Chapter 21

Layne squeezed into the backseat behind Joey who slid in after her to take his seat at the wheel and start up the engine.

Scooting over to the center seat so she could look at both of them, she primarily focused on Gage who was already sitting in the front passenger seat. "What the fuck was that?!" She shouted at him.

Gage was shaking his head, seething as the anger rolled off of him in waves. His fist punched the dash several times. His other hand yanked down his mask as he glared at Joey. "He fucking had a hand in it! You're just going to let him walk away?! That motherfucker deserves a one-way ticket straight to hell!"

Joey removed his mask, tossing it down forcefully into the cupholder between the front seats. His hands rubbed over his face trying to think past Gage's yelling in his ear.

She did her best to get Gage to bring it down a notch as she leaned forward and reached a hand out to touch his cheek and turn him to look at her. Layne wasn't sure what the hell had Gage ready to go on a goddamn bender, but she needed to find out.

It took a lot of coaxing from her to get him to take his eyes off Joey while his breathing remained heavy from the aggression flexing all over his body. "You need to calm down." Her words were stern.

Dropping his hands down onto the wheel, Joey put the Challenger in drive and began to head back to O'Reilly Manor. "Layne, put your seatbelt on." His eyes glanced back at her in the rearview. He wasn't driving particularly aggressively, but hell if he wasn't going to make sure that she was safely secured in the event of an unforeseen accident. As far as Joey was concerned, Layne was the most precious piece of cargo in the vehicle.

Ignoring him, she kept her eyes on Gage as the softness of her fingers stroked over the coarse hairs of his short and dark blonde beard. "Gage, look?—"

In unison, both De Lucas cut off her words while shooting demanding looks at her. "Put it on!" It seemed that Gage also had a vested interest in her safety.

She sighed and sat back in the seat, dropping her hand away from Gage's face. After she drew the belt across her body, latching it in, she wanted nothing more than to stick her tongue out at them both childishly.

Keeping his eyes on the road, Joey finally gathered enough of his thoughts. "We don't know it was Russell."

"The fuck we don't. Who the hell makes that type of comparison except someone who has first-hand knowledge of some incredibly dark shit?" Gage sat back in his seat trying his best not to assault the dashboard again. "Did you see the smug look on his face?"

"He always has a smug look on his face, it's a permanent affliction." She chimed in from the backseat. "The two of you need to fill me in on what the hell is going on." If Russ was potentially involved in something more than conspiring against her becoming a force to be reckoned with in this city, she needed to factor that into her next move.

She was met with silence.

"Oh, for fucks sake. Pull over."

When Joey didn't immediately make a move to pull the car off the road, she slammed her hand on the back of his seat giving it a good jostle. "I SAID PULL THE FUCK OVER!"

Her temper and intolerance reached new peaks that must have surprised even Joey who didn't hesitate to pull over to the side of the road. Layne released her seatbelt and cursed this godforsaken two-door vehicle. If she could have easily climbed out, she may have done just that and walked her ass the rest of the way home.

Instead, she leaned forward over the center console and looked at them both. "Both of you listen to me very clearly. I'm tired of the damn looks you keep giving one another while you decide to keep shit to yourselves. You both signed up for this, so I'm going to need you to respect that I have a business to run that requires me to have all the cards laid out in front of me. If you don't want to do that, then I will get out of this damn car right now."

With both sets of eyes staring back at her, shocked expressions plastered over their faces.

"Well? Are you going to fill me in or not?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gage's hand adjusting himself in his pants clearly thinking about filling her up instead. Then, she glanced down at Joey, who hadn't even bothered to hide his erection creating a tent between his legs.

Exasperated, she murmured, "Jesus, help me." Layne was sure that trying to get through to both of them was going to require her to come up with more creative ways so their brains didn't immediately drop into their dicks.

"I don't think Jesus is your type," Gage smirked. It was the first indication that his vengeful mood had simmered down a little. Joey stifled a laugh in response with his hand trying to subtly hide his grin at his brother's comment. He didn't want Layne murdering him in his car which was his pride and joy.

Sombering up a little, Gage turned more in his seat so he could fully face Layne. "You're right, baby, but I'm not talking about it here. Let's get home first, ‘cause I'm going to need a damn drink for this." He leaned over and heatedly captured her mouth with his, trying to ease away her frustrations.

Joey's hand reached over and eased her face away from Gage's so he could also apologetically share a loving kiss with her. "Layney, we will share what we know, okay?" He didn't want to jump to conclusions about Russ's statements, but Gage's instincts very well could have been on the right path this time.

She straightened herself up, still riled up from the way they had always been dancing around some giant elephant in the room while she was around. "Thank you."

After getting settled back in her seat, safely belted in, Joey drove the rest of the way back to their home.

Once inside, they all got more comfortably dressed and gathered in the living room. Layne sat down on the sofa in a set of midnight blue shorts with a matching white and navy zip-up hoodie. Joey took a seat next to her, drawing her into his lap while he wore a pair of basketball shorts and nothing else.

