Chapter 26
There was still a week before Eric had stated he was sending movers over her direction to pack all her shit up and move it. Layne had been doing her best not to stress over it while Joey was pushing his team to work as fast as they could.
With the knowledge that Eric was manipulating the entire criminal ecosystem to fit his agenda, Layne needed to start planning on how to get it back under her control. What did that mean? Late nights figuring out which contacts were trustworthy, financial planning, and stressing over all the strategizing to avoid her family business becoming defunct.
By the time the evening rolled around, Layne was exhausted. While she sat on the couch, nearly dozing off with the television in the background, the doorbell chimed.
Layne lifted her head and stirred groggily. Another ring of the doorbell echoed throughout her home. Her hand rubbed across her face trying to shake off the excess fatigue.
“I’m coming.” She muttered out to the emptiness of her home.
Shoving herself off the sofa, she shuffled to the front door and took a peep outside to see who was there at—she glanced at her watch on her wrist—nearly eleven-thirty at night. When she saw the familiar face of Eric, she shook her head. Did nobody call anymore?
Layne pulled open the door as her hand brushed some hair away from her face. “Hey, I didn’t expect you here this late at night. What are you doing here?”
Eric pushed his way inside without a word.
She shut the door behind him while the expression on her face turned sour. “Nice to see you, too.” Something was off about his demeanor.
Eric reached into his pocket and pulled out his new phone. He opened it up and pulled up security footage from her house’s camera system. She leaned in to take a look at one video in particular that he was pulling up.
Layne didn’t recognize the angle of the camera as she never had a camera posted on that side of her house. She glanced at Eric in confusion. “What am I supposed to be looking at here?”
“Give it a second.” He responded dryly.
As a body appeared on the screen, that’s when she knew they had fucked up. The only thing on that side of the house was an egress window that led into her cellar. She forgot that it even existed because she never went down there unless she had to dig around for holiday decorations.
The silver lining was that she now knew how Joey had been getting in and out of her house. The big ass dark thundercloud, who was Eric, unfortunately, had evidence of it.
“It looks like a visitor to me.” She attempted to keep both her face and her tone neutral to avoid giving too much away.
After the video ended, Eric put the phone away and turned to face her, not having an ounce of pleasantness on his face. “I was concerned that there was a safety issue after seeing this, and I went back and to my surprise, I found this wasn’t the only incident.”
“What do you want me to say, Eric? Did you think I was going to ditch my security detail the second we made this official? We run drills to make sure we both are on top of our game in the event someone does try to make a go at me.” Damn, that sounded like some of the better bullshit she had come up with on the fly in a while. She was impressed with herself for it, especially given how tired she had been before his arrival. Her eyes stared directly at him hoping to make him feel stupid for even questioning her.
As good as it was, it didn’t settle with Eric as well as she had hoped. “I have been more than reasonable with you. I have been fending off all the vultures of the city from swooping down and feeding off of what’s left of your pathetic empire. I’ve been doing my part in our agreement, and what have you done to repay me for it?”
She could see Eric’s jaw twitching and his nostrils flaring. He turned his back to her while clenching his fists at his side.
Before she could attempt a response to his question, he spun around to face her, his hand going flying. Layne may have been half asleep but thank God her muscle memory kicked in and her arm shot up to defend against a direct blow.
Eric didn’t wait for her to counter, he grabbed her by the forearm and propelled her toward the stairs. Layne stumbled and her hands caught herself on a step several up on the staircase.
When she turned, she felt his body knock into her, the edge of the steps painfully pounding into her back on impact. His hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing with a force that could rival a boa constrictor.
Layne’s initial cough and gasp were immediately cut off as her airway was closed off. Staring up into Eric’s face, his eyes were wide and lit up with the psychosis of an entire mental ward. He pulled her by her neck upward only to slam her back down onto those unforgiving wooden stairs that had her brain rattling inside her skull.
Her hands scratched at his hand, pulling at individual fingers, and straining to get even a brief moment of air while her face began to pale from the lack of oxygen.
Eric’s words were vile and bitter as he spit them out at her. “You thought you could hide it from me?! The way you look at each other? It all makes fucking sense as to why you were reluctant to whore yourself out to me!”
Layne used a foot against the wall that bordered the staircase to push off to rotate them both while she shoved his back into the iron-clad stair spindles. It was enough to loosen his grasp.
She gasped for air but didn’t wait long to recover. Pushing off the stairs with her feet, she jetted up the steps toward the second floor. Her feet pounded against the floor as she flung herself around the ninety-degree angle at the top of the mid-floor landing before dashing up the rest of the way to the second floor.
His words shouted behind her. “Little harpy! Come back!”
He had to be out of his damn mind if he thought she was going to go anywhere near him. She reached her bedroom and slid down onto her knees toward her bed, where she reached underneath to where she had a partial arsenal stored. Her hands grabbed frantically for the first available weapon of choice.
She drew forth a semi-automatic pistol and flicked the safety off. When she pulled back the slide to load the chamber, she didn’t hesitate to aim it at the doorway as Eric came charging in. Her finger pressed against the trigger.
Click.
Her eyes glanced down and noticed the bullet jam from the top view of the chamber. Fuck. She popped up onto her feet, not having time to mess around with the mechanical failure. She spun the pistol around in her hand and swung the grip at him.
Eric caught her forearm while his other hand twisted her wrist painfully until she couldn’t hold onto the firearm any longer. It fell to the floor with a clunk. “That’s not being a good little bird, now is it?”
Layne winced at the painful angle of her wrist but it didn’t diminish the hatred raging behind her eyes. “I will never be your bird to keep in a cage.” She gave a front kick towards his gut.
