Page 35 of Chaos Luck Wrath

“Don’t touch me!” She snapped at them, shoving their hands away.

Seeing her lash out at both of them as they tried to help took them by surprise.

Her gaze fell back down to her leg and the blood soaking into her jeans. “Fuck!” Layne groaned as her hand went to the handle of the knife, wrapping around it ready to yank it out.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Joey took both her hands before she did something stupid. “Just stop, Layne. Look at me and fucking think for a damn second.”

While she was directing her vicious stare at Joey, it was Gage who began tying the arms of his jacket around Layne’s hips to cover the glaring injury before anyone else noticed.

As clouded as her head was, filled with a myriad of emotions ranging from highs to lows, Layne still recognized that she couldn’t just stand there in her current state. “Call Jonathan and have him come here to pick me up and bring me to Dr. Patty’s.”

Gage tightened the knot of the jacket around her hips and looked over at Joey, hoping he wasn’t the only one of them confused by her request for one of her associates.

Not seeing any indication that Joey knew what the fuck was going on, Gage reached over to try to hold her face. “Look at me, Layne,” his tone soft in hopes she wouldn’t verbally or physically lash out again. “Let us help you, baby. I don’t know what happened, but we need to get you patched up.”

The tug of emotions in her eyes was causing them to fill with watery frustration and pain. “I don’t want you to do anything except call Jonathan and have him come get me.” Her voice shook. Jonathan wasn’t her first choice, but he was likely the next best one given she knew he had been in the area after their discussion at the restaurant.

Joey’s irritation was clear as he spoke under his breath, “This is fucking insane.” Regardless, he pulled out his phone and called her associate as requested.

While he gave Jonathan directions, he and Gage assisted Layne to the nearest side street that was mostly out of the public eye. She stubbornly tried to refuse as much of their help as possible. Gage finally bit the bullet and risked suffering her wrath when he wrapped an arm around her waist and all but damn carried her the last few steps against his side.

Refusing to make eye contact with either De Luca brother, she silently leaned back against the side of a building while they waited for Layne’s ride to arrive. Not accepting any further assistance, she used Gage’s jacket to help stem the bleeding until she got proper medical attention.

Layne looked down at the knife buried in her left quadriceps. Her chin quivered as she saw the silver inscription lasered into the black handle.

J. De Luca

Chapter Sixteen

PATCHED UP

Her torn and bloodied jeans were in a pile next to her on the patient table inside Dr. Patty Kimmel’s in-home clinic. Layne sat there in her underwear furiously typing on her phone.

Jonathan was doing his best not to directly stare at his half-dressed boss, despite her obvious lack of fucks given.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to wait outside?” He asked for the sixth time.

Growing more irritated every time he asked, Layne finally lowered her hands into her lap and looked over at him with exasperation filling her tone. “You want to be useful? Go outside and tell Joey and Gage to go the hell home.”

The guys had followed Jonathan’s car there to Dr. Patty’s house, despite her repeated protests that her associate was more than capable of getting her there in one piece.

Unsure whose fury he would have rather endured in that moment, it seemed getting out of the room with Layne seemed the wisest decision. Jonathan took the opportunity and immediately scurried out into the hall.

A minute later, Layne could hear the front door close as he went to deliver her message. Did she really think either man lingering out front would listen to him? No, but it at least gave her a few minutes of peace with her thoughts.

She returned to tapping out a few more texts on her phone to her trusted techie, Brandon. From a short stool in front of Layne, the doctor glanced up at her and spoke without judgment in her voice. “You know as well as I do, Layne, that poor man is going to get an earful.” She gave a soft chuckle.

Layne sighed. “His damn nervous energy was going to drive me insane if he stayed in here any long—” A hiss of pain escaped her lips as a fresh wave of pain coursed through her thigh.

“Sorry, all done.” The woman in front of her finished wrapping the bandage around Layne’s leg before getting up from the stool she had been perched on. With a light snapping sound, Dr. Patty removed the latex gloves from her hands and tossed them into a waste basket.

Silence filled the room, but it wasn’t until Layne realized that Dr. Patty hadn’t moved that she stopped her fingers' swift movements across the screen of her phone. The doctor was standing there with her hip cocked and a hand on her waist looking at Layne over the tops of her glasses.

“What?” Layne asked in clear confusion as to why she was getting a stern look from her private physician. Granted, getting stabbed wasn’t an ideal visit, though very few of her visits were routine checkups. Layne would like to think she had been a half-decent patient in not punching the crap out of the doctor when the knife had been dislodged from her leg.

Dr. Patty pulled the glasses from her face and perched them on top of her head. “I know the look of trouble in paradise and I know you. Do you want my non-medical advice?”

“Are you going to give it to me anyway?” Layne had a feeling she knew the answer and expected to hear a long, drawn-out speech about playing nice in the sandbox, not being so damn stubborn, and how everything would be back to normal in a day or so. That was not the talk she got.

---