Page 28 of Chaos Luck Wrath

Thank God he had been able to compromise on not being buried up her ass tonight, figuratively speaking. Instead, he was capable of granting her the space she needed to yell at these assholes who worked for her and were supposed to be finding out more information on her delusional sibling.

Scanning the room, she saw Sammy sit back in his chair at a poker table, unleashing a hearty laugh as the dealer shoved a pile of chips his way. The other men at the table with him all groaned seeing the Full House laid out in front of her senior associate.

Sammy’s cocky smile was full of pride as he sat forward to collect his bounty. “Sorry, fuckers, guess you just can’t keep up with the pro,” he said as he organized the slew of chips in front of him.

She came up behind Sammy, leaning over and plucking a few black chips off the top of the stack in front of him and pocketed them. When he snapped his head around, his hazel eyes were fired up, and was ready to unleash a tirade of profanities at a woman touching his money. When he recognized Layne, his expression eased and tensions quickly faded.

As one of the top men who worked for her, Sammy was used to Layne’s high expectations and even higher attitude. He ran his hand over his slicked-back raven locks, realizing it was time to get to business.

“You’re early,” he pointed out. The light above the table glinted off the face of his Rolex on his wrist as he cashed out his chips and stood from his seat.

With displeasure in her voice, “And you were sitting here fucking off. Where are the other two?”

Straightening out the jacket of his black suit that matched the darkness of his hair, he shrugged. “Last I saw, Ethan was flirting with one of the waitresses and Jonathan was yapping on his phone.”

His mixture of brown and green hues shifted as he scanned the room for his partners in crime. Noticing Joey at the table near the bar he gave a small nod in polite form to his boss’s husband and got a nod in return.

“How’s he feeling?” Sammy looked at Layne, the genuine concern painted over his olive complexion.

Not bothering to look at Sammy, she continued to keep an eye out for the other two. Layne answered his question, “As good as anyone can expect after giving death the middle finger.”

Immediately, she picked out Ethan by his hulking size as he came out of the restroom. His fingers were buttoning up the last button of his gray vest over his white dress shirt. Close behind him, also coming from the single-person bathroom, was the head cocktail waitress at the Mirror.

Layne’s green eyes locked onto Ethan’s sapphire hues and he immediately quickened his strides over to her. People parted like the Red Sea to avoid getting bulldozed by him on his beeline to her.

When he stopped in front of Layne, he gave a large smile showing off his pearly whites, “Was just wrapping up… business.”

She raised a hand to fend off any further details. “If you keep fucking every waitress at every damn place we do business, I’m not going to be held responsible for the fallout when they all find out about one another.” Layne shook her head trying not to picture the day ten women came after her lead enforcer. One woman scorned was bad enough, but a herd of them? He was just begging to get raked over the coals.

“What? Melissa’s a sweet girl, we were just having a chat while she was on her break.” Ethan smirked, knowing his lie was as plain as the sleeve of tattoos on his ripped arms.

Now that she had two of her three head honchos, she just needed to track down her top-tier negotiator, Jonathan.

“Why don’t you both go grab the table in the back? I will see where the hell Johnny-Boy is.” She pulled her phone from her pocket, but before she could even unlock it, a hand came onto her shoulder from behind.

“I think this still qualifies as fashionably late,” Jonathan’s voice smoothly spoke up as he came around to her side. Then, when he saw the pissed-off look on Layne’s face, he winced, “or not.” He dropped his hand away from her and back down to his side into the pocket of his black dress slacks.

At the very back was a private room, though it wasn’t very private as the room had glass walls on two of the four sides. The only level of privacy it offered was from eavesdroppers’ prying ears.

Once they were all seated at the round table inside the cozy gathering spot, Layne sat back in the plush armchair and looked at the three men before her.

“I’m going to say this once. I expect fucking results, and I haven’t seen shit from any of you except excuses,” her eyes darted to Jonathan to shift the blame on him for all the piss poor explanations he had given her. “Horrible judgment calls,” her gaze moved to Ethan, knocking his brash actions. “And a whole bunch of nothing.” She stared at the last of the bunch, Sammy.

It was Sammy who tried to defend himself first, “Layne, there’s not a trail to follo?—”

Her hands slammed down onto the table in small fists as she rose to her feet and snapped at him. “He’s not a fucking ghost! There’s a fucking trail somewhere! I don’t give a shit if you have to talk to every goddamn hooker in the five boroughs! Somebody knows something!”

Lord help her, she wanted to shoot the next person who tried to tell anything less than helpful to her current situation.

It wasn’t just the lack of action and information that had her anger topping out, but the stress that at any moment Liam could strike again and she wouldn’t see it coming. He had already managed to take her by surprise twice, she didn’t want to be caught off guard a charming third time.

Jonathan immediately went into mediator mode and raised both of his hands in front of him. “Let’s just take a moment here to evaluate everything.”

She tilted her head as she stared at her prime negotiator, a mostly clean-cut-looking guy. His dark brown was always styled into place and just the faintest semblance of a goatee around his mouth.

“What’s there to evaluate? I feel like a sitting duck, all I’ve got is twenty-four-seven security detail up my ass and the realization that Liam has been stealing from me. What part of that should make me feel good about where we are currently at, huh?”

Met with blank stares for a moment, all she could hear was her pulse roaring in her ears as her blood pressure rose in conjunction with her temper.

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