Gage entered the room wearing a pair of grey sweats borrowed from Joey, and his tightly fitted black tank. The sweatpants were Layne's favorite pair Joey owned, and seeing them on Gage, she could agree that they were without a doubt the world's best sweatpants.

In Gage's hands, he showed he came bearing gifts, three glasses each filled with bourbon poured over a large sphere-shaped piece of ice. He handed off a beverage to both Layne and Joey before easing himself down onto the sofa. His hand pulled Layne's feet into his lap. Both men felt more at ease having a physical connection with her.

There was a moment while she sat there that she wondered if this was how she could envision a random weeknight with both of them. Something as mundane as lounging on the couch together, simply enjoying one another's presence without worrying about what was going on outside their little world. It was a bittersweet fantasy, something that she wasn't sure would become a reality given all the risks they all took on the daily.

It took a few sips of the mahogany-colored liquor before Gage finally eased into the topic at hand. "You already know about our relationship with Rosie, but I don't think we've been clear about the details of what happened."

Layne sank back against Joey's chest, his arms squeezing around her like she was his security blanket to clutch onto.

Gage continued to talk, trying to keep his voice even as all the memories of the past came to the forefront of his mind. "She wasn't just beaten, but the men who took her chained her to a pole and treated her like they were breeding a fighting dog." He strained to get the words out loud enough.

His fingers ran through his hair at the difficulty in revealing what had been the most painful twenty-four hours of his life. "The medical reports said she had trace amounts of pentobarbital in her system—the same drug they use to euthanize animals. Between that and the beatings, she never had a chance of waking up."

Joey nuzzled his face into the back of Layne's neck, inhaling deeply the scent of her soap still clinging to her skin. He quietly chimed in, "They sent pictures of what they did to her."

She sat there not realizing how tightly she was holding onto her untouched glass of bourbon. It was clear that what had happened to Rosie ended up deeply scarring both of them. Her heart ached that they both had to endure such a horrific nightmare. It pissed her off that anyone had so viciously not only inflicted this pain on them but had accomplished it by taking it out on an innocent soul in the process.

Raising his glass to quickly consume the rest of his drink, Gage looked over at them. "I know Russ had his hand in it. I don't know how, but my gut is telling me that fucker knows something at a minimum."

If all of this was true, it made Russ an even bigger target on her list than he already was. She tried to sort out everything she knew about Russ's business affairs, his interest in keeping her from coming into her own power base, and what she had learned from several other criminal underlords throughout the city.

"Joey said that all of this was all over a bad business deal? Who was it with?" She hoped maybe that would lead them to get answers if Russell was involved or not.

Joey tensed at her back, not giving her much comfort in whatever answer she was about to get. "I know what you're thinking, Layne. That maybe we can use them as leverage, but it's a dead end."

She looked back over her shoulder at him. "Tell me who." Her voice lowered slightly with the weight of her demand on her tongue. Dread filled her chest, making her question if she truly wanted to know the answer.

Recalling how they had agreed to tell her all the details they hadn't yet revealed he held himself to his word. "Eric Ellis."

Her eyes damn near fell out of her head. "What?!" She pulled her feet out of Gage's lap and shifted around to stare at Joey in disbelief. "Why wouldn't you tell me that?!"

After placing his glass on a side table, Joey's hands rubbed over her arms. "Because it doesn't matter. He's gone and there's not much to learn from a rotting corpse, Layne." Not to mention he hated bringing up the asshole's name.

Gage sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I asked him not to. When Joey told me about your experience with him, it was clear the history I had with Eric had nothing to do with your encounters. At the time when this all happened, Eric was still working the small deals in Jersey City, nothing like the type of shit he got into by the time he moved here."

She frowned, still not liking that they both had kept this from her even with her best interests at heart. "So, why do you think Russ is involved if the deal was with Eric?" Layne looked over at Gage hoping he would fill in the gap.

He answered, "Eric had already left the state and he didn't have the manpower, he had to contract it out to somebody."

She considered his response and thought it through. "So, you think that he had Russ doing his dirty work for him?"

Gage nodded.

She sat there thinking over everything she had learned about Eric. Were there any ties to Russell that would support Gage's theory?

Her mind drifted back to the audio recording where the pervy Andrew Correlli had been speaking with Eric.

"Good. Now, make sure that you go make good on our arrangement and go make friends with Russell for me."

Eric hadn't just been playing Layne, but he had been playing Andrew and Russell both. It could have all started with hiring Russell to take the hit on Rosie years earlier on Eric's behalf. Then, in a play to manipulate Layne, Eric sends Andrew as the pawn to a known associate—Russ Spencer. If Layne had lashed out at Russ, there would have been no skin off Eric's back at the end of the day. Instead, he had her dispose of the middleman linking these two assholes together.

The fucking manipulative bastard was juggling backstabbing everybody and anybody. Even from the goddamn grave, he was still fucking with her life.