Chapter 2

Post-blowjob version of Joey was a little more at ease. But still, he stood there staring at Layne as he tried to find the words to respond to her tireless crusade to find out more about Gage.

He tucked his half-hard cock back into his pants, closing up shop with a zip and slip of the button.

"Well?" She pressed him again for a response.

His hand rubbed the back of his neck before he gave a robust exhale. "It's a long story, Layne. Just take my word for it that we're both better off never seeing him again."

She rolled her eyes at him, unsatisfied with his response.

If he didn't want to be exiled to sleeping in Layne's childhood bedroom surrounded by pink frills tonight, he realized that he needed to do better. "Alright." He dropped his hand from its hold on the back of his neck.

"Gage and I had a falling out about ten years ago. One thing led to another and people got hurt." It was the short and not-so-dirty version of what happened. He stepped closer to her, his hands rubbing over her arms reassuringly. "I just don't want history to repeat itself."

Layne pursed her lips together at the thought of how his so-called long story managed to be summed up in a few sentences. Her eyes searched his face, finding small traces of pain lingering beneath the surface of his coffee-colored eyes.

Dropping the tension in her shoulders slightly, she closed the distance between them with another step. Her arms wrapped around his waist as she looked up at him. "How can you expect history not to repeat itself if you don't tell me what to look out for?"

Joey's hands gave both of her upper arms a light squeeze. "As long as he stays the fuck away, it won't repeat itself."

"With everything that's about to change in our lives, I can't have you keeping things from me. You keep telling me you're all in, but you won't tell me what happened a decade ago?" Now her tone was shifting to reflect some of the hurt she was feeling of him not trusting her with whatever it was that had him avoiding a few simple questions.

His mouth found her forehead, planting a delicate kiss. He hated that she was feeling any sort of way about the trust they had rebuilt between themselves. It had not been an easy road to pave. Layne had worked so hard on herself to allow him inside her heart again, and he didn't want to shatter it all again. If he did, he wasn't sure that she would ever come back from it. Truth be told, he wasn't sure he would either.

"An innocent girl died," he tried to keep his voice even and emotions withheld. "A woman, actually," he clarified. "Her name was Rose." Rosie had been twenty-three, Gage twenty-two, and Joey had just celebrated his thirtieth birthday.

He stood there trying to find the words to explain how this all went down, struggling to disconnect emotionally enough to explain.

Gage punched a hole in the bedroom wall. "What the fuck, Rose?!"

"Babe, please, just listen." Rosie implored as she pulled her shirt down over her perky and naked breasts. Her hands tugged her white shorts up her thighs. She frowned as she walked over to him after fastening the button at her waist.

Joey sat there in Gage's bed, leaning back against the headboard with an arm tucked behind his head, not even making an effort to get up.

Rosie frowned as she took Gage's hand, squeezing it tightly before raising it to her light pink lips to lay several tender kisses on his unpainted knuckles. "We talked about this, remember? Keeping things open, an open commitment."

While Rosie was looking at Gage, he was looking over at Joey who was failing at suppressing his shit-eating grin.

"I didn't expect you to turn around and just drop your pants and bend over for him!" Gage gritted his teeth while he gave a deadly glare at his brother.

"Gage," Joey finally spoke up, "don't be mad that she has good taste." He smirked at the additional thought of how sweet her cum had been on his tongue.

A small rumble emanated from Gage, his fists clenching at his sides as he made a step toward the bed where Joey so casually sat with a sheet just barely covering his lap.

Rosie sidestepped in front of him, both hands resting on top of Gage's chest as she looked up at him pleadingly. "There's enough of me for both of you."

With Gage's light brown eyes staring his older brother down, he shook his head. "You just love stirring up chaos, don't you? You're fucking addicted to it."

When Joey returned from the silence of his thoughts, his eyes were met with Layne's concerned expression while they both stood there in the kitchen of O'Reilly Manor. He couldn't put into words the memories that had just crossed his mind.

"It was a business deal gone bad. Gage takes risks he shouldn't. The odds could be stacked against him a thousand-to-one, and he would still think he has a shot. He doesn't think about what the hell happens when the other guy doesn't give a damn about the odds."

He shook his head, already feeling the simmer of fury starting up in his blood as the sequence of events unfolded in his brain.

"You're up." Joey hooked his thumb in the direction of the bathroom, still warm from the steam lingering after his shower. A towel was wrapped around his waist, and droplets of water still scattered over his freshly bathed skin.

