Page 18 of Chaos Luck Wrath

After Sean’s grotesque passing, McGregor’s no longer held the same atmosphere and appeal it used to. Maybe Layne was just projecting her feelings, but the joint used to hold a sense of home and belonging that had seemingly been torn from it. Sean not only had been the face everyone saw behind the bar, but his dry humor and work ethic turned the joint into a safe haven for many.

With such a presence now missing, Layne had a hell of a time finding the right owner to replace the man who had been the backbone of this establishment for as long as she had been alive.

It had been sheer luck that Jillian, Sean’s niece, was looking to move back to the city. She was every bit of a spitfire that Layne was. Turned out, she had experience managing a bar in the rougher parts of Chicago for several years. But when Jillian got homesick, she put up the dive bar for sale and decided the Big Apple was where her heart was.

At first, Layne was wary of Jillian’s ability to turn a blind eye to the seedy business transactions that occurred at McGregor’s Pub. However, in the first week that she was running things, it was made clear she was a perfect fit.

Layne and Ethan had been meeting to discuss business as usual when a disgruntled drunk not only disparaged Ethan’s favorite waitress but refused to leave her a tip. Layne’s senior enforcer didn’t take kindly to it, and in a move of stupidity, ended up stabbing the man’s hand and pinning it to the table with a steak knife. It took everything Layne had not to do the same to Ethan for his lack of awareness and unsound judgment.

Jillian’s reaction had been outrage, but not because a member of Layne’s crew had just blatantly attacked one of the patrons. No, she had been pissed because of the mess the drunkard’s blood left on the table. Ethan had been made to apologize to Jillian and forced to clean up after his moment of indiscretion. Layne had never seen the table so shiny and clean in the entire history of McGregor’s.

Currently, with the anniversary of Shannon O’Reilly’s death only days away, Layne was checking the accounting records earlier in the month than usual. This was going to be the first year that Layne didn’t show up to her favorite pub for her annual inebriated shitshow.

While Jillian seemed to fit in with the rest of the criminally inclined crowd, Layne didn’t feel comfortable exposing the more vulnerable side of herself. This year, with Sean’s presence no longer there, it would just add to the dark hole she planned to dive into.

“What are you looking for? Those are the books from months ago,” Joey asked as he sat back in his chair with a bottle of cheap beer in his hand.

After the day Layne had suddenly taken off from the hospital, Joey and Gage had made it clear that she wasn’t going anywhere without either of them. She would have been more agreeable to a thousand papercuts than having her guys risking their lives for her. But arguing with them had gotten her nowhere, the stubborn assholes dug their heels in just as much as she typically did. Only they used it to their advantage that there were two of them and only one of her. So here Joey was, keeping a watchful eye over her.

Layne had dragged the box of records down from the second floor to a table in the back and was now combing through each of them. “Trying to figure out if I’m as crazy as I feel,” she responded with heavy distraction lingering underneath her words that indicated she was mostly talking to herself.

She flipped another page, scanning each line for the very thing that had raised red flags the day Sean was killed.

Joey’s hand reached out and stopped her from turning another page. The skull on the back of his hand was staring right at her. Layne looked over at him, “What are you doing?”

“You’ve hardly said more than a few sentences to me since you got back from meeting with Liam.” His look grew serious as he tried to read through the masked expression on her face.

She rolled her eyes. “I disagree.” Layne attempted to pry his hand from the book, but he was determined to leave it there. She would have had better luck trying to lift a two-ton vehicle than getting him to budge.

Taking a measured breath, he shook his head. “Sentences that revolve around you moaning out ‘God, yes, Joey’ don’t count.” He set the beer bottle on the table in front of him, wiping the condensation it left on his hand on the thigh of his jeans.

Not that he was complaining about both of them getting their insatiable fixes of one another, but she had been incredibly more guarded than normal. It was her raising of defenses that he knew so well that had him the most concerned about what was going on in her head. If her thoughts were spiraling, he needed to put a stop to it.

With a blank look on her face, Layne stared at him, waiting for him to say more. When he refused to back down, she let out a huff. “I’m just trying to figure shit out. The sooner we can resolve this fucking situation with Liam, the sooner we will all get back to normal.” It wasn’t a total lie, but it wasn’t the thing that had been chewing away at her typically steadfast foundation.

It didn’t seem that Joey was buying what she was selling as he inched his chair closer to hers. When she attempted to lean back, his hand was suddenly on the back of her neck forcing her to stay right where she was. “Layney, I was shot in the goddamn chest, not bashed over the head. Do you think I can’t tell when you’re putting up your barricades? I’m going to give you this one chance to answer my question. What has you pulling away from me?”

The way he asked that question of her tore a little hole in her heart. He may not have been a man who wore his emotions on his sleeve, but she knew him well enough to hear the pain in his words. Her hand came up behind her neck to rest on the back of his hand which was refusing to let her run and hide from this conversation. After several unsuccessful attempts of her fingers to peel his grasp off of her, she finally dropped her hand back into her lap.

Seeing his lips part to follow up on his unanswered question, she quickly let the words tumble out of her mouth. “I wish you had left the city the same night that Rebecca did.”

Joey’s hand loosened up its hold on her. “What?” His hand shifted from holding onto the back of her neck firmly, now to gently cradling it. The rich tones of his brown eyes reflected a series of emotions including one that made her feel guilty for even voicing her confession.

“Please don’t look at me like that.” She frowned. “I can’t think straight with you around, I don’t know what to believe anymore, and I can’t stand that it was you bleeding all over the church steps that day when it was supposed to be me.”

At first, she wasn’t sure if he was pissed at her honesty or if he was simply in disbelief that she laid it all out for him. Perhaps it was both.

Deciding to leave the heavy conversation there, she pushed her chair back to get up from her seat. His hand fell away from her neck when she stood. It wasn’t more than a fraction of a second before his hand wrapped around hers, ensuring she didn’t walk away from him.

He pulled her closer until his other arm drew her down to take a seat on his thigh. “Layne, I want you to listen to me.” Both his arms wrapped around her waist, holding her securely.

“I know what you’re going to say.” She braced herself for him to tell her she was being ridiculous and that she needed to suck it up and deal.

He scoffed. “Are you going to shut the hell up and let me talk?” Joey paused, waiting for her to decide if she was going to let him get out what he needed to tell her.

After a few seconds, he continued, “Do you feel this?” His hand lifted hers to rest on his chest directly over his heart. The light pulse of the muscle circulating blood throughout his body thumped against her palm. “You’re the only one that will ever have the power to make it stop beating. That’s the only thing you ever need to believe.”

Feeling the strong beating beneath her hand, it grounded her anxious thoughts. Layne leaned over and pressed her forehead to his, trying to focus on the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. “That’s what scares me. You’re caught up in all of this mess because of me.”

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