While his grasp on her wrist was released, it was only in exchange of capturing her foot’s attack. Eric pushed back on her leg changing her momentum against her to knock her off balance as she fell back smashing into the area where her mattress met her nightstand.
Her arm knocked her lamp onto the ground with a shatter of porcelain, while her other arm tried to brace her fall as her hand grasped at the down-filled comforter. The engagement ring he had forced on her had also been on top of the nightstand and was also knocked off onto the floor.
The anger in Eric’s glare at her was reaching an all-time boil. “Did you think I wouldn’t know? You could have had the best life has to offer with me.” He loomed over her while she was cornered there. “It’s a shame because I was looking forward to showing everyone how I could own and tame the wild Layne O’Reilly.”
His hands reached down, grabbed Layne by her shirt, and yanked her up onto her feet. Eric pulled her in so she was face-to-face with him.
With ragged breaths, Layne didn’t shy away from looking him in the eye. “Go fuck yourself. I was never going to be yours.”
His fist slammed into her temple. Layne dropped to the floor as the impact sent her mind for a brief mental vacation riddled with darkness.
When her consciousness slowly came back to her, she lay there on the floor as her eyes squinted. A splitting headache loomed over her brain and an unparalleled grogginess suffocated her thoughts. Layne groaned and placed her hands on the floor to push herself up. It felt like it took the effort of a thousand lifetimes.
When she lifted her hands, they stopped midway up to her face. That’s when she noticed the cold rounds of metal handcuffs latched around her wrists. Her mind fought to recognize why they were there.
As her wits became about her, she tugged on the chain connecting each wrist to feel it did not give her much leeway. Between the joints of the cuffs was a length of a metal chain that connected directly to the underside of the bed frame in front of her.
The ringing in her ears was deafening. Glancing around it seemed that she was alone, but the roaring in her ears wasn’t easing up, it was only getting worse.
She coughed as she managed to shift onto her knees with her hands linked together. Her eyes burned each time she blinked. Her nostrils flared with each breath taking in an overwhelming odor of burning wood.
Soon, she recognized the source of the ringing in her ears. It wasn’t inside of her head, it was inside of her home. The smoke detectors were all sounding off. Their high-pitched sounds sliced through the air.
Layne looked over to her wide-open bedroom door. The sight had a panic rising inside her chest. The billowing smoke and visible flames at the end of the hallway were eating away at her home.
It was all like a vicious monster slowly creeping towards her bedroom, ready to consume her. Frantically, she pulled at her hands and the connected chain prevented her from getting very far from her bed. Each pull was harder than the one before it. Layne grunted with each yank feeling the pinch of metal biting into her skin.
She used her body weight to lean back and her foot against the edge of the bed to try and overcome the strength of steel. Continually she glanced over at the open doorway to notice her time was running short as the smoke continued to edge towards her room.
She ferally screamed out in frustration. Tears leaked from her eyes as she choked on a sob. Layne couldn’t let this be how her story ended. “God, please, just this once,” she begged for the pity of her maker.
The fear and adrenaline left her uncontrollably shaking as the situation felt insurmountable. She leaned forward, pressed her head against her mattress, and shut her eyes tightly. The sheets soaked up her tears. “Please…”
She sank back to sit on her ankles. Her eyes hurt from dryness in the air licking away her emotions. Feeling lost she stared at the metal bracelets around her wrists which were now painfully raw from all her frantic struggles.
A sensation came over her in that moment of hopelessness. One final renewed effort filled her. Layne laid herself on the floor and took a look under her bed to see where the chain connected. Her one shot at a miracle presented itself to her. There may not have been hope in breaking steel, but a long shot presented itself.
Her eyes caught sight of the box underneath her bed that stored all her kinky toys. What were the chances that the keys from one set of cuffs were likely to open another? Using her legs, she maneuvered the box of goodies closer to her until she could use her hands to open up the lid and begin digging for what she hoped was still in there.
Her fingertips finally tracked down the key. It belonged to a set of Smith Wesson cuffs, and looking at the etching on the ones around her wrists she frowned. It was another brand, Peerless. “Fuck.”
Not having any other bright ideas, she tried the key in the assembly anyway. When the most beautiful clicking sound was heard and she felt the loops loosen on her she could have sat there and cried if she had enough time to do so, but she didn’t.
She removed the restraints quickly and dropped them to the floor. She wasn’t going to be burning in hell today as luck would have it.
The panic tugged at her chest as the overwhelming surroundings became more urgent. The burning smell. The smoke alarms. The heat. Pushing through the fear she ran over to her bedroom window. Sliding the window pane up, she popped the screen out and watched it gracefully flutter to the ground two stories below.
No part of her was willing to burn to death in her own home. She put one leg through the open window and straddled the frame as she peered outside looking at the best options to get down in one piece.
Strategically, she lowered herself out of the window. Her hands grasped the ledge as her muscles strained under her weight to control her descent. Her legs dangled beneath her as her feet stretched to touch the motorized sun awning casing just below.
Layne was now thanking her lucky stars that Rebecca had talked her into getting one installed to stretch out over a portion of the back patio for the hot summer days when there was no shade to be found elsewhere in her backyard.
It wasn’t a graceful descent after that point, but the rolled-up awning cover helped buffer her fall. She rolled against the ground, scraping her arms up in the process against the cement. It was better than going down in a fiery blaze.
She backed up to take a look at her house, seeing the extent of how much the fire had already spread. The luck of the Irish had been on her side. Layne had been fortunate to get out when she did.
While she stood in her backyard staring, the flames reflected in her eyes as her home and everything inside began to be burned into ash.