Gage nuzzled up against Rosie's side while they lay there in the king-sized bed that barely fit all three of them. "Are you sure you're not going to join me?"

She gave the sweetest of laughs. "You both have left me barely able to use my legs after all that. All I want to do is stay here and take a nice long nap." Rose smiled and leaned over to lovingly kiss Gage. "Go clean up. I'll be right here when you get done."

Joey tossed his damp towel over the arm of a chair and snagged a pair of underwear, quickly pulling them on to avoid the chill of the air.

As for Gage, he smiled at the beautiful blonde before him and nodded. "Okay, but not before I get you some water and something to snack on. Can't have our girl not getting the care she needs to recover." He pushed the sheets off his lower body and rolled out of bed.

Gage yanked on a pair of boxers and left the bedroom to go retrieve water and some fruit from the kitchen down the hall.

While Gage was focused on his mission for sustenance, Joey grinned as he partially climbed onto the bed with one knee and leaned over to steal a kiss from the woman lying there in complete satisfaction. "You're amazing. I could die a happy man right now."

The heartfelt moment between them was interrupted by the sound of the front door of the shitty apartment they shared in Jersey City being busted open. Immediate shouting filled the small space.

Joey sprang into action, pulling his semi-automatic from the nightstand drawer. "Stay here," he ordered Rose. He ran to go assess the situation, but as he made it to the bedroom door several men in ski masks barged in with weapons drawn.

"Hey…" Layne's hand was resting on the side of his face, lightly caressing her fingers over his week-old scruff. She tried to lure him back from whatever was going on inside his mind.

He finally released a breath he had been holding far longer than he should have.

"We don't have to do this tonight." She saw the struggle he was going through trying to explain his animosity towards his brother. It was clear that this wasn't an issue that ran only skin-deep.

Joey shook his head. "No. You need to know." He cleared his throat, summoning the words to casually describe what transpired that broke the relationship between Joey and Gage De Luca.

"Gage fucked over the wrong person. One day, Gage, Rosie, and I were hanging out at Gage's place. We were all ambushed. We never had a chance to adequately defend ourselves. We fought like hell, but they ended up taking Rosie. She was payment for what Gage had swindled his business partner out of."

He paused as his hand came up to remove Layne's hand away from his face so she couldn't feel the agitation tugging at his jaw as he internally relived what happened next.

Twenty-four hours was all it took for Rosie's return, and even then, it had been too long. Rosie's suffering lasting more than one millisecond was an unbearable thought. Twenty-four hours after she was taken from the apartment, her body was dumped from an unmarked van in front of a veterinarian's office. It was a cruel parallel to how she was treated—like nothing more than an animal instead of the angel she was.

She was still clinging to life when she was found that morning by the receptionist opening up the office. Barely alive was still enough to give Joey and Gage hope.

Both of them were there at the hospital, one on either side of her as she lay unconscious and attached to all the machines. A tube shoved down that dainty little throat of hers as a means to keep her breathing. The sight had been straight torture.

As Rosie's lifeline grew fainter, the anger brewed hotter between both of the De Luca boys, some of it misplaced and targeted at one another. And when her heart could no longer tie her to this earth? Chaos and Wrath were born amidst her loss.

Joey swallowed down the memory, keeping it safely tucked away. Clearing his throat, he shook away the unsteadiness of his voice. "She died from the injuries she sustained. The doctors said it had been injuries consistent with what you would find in third-world countries where captives are beaten and assaulted within an inch of their lives, but never to the point of death. Merely, an ongoing lifetime of torture at the hands of monsters."

She wrinkled her forehead in sympathy, unable to imagine what the poor girl had gone through. "I'm so sorry." Layne knew those words could never ease the pain, but despite Joey's attempt to keep his emotions detached, even she could see how Rosie's death made a lasting impact on him.

He shook his head. "If Gage had been smarter and stopped to think about his actions, it would have never happened. He knew better, but he continued to be reckless anyway. That part of him will never change, Layne."

"This is all your fault, motherfucker!" Gage shouted back in Joey's face. "You were the one that inserted yourself into Rosie and I's relationship. Then, when push comes to shove, you just let them walk out of there with her!"

One of Joey's hands pushed against Gage's shoulder. "My fault?! You decided to play stupid fuckin' games with the wrong people! I did what I could, but I couldn't help get her back if I was a goddamn corpse! I don't recall your unconscious ass being much help either." The sharpness of his words cut through the air.

Gage half-laughed in disbelief. "I would have died for her. I loved her, and you only wanted to fuck her."

Even ten years later those wounds still wept.