Chapter 17

Truth be told, Layne could have slept another hour or two if it hadn't been the grumbling of her stomach demanding she feed it. When she opened her eyes and lifted her head from the pillow, her bed was completely empty. Zero De Lucas to be found.

She lay there a minute longer, a smile forming on her lips as she thought back to what had transpired. Her toes curled against the sheets as she recalled how intense her feelings had taken her hostage.

Finally, she decided that tracking down some food was going to be priority number one after she hopped in the shower to wash away all the dried bodily fluids smeared between her thighs.

Layne scooted to the edge of the bed and the movement gave a small protest of soreness between her legs. She saw the water and the ibuprofen that Gage had left for her before they all passed the hell out. Deciding it wasn't a half-bad idea, she went ahead and swallowed a single dose down.

After a shower that left her feeling refreshed, she left her hair down in dark and damp waves around her shoulders. Layne pulled on a pair of black joggers to go with a distressed tee that had a wide-scooped neckline causing it to slip down off one shoulder.

While the guys had been the perfect distraction, her thoughts began to come back to her as to the sight she and Gage had stumbled upon at McGregor's. The erratic letters spray-painted on the wall communicated the message in no uncertain terms. Sean's body with a large and gaping wound while dangling there from the rope was meant to drive home the point of how serious the threat was.

When she got downstairs, she heard two familiar voices as she approached the kitchen. Entering the spacious area designed for someone with far better cooking skills than she possessed, Joey and Gage both turned to look at her. Each of them displayed their own unique signature smile. Gage's had a rugged yet boyish charm to it, while Joey's smile always seemed to have an edge of mischief tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Joey had on a pair of his navy sweats and a white tank clinging to the trim muscles of his torso. As usual, each of Joey's tattoos flexed with his movements creating a show that she could watch for the rest of her days and intended to. As for Gage, while he had on a pair of jeans, he was missing a shirt. The cut of each of Gage's large muscles was on full display, while the necklace he always wore hung down in the center of his chest.

The sight of them both made her mouth water, and her mouth wasn't the only thing getting wet. It was a quick reprieve from the more serious thoughts floating around in her mind seconds ago.

"There you are." Joey approached her, one hand resting on her hip while his other slid into the soft chestnut locks of her hair. He greeted her with a kiss that had a fiercely possessive love behind it.

After he pulled away, he stepped away to rummage through the fridge. That's when Gage stepped up to her next. His hands came up to her face, and before he made a connection with her lips, he spoke in a low voice to her. "Did you take the ibuprofen I left for you?"

Layne nodded her head. "Yes."

Gage smiled in approval, but he still hovered his mouth over hers. "You forgot something."

When her eyebrows shifted in confusion while her emerald pools stared up at his face looking for an indication of what he meant.

He brought his mouth to her ear while he whispered, "‘Yes, Sir.'" The emphasis on the way he added the title to it sent a heat barreling deep to her core. Gage drew back to face her again. "Try again, lucky charm. Did you take the meds I left for you?" If she wanted him in on this little arrangement, he was going to make his expectations known.

The way his eyes felt like they were watching the burn of lust warming her soul had her willing to say any goddamn thing he wanted. "Yes… Sir."

After addressing him the way he demanded, Gage gave her the kiss he had been withholding from her. His mouth gently caressed her lips as the expanse of his hands cradled her face just underneath her jaw.

Gage grinned happily after he eased away from the kiss. "Just had to make sure you'd be as much of a good girl as Joey said you would."

That earned a snort from Joey who pulled out a sub from the fridge and began laying it out on a plate for Layne. "I said she's a good girl when I want her to be. I never fuckin' said that you'd get the same treatment."

"Hm, seems she's a quick learner." Gage flashed a wink at her before he walked back over to where there was an open bag of chips on the counter. He leaned back against the counter and dug into the crinkly bag for a handful of the salty snack.

With both of them talking about her, she shot them a sassy look. "If you both keep talking about me like I'm not here, I'm not going to be anybody's good girl."

