Page 66 of Chaos Luck Wrath

Joey straightened up and tossed the wrench into the open toolbox next to the front tire. “I’m almost done here.” He wiped his hands on the thighs of his stained pants, though it did little to remove the black smudges on his hands.

Crossing her arms in front of her stomach, her hands lightly grasped onto her elbows. “Everything all set for Liam?” The plan they had conjured seemed karmic considering the last time an O’Reilly was executed. However, just thinking about some of the ways it could go wrong had Layne feeling incredibly uneasy.

Picking up on her restlessness and the concern settled in her stance, Joey stepped up to her. “It’s going to be okay. You forget how long I’ve been doing this, Layne. I will head over to Eric’s old place, install the explosives on the truck that Ethan says matches the description of the one that was involved in your accident, and hightail it the fuck out of there. With any luck, Liam will get what’s been coming to him. If not, it will take out whoever is helping him.”

“I know.” The tension in her body didn’t let up.

Sullied hands or not, he decided he couldn’t hold back from using his touch to reassure her. Joey lightly wrapped his hands on either side of her neck just under her jaw, his thumbs caressing the lower lines of her face.

Cocoa brown eyes stared at her as he searched for what was weighing on her mind. “What are you really worried about?” he asked.

Trying to beat down her heart’s emotions, she blinked back a few tears. War came with unexpected casualties, ones that you didn’t get to pick or choose.

“Don’t make me ask twice.” He gave a small smile at her that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Filling her lungs with a heaping amount of air, she tried to steady her voice. “There’s been a lot going on. When are we all just going to get a break and have a shot at normalcy again?”

His hands fell from her so he could draw her up against his bare chest, wrapping his arms around her upper body into a tight embrace. “We’ll get our chance, I promise.” If his new deal with Commissioner Saito held up, their opportunity would get here sooner rather than later. “Did you make the call we talked about?”

“Yeah…” The tone of her voice carried a mixture of regret and hesitation. Layne wrapped her arms around his waist as she rested her face against the warmth of his skin. Her cheek pressed against the scarred shamrock tattoo over his heart, the disrupted inkwork around the scar was a souvenir of him saving her life.

Joey’s fingers smoothed back a few stray locks of hair away from her face. He hesitated as his words began to stick to the back of his throat, refusing to come out easily. Briefly, he shut his eyes tightly and kissed the top of her head, finding the strength to open up the last piece of him to her.

With eyes back open, he eased her face away from him so he could look at the woman who had changed him before he had even met her. “Layne, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Scrunching her eyebrows together, she wasn’t sure what emotion she should prepare for. “About what?”

Immediately, his heart felt a pang of guilt seeing that she was already hesitantly putting up her defenses. His large hands grabbed her face so he could make sure she saw the honesty in what he had to say.

“Layne, you are both my biggest regret and my greatest salvation. I never want to know life without you in it.” In a rare moment, his eyes glistened as his sight remained locked on her. “There isn’t a day where I don’t regret all the negative impacts I’ve had on your life, but you saved me before you ever knew me.”

As she began to part her lips to ask questions, his thumb sealed her lips shut. “Let me finish telling you what you deserved to hear long before now.”

She stood there with her eyes filling with the heaviness of emotion as he began his final confession.

Joey’s thumb rubbed across the perfect shade of pink of her lips. “You were never meant to be mine. Hell, you were never meant to become the woman you are now. I…” He braced himself for the moment he wished he could erase from his history. “You were supposed to be in the car with your mom.”

Layne felt a whirlwind of confusion as she tried to wrap her brain around his words. “W-what?”

He frowned. “The contract was for both of you. I did months of surveillance, watching and waiting for the right time. The day I set the device on your mom’s car, I realized I could never come back from taking your life before it even began. So, I made an anonymous call to your dad, threatening your life knowing he would react by becoming even more overprotective.”

Her eyes searched his face, noticing all the years of guilt coming to the surface. She struggled with the new revelation that her life could have been cut short at Joey’s hands not once, but twice. On the day she lost her mother, she couldn’t understand why her parents wouldn’t let her go out, and now it was all becoming clear.

Joey dropped his head down shamefully. “Layney, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you before now. It never felt like the right time.”

Seeing a fresh line of moisture trail down his cheeks she frowned.

“Hey,” Layne said with gentle reassurance. “Look at me.” Her fingertips came up underneath his scruffy chin to tilt his gaze back up to her.

His eyes met hers, expecting the worst of words to be spoken.

“I have learned to open myself up and lower the walls I have spent years building up because you make me feel safe. I have chosen to love you even knowing your past. You have always protected me, even when I didn’t know I needed you to. That’s not something I can be angry at you for.” God knew she hadn’t made his life any easier some days, but Layne wouldn’t change their pasts no matter what she was offered in exchange.

No matter how you looked at it, Joey had spared her twice in her lifetime when he could have snuffed out her flame.

Her hands cupped his cheeks, her fingertips swiping away the pain expelled from his eyes.

Layne brought her mouth to his, kissing away all the doubts and regrets he had about his past. Lovingly her lips pressed to his to do her best to put his conscience and soul at peace.

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