Chapter 5
Finally, she felt like she could suck in some fresh air after Joey left her house. Fresh air that wasn’t tainted by the head swirling scent of him. She made a note that if she wanted to erase evidence of his time there, she was going to need to toss all her bedding in the laundry unless she wanted him haunting any more of her dreams. Damn it, she had forgotten the laundry again thanks to Joey’s unexpected visit.
Layne was seriously questioning her mental state in agreeing to this batshit insane request from him. She shouldn’t have agreed to it, but if there was anybody who wasn’t going to give up, it would be Joey.
Right now’s problem though? She had to deal with her brother which was an entirely different fiasco. One that had immediate and more damning consequences.
First things first, she went downstairs and pulled the invitation to Eric’s soiree out of a drawer filled with various other paperwork and takeout menus. The fancy script listed a phone number to RSVP. Well, there wasn’t going to be a better time than the present.
After dialing the number from her cell, she held it to her ear while it rang. Deep down, she hoped it would go to voicemail. That was until the smooth male voice answered on the other end.
“Eric Ellis.”
She mouthed the word ‘fuck’ and winced at the thought of actually having to have this conversation with him. Layne had been doing an expert job of avoiding talking to him after their encounter at the Brass Mirror, though it wasn’t for lack of effort on his part.
“Hi, Eric, it’s Layne O’Reilly.”
Immediately she could hear the smile reach his voice. “My little harpy, I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”
She cringed at his pet name for her but swallowed her pride for a brief moment so she could get through this discussion without compromising the whole damn setup.
“Things have been hectic. Look, thank you for the flowers but they aren’t necessary.”
“They were entirely necessary.” He sounded far too sure of himself.
Biting her lip gently, she tried to assemble her words intelligently. “About the invitation, parties aren’t my thing, but Liam thought it would be a good idea to be seen out and about rubbing elbows with the city’s top-tier elite.” Yes, she was lying out of her ass and may have added another item to her checklist to let Liam know what a good idea he had when she saw him later.
There was a pause on the other end of the line leaving Layne wondering if the call had dropped. Finally, after the awkward pause, Eric responded, “You surprised me, Layne. I expected you to call to tell me where I could shove the invite.”
“I very strongly considered it.” At least that part was the God-honest truth.
His laugh echoed on the other end. “Nonetheless, I will make sure that you are my guest of honor. I have been looking forward to continuing our discussion about how we can help one another. How about I pick you up tomorrow morning and we can talk about things during a walk around Central Park?”
She pressed her lips into a hard line doing her best to remind herself that she needed to focus on the business side of things and see past her personal feelings. “Fine, I will see you tomorrow morning, but don’t get your hopes up.”
Eric set a time and they said brief goodbyes before terminating the call. Layne was already regretting her decision, but with her back up against the proverbial wall, she needed to keep her options open. Not just for herself, but for the sake of the O’Reilly legacy.
That afternoon, she sat in her dad’s former office in O’Reilly Manor waiting for Liam to show up. She looked at her smartwatch for what felt like the fifth or sixth time. He was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.
Liam had taken over the office since their dad had passed, but it was only in the past couple of months that he began changing up the decor to fit his personal and flashy style. The formerly glossy wooden desk no longer filled the room and in its place was something more ultra-modern with metal and thick panes of glass.
She walked over to the window and peered out across the street watching the cars that drove by. Seeing a sports bike across the street that looked familiar, she narrowed her eyes to focus on it. However, her focus was quickly interrupted when the office door swung open forcefully.
Spinning around, she saw Liam walking in, a scowl on his face as he stomped over to his desk. His auburn hair looked like he had been running his fingers through it repeatedly, leaving the short locks sticking up in various directions.
“What are you doing here?” he said grumpily, clearly in a foul ass mood. Today was looking like a bucket of sunshine, wasn’t it?
“We had a meeting scheduled, remember?” She walked away from her spot at the window and sat down in one of the two chairs across from him.
Her brother took his seat and then motioned for her to continue. “Just tell me what the hell is wrong now, and let’s get this over with.”
Under normal circumstances that would have been a fair assumption, but this time she was aiming for a more positive discussion. “There’s a few things, actually, so you might as well get comfortable.”
The irritation written across his face was plain as day. “Layne, I don’t have time for this. Give me the shortest possible version.”
This was proving to be such a stark comparison to the way their dad ran things, even when he was pressed for time, he had made others wait while he set aside time to listen to whomever he was meeting with.
