Page 38 of Chaos Luck Wrath

Shaking his head, Joey nudged the closed blade back into her hand. “Hold onto it. I’ll let you return it to Liam in whatever method you feel he deserves.” He didn’t want anything responsible for spilling Layne’s blood in his possession.

Dr. Patty smiled as she watched Layne with the two men in her life who were bound to her with the utmost devotion. She knew the late Scott O’Reilly would have been so proud of his daughter, no matter how unexpected her life had taken a turn.

Chapter Seventeen

CHAOS

The vision of Layne was ethereal. Her dark brunette locks of hair were being caressed by the wind in a delicate dance. The sun illuminated her fair skin and the white wedding gown she wore. When she looked at him, her breathtaking emerald eyes sparkled as her smile made them shine even brighter.

“Why didn’t you kill me, Joey?” Her words didn’t match the visage of a goddess he saw before him. They were such harsh words said with such a delicate voice.

Joey stood there reaching out for her hand. “What are you talking about? Layney, I love you. I would never hurt you.” Somehow her hand was always just out of reach of his fingertips no matter how far he stretched.

Layne’s face became flooded with glittering tears. “But you did. You killed me. You made sure I wasn’t in that car. You have signed my death warrant every time you saved me.”

He kept running for her, trying to close the distance between them. All he needed was to hold her. Holding her would make it all okay. Yet, no matter how fast his legs carried him, he never seemed to get any closer to her. “No, that’s not true!”

Her sobs echoed in his ears. “You didn’t save me this time, did you?” She looked down and suddenly crimson blood poured from several small holes in her chest. Holes which were created by bullets he should have taken for her. With profound sadness, she stared at her hands coated in the shiny red liquid of what should never have been spilling so freely from her body.

Joey yelled for her, feeling the painful burn of lactic acid in his legs and the ache of depleted oxygen in his lungs as he ran faster and harder for her. “NO! LAYNE!” He couldn’t let her fall into death; he couldn’t allow himself to lose her.

Just when he thought he could wrap his arms around her to pull her into the safe embrace of his hold, her body faded into nothing but cold.

The surroundings swirled and shifted and now he was in the church they had been married in. At the altar were two coffins, one considerably smaller than the other.

When he approached the larger of the caskets, it remained open to reveal Shannon O’Reilly lying there in the peaceful slumber of death. He stepped over to the smaller casket which had been left closed. Joey’s hand reached out and began to lift the lid to see who was inside.

The top half of the coffin opened and the horrific sight greeted him. A ten-year-old Layne was laid to eternal rest inside. She should have looked innocently angelic and perfect, and yet her body was bruised and her skin was marred with damage.

The little version of Layne suddenly popped her eyes open like a creepy doll, staring directly at him. “You’ll never keep me from my fate. I’m already lost.”

He stumbled back, tripping over his own feet. When he fell, he expected to land on his ass—instead, the sensation of falling continued for far longer than should have been possible.

It was the jolt of startling awake from his dream that disrupted the images in his head. Joey’s heart was thumping hard in his chest. Partially, he sat up as he struggled to catch his breath while he looked around the bedroom illuminated by the light of the early morning.

At his side and asleep soundly, curled up with her overstuffed pillow was Layne. The blankets were tangled around her legs, leaving her bandaged thigh exposed to the air without the weight of the sheets on top of it. Her wavy locks of hair were held captive in a loose bun that had become half undone throughout the night.

Joey leaned over and gave the lightest of kisses to her bare shoulder so as to not wake her. He hovered close to her while he did so, drawing in the delicate scent of her body. The smell of freshly picked daisies that had been graced by the sun was what helped remind him that it all had been a nightmare.

He slid out of bed, nakedly walking around the room as quietly as his large form could manage before he located and pulled on a pair of boxer briefs. Joey took his phone off the charger and crept out into the hallway.

Allowing himself to stop tiptoeing after he was well past their bedroom door, he walked down the hall to one of the spare rooms on the second floor of O’Reilly Manor where he locked himself inside.

There on the screen of his phone was a contact, someone he didn’t want to ask a favor of. Gage had been right, there was no de-escalating the Liam situation. They were past the point of no return, and he needed to take measures with consequences be damned.

He pressed the call button and waited for someone to answer on the other end. When the bubbly receptionist picked up, Joey cleared his throat. “Hi, I need to speak to Commissioner Saito.”

That afternoon, Joey found himself seated across from New York City’s Police Commissioner, Vincent Saito, inside his personal residence on the North Shore of Long Island. As far as Layne was concerned, Joey was on a supply run and Gage was left in charge of keeping watch over her.

The couch Joey was seated on was the brightest shade of white he had ever seen and he wondered if it ever saw any use or if it just got replaced any time a stain sullied its blank canvas.

Vince held a short glass made of expensive crystal and filled with even more expensive bourbon in his hand. “Finally decided to cash in your favor, eh?” He raised the glass to his lips and swallowed down a large mouthful of the booze.

Joey rested his ankle on top of a knee as he sat back, trying to find comfort on the piece of furniture that he swore was stuffed with wood chips.

One of the household staff members Vince kept around to keep his home running smoothly, brought over an identical glass of amber liquid to Joey. Taking it, Joey nodded politely and rested it on top of his knee.

“Seeing as I helped to pave the path for you to be in your current position, I figured now was as good of a time as any.” Joey was keeping everything strictly business, refraining from bringing his private motivations into this discussion.

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