in her path. “This is it, Gage. I refuse to let him or anyone else fuck with our lives anymore. I’m done.”

Nodding, Gage was on the same page with her but had to be the sanity check to make sure she didn’t do something that got herself killed. While he was willing to spend an eternity in the afterlife with her and Joey, it wasn’t something he wanted to start today. “Go hop in the shower, I will make a few calls and start packing.”

Despite being amped up and anxious to get out the door, Layne showered and let her vivid imagination come up with every potential way of killing her brother. If Joey was anything less than unscathed, she would make her pain felt by all of the criminal factions in New York if she had to.

Getting ready to bring a war to your psychopathic brother’s turf wasn’t as quick of a process as she wished. Gage had been right in trying to get her to slow down and think things through. If he had let her leave right after that phone call, she would have left most of her arsenal at home so she could choke the shit out of Liam with her bare hands.

Instead, dusk was cloaking the city on a below-freezing winter’s night. The snow on the roads and sidewalks helped cut through the darkness of the day’s end.

Gage parked his Jeep in the church parking lot across the street from Eric Ellis’s former residence. “This is it?” He stared at the massive corner property in disbelief. Valuing his life, he decided against asking Layne if Eric had been making up for lack of size in other areas.

“Yeah, Eric was a bougie asshole when he made the move here.” Layne unbuckled her seat belt and swung open her door, hopping out onto the cracked pavement of the parking lot.

He hadn’t been willing to say it, but fuck, Gage would have purchased the home in a heartbeat if it hadn’t been for the bad blood associated with it. Now, he just wanted to see this gorgeous piece of architecture burn to the ground.

Layne had her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail, and dressed in black from head to toe. Stretching her skull mask with the green and orange ribbons across her face, she looked over at Gage as he also got out of the Wrangler.

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