17. Chaos

Chapter Seventeen

CHAOS

T he 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.

Vince may have looked like a minivan-driving soccer dad who went camping with his kids every weekend, but that didn't preclude him from being drawn into more sinister methods to get the results he wanted.

Idly swirling the remaining bourbon in his glass, the commissioner took Joey's words under his consideration. "Alright, I'll bite. What are you looking for?"

Trying to play it cool, Joey shrugged before laying it out there, "Where does Liam O'Reilly fall on your radar?"

The sudden laughter from Vince filled the massive space of a living room they were currently occupying. "Your brother-in-law?! Oh man, shit." His hand came to settle on his chest as he tried to gather his composure with a few more chuckles. "Fuck, if you were coming here to talk about anybody, I figured it'd be your wife." There were very few professional contacts who knew the unmasked version of Joey, and Vince was one of them.

Commissioner Saito snickered before he drew another sip of the bourbon into his mouth. Licking the flavor from his lips, he shook his head. "The O'Reillys have been on the NYPD's radar for some time. I'm pretty sure the Bureau even has their eyes on them."

It wasn't news that Joey was particularly happy to hear, but that's why he was here, wasn't it?

"Your wife is a real piece of work, ya know that?" He whistled in amazement. "The body count she's racked up over the past few years is astounding–according to my sources, anyways." Vince grinned as he sank back into the sofa.

Joey stared at the man who was drunk on power, the power that Joey had helped him achieve. "I'm well aware of my wife's indiscretions. I'm more interested in why the fuck Liam is still on the streets."

Tossing back the remainder of the alcohol in his glass, the commish finally engaged in the more serious side of the matter at hand. "Liam O'Reilly isn't enough of a headline-worthy perp to be focusing the NYPD's resources on. Don't get me wrong, he's not a saint, but from a political standpoint, he's nothing. Layne, on the other hand…"

Dropping his foot from his knee onto the ground, Joey leaned forward with a deadly threat looming in his eyes and a crushing grip on his glass. "You and I had a deal."

Before Joey got too carried away, Vince lifted a hand to halt him right then and there. "Relax. I'm not going back on my word. While nailing Layne would make for headlines of the century, she's not in any danger from my precincts." The press would have a field day with an attractive young woman in charge of an organized crime unit so violent that it made grown men shiver with either desire or fear.

There was no falling back into a sense of ease for Joey before Vince tacked on one little caveat, "But, I am not the only authority. As I'm sure you've heard, the FBI has helped us get the Unwind and Unorganize Program off the ground. It's only a matter of time before they realize she's not just a pretty face."

Joey consumed his entire serving of the oaky notes of booze in one go. He leaned over and set the glass on the coffee table in front of him. "Liam needs to quickly become one of New York's finest's top priorities."

"And just how do you propose I go about that without zeroing in on Layne, hm? They're from the same family. As you well know, where there is one family member with black blood, there are always more. Apples never fall far from the tree, you get what I'm saying?" The commissioner examined the empty glass hanging from his fingers as the sunlight shone through it in an array of refracted colors.

The hint of frustration reached Joey's voice as he made his point, "That sounds like it's your problem to figure out, not mine. Liam is his own person and responsible for his own actions. There's no reason you can't perform a sting operation focused on someone who shouldn't have left prison in the first place."

Chuckling at the irony, he pointed out to Joey, "Sounds like someone else I know." The commissioner's eyes looked pointedly at Joey before mulling over the idea of a sole sting op on Liam.

Vincent shifted his head from side to side, weighing every alternative. "I could . However, this seems like a hell of a favor to be asking."

Forcing to swallow his growl, Joey's eyes darkened with a glare. "Your biggest opponents to you taking up your current position have been silenced. Do I need to remind you what lengths I had to go to?"

Commissioner Saito leaned forward before laying out his counteroffer, "Here's the best I can do: I can look into it. Get his file reopened and turn it into an active case. It's not a quick turnaround time though, these things need to be carefully curated." He motioned a finger at Joey's chest. "You know what would speed things up? If you suddenly recalled who put the bullet in your chest."

Well, that wasn't going to fucking happen. He wasn't about to get roped into a fucking political nightmare and put Layne in a position where her allies questioned her ability to keep her mouth shut. Openly working with the police wouldn't accomplish anything but put a strain on her business and both their livelihoods.

Joey stood and approached the man who sat comfortably in his politically powerful position with an air of arrogance wrapped around him. "If I hear the faintest whispers of Layne getting pulled into the scope of things, I guarantee you'll be waking up to a skull in your face in the middle of the fucking night."

Vince stood, nowhere close to matching Joey's towering height. "Tread carefully, De Luca. Do you think you're the only one who can execute favors at my request?"

Narrowing his brown eyes, Joey chose his words carefully as he grasped the commissioner's hand in a firm handshake while laying his other hand on his shoulder and whispering into his ear, "Do you think I give a flying fuck about the sloppy assholes who pretend to be bumps in the night? They're pups trying to play amongst the wolves."

He patted the back of the commissioner's shoulder before pulling back and releasing his grip on the man's hand. "I'll be in touch."

Heading out of the room, he heard Vince shout out after him, "If the Feds get involved, it's out of my hands and all deals are off!"

Joey prayed that it didn't come to that; he'd hate to try and take down the entire damn Government, but for Layne, he'd thrive in all the chaos.