That earned her a chuckle from Gage. "Oh, I'll be looking forward to that." He enjoyed dishing out punishments to bratty bad girls.

Layne walked over to where Joey was pulling the last of the paper from her sandwich. "Tell me that's for me. I'm starving."

Joey nodded at her and kissed her cheek as he pushed the plate towards her, not before giving a smack to her ass for her smartass comment though.

After both of them watched her devour the roast beef sandwich in record time, Joey was the first to bring up the sensitive topic of what happened at McGregor's. "Layne, we should talk about what happened at the pub."

She raised a glass of water to her mouth, washing down the last of her sandwich. "I agree." Both Gage and Joey blinked at her unexpected response. Layne brushed off her hands over the now empty plate and continued, "I'm pissed—no, I'm fucking livid. When I find out who is responsible, they're going to learn real damn quick. If they want to fuck with me thinking I'm going to be scared off, they have another thing coming. This is one bitch that is going to come out, play the damn game, and win."

Layne was tired of people being ripped from her life one tragedy after another. One of the other factions had to be at play here, and she was bound and determined on finding out which one thought they were going to fuck with this O'Reilly. Her father, Scott O'Reilly, would have never tolerated this type of attack and Layne wasn't going to either.

Her eyes looked at both of them, "I'm going to meet with the head of every damn faction in the city myself. Someone is going to give me answers." Layne's voice was firm but surprisingly calm.

Gage popped one last chip in his mouth, chomping down on the crunchy round quickly. "I like this plan. Let's do it."

It was Joey who gave an irritated sigh at Gage's enthusiastic response to what seemed like a reckless plan. He tried to be the voice of reason for all their sakes. "We've got an unhinged psychopath here. Before we shake up a hornet's nest even further, let me try to see what information I can shake out of a few sources."

She wasn't swayed off course by Joey's attempt to dissuade her. "I've already texted Jonathan telling him to start setting up the meetings. I'm not backing off just because some coward wants to make a move behind my back." Russ was at the top of her list of suspects, and she was willing to put money on it that he was involved one way or another.

Gage had to take off shortly after their discussion with Layne. It was one of the most popular nights at Cassidy's, Eat Me, Greet Me night. All of the girls got candy necklaces and with every purchase of a lap dance, each patron received one as well. The concept was devilishly simple: the candy could be eaten off of its elastic string wherever the necklace was placed on the other person.

Layne was doing what she did best, burying herself in work to avoid letting her mind wander too far into the darker depths of her soul. She had been holed up in her office all afternoon making back-to-back phone calls to faction heads.

She sat in the office chair, her feet propped up on the edge of the desk as she leaned back with her phone to her ear listening to the thick Russian accent of Alexei Kuznetsov.

"Pchelka," he sighed as he called her ‘little bee' in his native tongue. "I am a very busy man."

Her fingers buried into the hair on the top of her head growing tired of political dances through minefields of oversized egos.

"And I'm a very busy woman, Alexei. In fact, I'm going to be even busier once I find out which of your men took shots at me several months ago." Layne's voice grew heated with irritation.

There was a long pause before he responded to her. "I told you, none of my men had any involvement. Was big misunderstanding."

She sat up in her chair, dropping her feet back down to the floor. "Misunderstanding?" Her harsh laugh at his minimization of the incident cut through the air. "If you want to avoid any misunderstandings when it comes to who feeds the hand of your vodka distributor, I would highly suggest that you find fucking time in the next week to make room for some drinks with me."

It sounded like Alexei pulled the phone away from his mouth as he yelled at someone in Russian. With the very limited knowledge she had of the Russian language, Layne only caught a word here or there—both swear words. As he returned to his conversation with her, he had a much softer tone. "Alright, pchelka. We shall talk, yeah?"

Feeling a sense of relief wash over her, she finally cracked a smile. She wrapped up the details with him before hanging up and tossing her phone onto her desk in front of her. There were knots embedded in her muscles all over her body knowing the uphill battles she was fighting daily in the criminal underworld. This entire situation surrounding Sean and McGregor's added to the already heavy load.