She dropped the biggest item of focus. “Eric Ellis wants to discuss us potentially helping each other out. A whole ‘we scratch his back, he scratches ours’ type of situation.”
That caught Liam’s attention. “Ellis? The bougie asshole that moved here six months ago?”
She nodded. “Yes, that one. I’m vetting the whole thing; it may end up being nothing at all. He invited me to this get-together he is having so we can talk things over.”
Maybe she fudged that part a little bit, but there was no reason to make Liam think that it was anything more than just idle talks. Nor did he know about Joey coming back around, or as Liam only knew him as the masked freak hired to dispose of Michael Franzetti.
To his credit, he sat there mulling it over as he sat back in his chair. His fingers lightly scratched at his chin. “What the hell does he have going on that we would need him for? You know what? Never mind, just find out. Anything else?”
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Li, we need to talk about the books and client debts going uncollected. People are noticing the cracks, and?—”
A bunch of commotion was heard coming down the hall, a shrill voice shrieking out words as the click-clacking of heels stomped against the floor until Kristill appeared at the entrance of the office.
Layne groaned and rubbed her forehead seeing Liam’s favorite hookup fuming with daggers for eyes.
Pointing a bony finger all accusatory at Liam, Kristill shouted. “You are a fuckin’ prick, ya know that?! I want the damn money you promised me!”
Her brother rose to his feet and grabbed a decorative glass paperweight chucking it in the woman’s direction. It flew far right and smashed into the door. “I told you that you’d get the money when you did your job, you dumb whore!”
It was incredibly clear to Layne that she was unlikely to finish her discussion with Liam, at least not without getting in his volatile path and being the next person he tossed something at.
Kristill was undeterred by the flying object and was bound and determined to get up in his face. She spat her words out at him, saliva sputtering out venomously. “You’re a sick bastard! I ain’t sticking any of that up in my p?—”
As a sister, Layne did not want to hear Kristill finish that sentence and hear about any of her sibling’s more peculiar proclivities. However, Liam didn’t allow her to finish her shouting as the sound of the violent slap of his palm across the woman’s face cut off the words.
Shit. Layne popped out of her seat and scurried over between the two of them right as Liam went to lash out at Kristill once more. His face was beet-red and eyes wild with a whole new level of temper she had never seen before.
Layne ended up soaking part of his shove meant for Kristill, which was probably for the better considering she was likely less than one hundred pounds soaking wet. “Enough! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
Kristill was still reeling from the strike, holding her face which had blossomed in a bright red glow.
If Liam wanted to throw another hit, he was going to have to go through Layne. While Kristill was not on Layne’s list of favorite people, she didn’t deserve to be Liam’s punching bag either. Fortunately, he decided to choose his battles wisely and left Layne unscathed for now.
Noticing that a couple of the guys that still worked for them were standing in the doorway to the office, staring dumbly at the scene unfolding, Layne got even more pissed off. Glaring at them she pointed at them and then Kristill. “What the fuck are you staring at? Get her out of here!”
She shook her head as the two men finally snapped into gear and escorted Kristill out of the office, and hopefully out of the house altogether.
Layne turned her head to look back at her brother. “Really? You’ve been blowing our money on that? Damnit, Li! I keep telling you we can’t keep doing this!”
He backed up and kicked over a wastebasket that was to the side of his desk sending it skittering across the floor into a bookshelf. “I don’t need you chastising me, Layne! Learn to stay in your damn place! I’ve got this handled!”
“Handled?! The only thing that I can see that you’ve got handled is dismantling this entire damn operation!” She scoffed that he could believe that anything they had going on in their lives was being handled.
“Do us both a favor, huh?” He came up to her, his face still flushed with enough red rage that it could have passed for a volcanic eruption. “Keep your damn mouth shut until I ask for your opinion. I’m tired of hearing you yapping at me every other day.”
She should have been the one to explode, but she bit her tongue as she heard him loud and clear. Shaking her head, she made her decision. “I told you if you didn’t salvage operations that I would, and you wouldn’t like the way I handle things. You’ve left me no choice, and that’s something you’re going to have to deal with. I’m not going to be held responsible for your inability to step up and be a damn man. The spoiled little brat who doesn’t get to play for free act is getting real fuckin’ old.”
Layne walked away from him. She knew what she needed to do. If she was going to survive in a world where the other big bad criminals fed on the weak, she had to strengthen her position. She couldn’t rely on Liam any longer. If her family name was ever going to command the respect it once had under Scott O’Reilly’s leadership, Layne was going to have to be the one to step up and make the hard sacrifices.