Page 34 of Chaos Luck Wrath

“Don’t you know who that is? That’s Mackenzie Pearce, the daughter of the tragically murdered Mayor Pearce. She’s due with a baby boy any day now.” The way Liam pretended he cared made Layne’s disgust come to a head.

Her thoughts reeled back to when Joey had taken the contract on the retired mayor’s head a little over eight months ago.

“You said it was an in-and-out job,” Layne looked at Joey as he came into the living room, coming home later than expected.

He tossed his work duffle onto the floor next to the sofa, and his words came out strained with irritation, “It would have been, but apparently his daughter was visiting for the holiday and was staying over.”

Layne lifted a brow. “So, what did you do?”

Joey’s hand pinched the bridge of his nose. “What the hell do you think? I took care of it–of her.”

She blinked several times at him at his snippy response and uncharacteristically bad mood.

“I’m going upstairs to shower and go to bed.” He left her there without so much as an apology or effort to smooth over his shortness with her.

Normally after he finished a contract, he wanted nothing more than to curl up with her and relax. Not this time.

Coming back to the present with the image of the woman in front of her she felt conflicted with all the things her heart knew about Joey and what her brain was trying to rationalize.

Liam lowered his voice to ask his next question, “How confident are you that he bothered using protection when he was fucking her?”

Layne pressed her lips together in a hard line, trying to combat the intrusive thoughts riddling her core with doubts. Joey had never bothered using a condom when he was with her and since she was on birth control, she had never questioned it before now.

She tried to move past all the scenarios trying to infiltrate her mind by swiping to the next picture in the message.

The next image was of Gage and two attractive women inside his club. Looking closer at the surroundings, it was sometime after the renovations were done to convert Cassidy’s Cave into Cassidy’s Chains. Each woman was perched on one of his knees with his hands holding each of them around their waists. They were leaning in close to him, their fucking tits practically up in his face and their hands resting right on top of his damn crotch like they owned it.

Her brother frowned. “I’m sorry, sis. You deserve better. You can’t possibly expect them to stick to one partner when you won’t do the same.” He watched as he saw the gradual decline in the faith of her two guys in her eyes filled with unshed tears.

Trying to come up with good reasons for the stories behind both pictures was becoming a losing battle. Her hand shakily turned the screen off yet she could see both photos popping up in her mind still.

Sniffling back her emotions, her eyes looked at Liam and shook her head firmly. “It doesn’t change what you’ve done.” Internally, she grasped for any straw of anger to chase back her rattled insecurities.

Liam shrugged and tapped the knife idly against her ribcage. “When you’re ready to fall in line, I will be waiting. You had your chance to hand everything over to me and take your leave quietly. Now? Things have to get messy so that you can learn your lesson.”

In the distance, over the dull roar of the crowd, she heard her name being shouted. Her attention was drawn away from Liam as she looked frantically for a familiar face or two. The first pair of chocolate eyes she met was Gage’s, followed by the coffee hues belonging to Joey.

Realizing his time with Layne was up, Liam withdrew the threatening blade from her side and released his painful hold on her arm. No sooner had he done both of those things, than he thrust the knife down into the muscle of her thigh.

Layne gasped as she felt the cold steel enter her leg, when she looked down there was a goddamn pocket knife in her body. Well, fuck. That wasn’t supposed to be there, was it? The searing pain quickly followed the sight her brain was trying to wrap itself around.

When she looked back up, Liam was already quickly blending back into the movement of people all around her. Ragged breaths escaped her as the pain and rage fused together in her veins.

Both her men had rushed to her the second they saw Liam leering over their girl. From their angle, they only saw a movement from Liam before Layne flinched and hunched over. The coward took off quickly thereafter.

“Layne!” Joey appeared at her side first.

Losing all sense in the hurricane of her feelings, she was already pulling out her Glock. Layne was prepared to empty her goddamn clip if it meant there was a chance of one bullet finding its way into Liam’s skull.

Coming to her other side, Gage’s hand abruptly shoved her arm back down, quickly pulling the firearm from her grasp and tucking it inside the front of his waistband underneath his shirt. He harshly whispered in her ear, “Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

“That fucking, son of a bitch, asshole!” The anger in her voice was enhanced by both the physical and emotional pain she was experiencing. She went to take a step to go after Liam, forgetting there was a fucking pocket knife stuck in her. Layne stumbled as the pain reminded her of that small but important fact.

Joey’s hands caught her by her arm and waist. He looked down at Liam’s parting gift and cursed under his breath. “Gage, we gotta get her out of here.” He glanced around them, hoping between the both of them, they could cloak Layne’s injury with their massive frames until they got someplace private.

Gage wrapped an arm around her. “Baby, just hold onto me.”

She winced as the pain just seemed to blossom across her entire thigh now that her adrenaline was slowly fading. Feeling both of their hands on her, images flashed across her memory of the images on her phone.

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