Page 20 of Chaos Luck Wrath

Same fucking day, different fucking year. Shannon O’Reilly’s death would always live on inside her daughter’s head. Of all the fucked up things Layne ever witnessed, she couldn’t get past the sight of her mom getting into the car on that fateful day. The vibrations that reached inside the house as the explosion went off would never be unfelt. The burst of light as the flames ignited wouldn’t ever be extinguished in her mind. The instant when her mother was no longer whole could never be pieced back together in her heart.

Lying on her back, she stared up at her ceiling fan as it made rotation after rotation. The air in the bedroom shifted slightly with each movement of the fan blades cutting through the air. Despite having redecorated the master bedroom upon moving in, this was still the very same room her parents used to retire to at the end of a long day.

“Mom!” Layne bounded into the bedroom on a Friday night after coming home from Rebecca’s house. She launched herself onto her parents’ bed, bouncing gently against it after landing on her stomach. Her hands propped her head up under her chin while her legs idly kicked back and forth.

Shannon sat there in bed with a book in her hands, reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose, and her beautiful mane of chestnut hair in a loose braid hanging over her shoulder. She lifted her gaze from the words on the page to her ten-year-old daughter with a smile. Her fingers pulled the thin-framed glasses from her face and rested them between the pages of the novel she had been enjoying, titled “Deadly Bonds.”

“Layney, how many times have I told you not to throw yourself onto the bed like that? You’re bound to break the frame one of these days.” Her mother scolded her gently, still upholding a loving smile.

Layne rolled her eyes at the comment she had heard time and time again and blatantly ignored it. Instead, she dove right into her reason for barging into the bedroom in the first place. “You’re not going to believe what happened at Rebecca’s tonight.” She pushed herself up onto her knees, sitting back on her feet as she began to dive into the story.

With childlike excitement, Layne wildly spilled all the details of the eventful evening. “So, we were playing outside on Rebecca’s front steps. She was being so bossy again and wouldn’t let me pick what game we were gonna play. She was going to go back inside, but that’s when Tilly got out the front door!” Layne’s hands dramatically moved with each explanation, especially as she mentioned that her best friend’s Scottish terrier made an escape attempt.

Her mother gasped, appearing fully invested in the story her daughter was telling.“Oh my, Layney! Did you get Tilly back?”

Layne popped up onto her feet on the bed ready to continue explaining while standing on the mattress. However, with a stern look from Shannon and a gesture to sit back down, Layne dropped onto her butt with a mild bounce.

“Yeah, we got Tilly back, but she almost ran out into the street! I ran to go get her, but some nice man managed to scoop her up. He had the COOLEST motorcycle. It had a skull sticker on it and everything!”

Layne grinned as she remembered the stranger. The tall man with the dirty blonde hair had been parked right out front of her friend’s house. When he heard both girls shrieking for the little black dog to come back, he stopped what he was doing to snatch up the pup before it ran by him towards the open street filled with oncoming traffic.

He carried Tilly back to Layne, squatting down in front of her as he handed the furry runaway back to her with a polite smile.

“After he gave Tilly back, he told me to be careful and all that jazz, but I’m smarter than that. I wouldn’t have run out into the street after her. I told him that, too.” Layne declared her intelligence proudly as she wrapped up the retelling of events.

Shannon’s smile faltered slightly, forcing the curve to remain on her lips but the hint of concern filled her eyes. “That was very kind of him, Layney. But come here for a second.” She waved her hand at her daughter to scoot closer.

When Layne crawled over to sit next to her mother in bed, cuddling up against her side, Shannon pulled her into a close hug. “I’m happy that Tilly is okay, but I want you to realize something that I know you might not fully understand. Not every stranger who does a good deed is a good person. Daddy’s job can make a lot of people upset sometimes, and we should always be careful who we trust, okay? Even if they seem nice.”

Her mother leaned over and placed a kiss on the top of Layne’s head. “Now, why don’t you go get your pajamas on, come back here, and we can watch a movie together before you go to bed.”

Layne remembered that night so clearly. She and her mother cozied up in bed together, laughing at a silly movie until Layne conked out. It had all transpired in the same room she found herself in now. No matter how the paint changed, how the furniture got replaced, or the different voices echoing in the air–these four walls would always contain the bittersweet past.

Being stuck inside her memories, Layne could still hear the sound of the explosion as her mom’s existence was wiped from this earth months later. Layne wondered if her mother felt anything. Had she known she was getting blasted to pieces? Was there fear of death? What pain had she suffered? Did she have any regrets?

This year, Layne had so many other thoughts weighing on her as she wondered about how things would be if her mother were still alive today. Would she be supportive of Layne’s relationship with Joey and Gage? Would Liam be the same homicidal lunatic he had turned into? There were so many questions she didn’t have answers to and never would.

She sighed as she remained there in the empty bed for another fifteen minutes while getting lost in the whirlwind of emotions. Layne assumed that at least one of her men was in the house, if not both of them. Joey had been adamant about keeping eyes on her with Liam off his rocker. Gage was being equally protective. The two of them took turns at her side, no matter where she was. She couldn’t even shower in peace, but that was because both of the guys had other intentions besides her safety.

If she got up out of bed, she could immediately start raising her blood alcohol levels. Yet, the blankets weighing down on her were very convincing in their efforts to dissuade her from leaving their captivity.

Deciding that caffeine and booze made a better tag team than some Egyptian cotton bedding, she kicked the sheets off herself.

Trudging downstairs in her dark blue boy shorts and gray tank top, she grumbled when she entered the kitchen and saw the coffee pot empty. “What the fuck…”

Layne began to go through the process of preparing a pot of coffee so she could at least pretend to be a shell of a human being today. About the time she hit the button to kick off the brew cycle, she looked around the kitchen. It was quiet. Why had no one made coffee this morning? Where were the guys?

She poked her head around a corner, “Joey?”

No response.

Walking down the hall and to the bottom of the stairs, she called up to the second floor, “Gage?”

Silence.

Shrugging with indifference, she shook her head and walked back to the kitchen. Their presence, or lack thereof, wasn’t going to alter her self-destructive agenda for today.

Noticing there was enough coffee in the pot for a single cup, she grabbed a mug and filled it halfway with the wake-up juice. The other half was filled with the good stuff: whiskey. For good measure, she added a splash of Irish cream.

---