The door to her office creaked open and Joey popped his head in, no longer hearing or seeing her on the phone, he fully stepped inside. "Hey."

She lifted her gaze off the phone lying there on her desk to see him walking over to her. He came to her chair, turning it to face him so he could take her hands and urge her out of her seat.

Layne smiled sweetly at him. "Hey."

Joey could see the stress locked tightly into her shoulders. He released her hands and began to knead his fingers into the compactly coiled muscles around the base of her neck. "I wanted to talk."

She groaned and closed her eyes, giving in to the nearly painful manipulation of the stubborn knots his hands were trying to work out. "Mm, I already told you my plan. If it makes you feel better, I will let you or Gage come to the meetings with me."

"Let?" He raised a brow at her choice of words. Joey's fingers stopped their massage and his fingers grabbed ahold of her chin. When she opened her brightly colored eyes at the interruption of his hands' work, she saw him with a heated gaze.

His face came in closer to her own as he spoke with his voice on the edge of a growl. "Make no mistake, Layney, one or both of us will be there whether you allow it or not."

The way he slowly spoke the words to her had her heart beating a little quicker inside her chest.

Joey wasn't going to fuck around with her safety. In a perfect world, she should have been perfectly safe having talks with the other faction heads as the head of her own criminal enterprise. However, he didn't trust any of those fuckers, not after they all had basically left her for dead when Liam was fucking shit up. "Do you understand me?" The seriousness weighed hard on his words.

Layne gave a small nod. "Yeah."

"Good." His mouth closed the gap between them, stealing a kiss from her to reassure her that he was still going to be her shadow whether she liked it or not.

After he pulled back, he gave her shoulders a squeeze. "That's not what I came to talk to you about though."

His hands trailed down her arms. "I need to make sure you're good with how things are between us and Gage."

She glanced down feeling the spread of the heat on her face at the way both the guys had taken care of her upstairs. Layne licked her lips before biting into her sheepish smile. "Joey…" Finally, she looked up at him. "I'm good. I'm a little surprised, but I'm good with all of it."

He dropped his hands onto her hips and grinned. "Surprised?"

She gave a soft chuckle. "I didn't expect you to be okay with any of it. You beat the shit out of a guy for dancing with me at a club, or did you forget about that?"

He grumbled, remembering the way the little punk had been putting his hands on Layne. The ass-beating had been justified. "That was different." Joey pulled her in closer by her hips.

Layne didn't look very convinced, so he further explained himself.

"I never want another man laying a hand on you. No other man deserves to hear how it sounds when you come. I never want to hear you screaming out any other name but mine."

She tilted her head as his words seemed to contradict everything that had transpired upstairs between them and Gage. Before she could question it, he raised a finger and pressed it to her lips to prevent her from speaking.

"The only exception is Gage. He is the only one who ever gets the privilege. Whatever the two of you do together is up to you. At the end of the day, you're still going to be all mine." Joey had shared all his favorite things with his little brother growing up, why should this be any different? Especially when Layne was able to get double the pleasure from it. Anything she wanted, he wanted to be able to provide it for her.

Joey removed his finger from those sultry lips of hers. Layne's hands ran up the front of his chest, her fingers enjoying the feel of hard muscle underneath them. She smiled lovingly at him.

"I will always be yours, Joey. But, two De Lucas?" She grinned. "You're both going to keep me a very busy girl."

A devious grin spread across his face. His hands roamed past her hips and gripped tightly onto her ass. "Just wait until I make you my wife, Layney. Gage is gonna have to fight for his turn with you."

He suddenly lifted her, tossing her over his shoulder. It caused a shriek from her as she was grasping onto the back of his shirt while staring down at his ass. "Ah! Joey!" After the unexpected change in her position, she giggled while he walked out of the office with her, carrying her up the stairs, planning on giving her a taste of what was to come after they said ‘I do.'