Chapter 31
With his skull mask drawn over his face, Joey unleashed a flurry of chaos the second he kicked in the door. Layne shoved Eric to collide with one of the men coming to his aide. The two men fell to the floor together.
With two guns drawn, Joey easily dropped one of the other two with a single shot. However, the smarter one of the bunch was already using Rebecca as a shield. He shuffled, keeping his hold steadfast on Rebecca as his insurance that he wouldn’t meet death today.
“Rebecca!” Layne stepped forward but stopped when she noticed the man had a shaky grip on a gun against her friend’s side. Joey’s eyes never left the most critical target which was the man threatening the innocent young woman.
Eric remained on the ground groaning as the knife remained stuck in his midsection. However, Layne sensed the movement of the one jackass she had knocked Eric into. He made the unfortunate decision to take a run at Layne.
She hunched down, lowering her center of gravity using the man’s height against him as he attempted to tackle her. Using his momentum she deflected his attack, sending him careening into the cheap metal filing cabinet where his head collided with the sharp corner before dropping motionlessly to the floor.
The maneuver caused her to wince and curse at the harsh reminder of her injured rib that continued to be a bitch and protest rather loudly inside her body.
When she looked back at the situation with Rebecca, Joey was slowly stepping to the side to make sure he maintained enough space to not spook the man into doing something stupid. As the man edged towards the door seemingly with his ticket out of there, he smiled feeling more confident.
The man yelled at Joey and her. “I will shoot the bitch if you follow me! Stay back!” Layne didn’t doubt that this man was going to make good on his word. He was so on edge, they were lucky he hadn’t already pulled the trigger by accident.
“Just be calm.” Layne’s words were meant for both Rebecca and the man threatening her wellbeing. She came up next to Joey, her hand slid to the back of his pants finding an extra firearm there that she helped herself to.
The man backed out of the open door, roughly jerking Rebecca with him out the door. Layne glanced over at Eric lying on the floor suffering and then at Joey. He already read the conflict in her eyes between dealing with Eric and saving her friend.
Joey softly spoke to her. “Go get her. I will take care of things here.”
Trusting him to do as he said, Layne bolted for the door leading out of the office. Her feet ran down the steps as fast as they could before she lept over the bottom two. The painful thought of losing someone who was closer than a sister outweighed the physical pain of Layne’s injuries getting aggravated by her movements.
She set eyes on the man dragging Rebecca away. Layne raised her gun but then realized she didn’t have a clean shot. “Damnit!”
Layne ran after them as they quickly moved alongside the pool. She shouted at them to get the guy’s attention. “Hey, asshole!”
He turned and the tiny window of opportunity opened up as he exposed himself and gave Layne just enough of a space to comfortably fire off a round into his head. The impact caused him to fall back into the pool with a ceremonious splash. Simultaneously, the man’s falling body pulled Rebecca off balance and she also fell into the slimy water.
Knowing damn well that Rebecca didn’t have use of her hands and had never learned to swim, Layne dropped the gun and dove in after.
Meanwhile, upstairs in the office, it was just Joey and Eric. Joey had Eric up on his feet in front of him with his bicep wrapped around Eric’s throat in a tight hold. Joey’s hand twisted Layne’s knife deeper into the wound she had made.
Roughly, Joey spoke into his ear. “I have been waiting a very long time to snap your fuckin’ neck. There is nothing more that I would like to do right now than feel the breakage of your C2.” So many violent thoughts of Eric’s demise were filling Joey’s head. The way this man had thought he had a claim on Joey’s woman had him seeing red.
Eric gasped for air as the hold around his throat made receiving oxygen a struggle.
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.” Joey gave the knife another push in a new direction. Joey’s arm eased up just enough to hear the yell of pain that pulled a pleased smile across his face. He wished he could spend all day up in that office finding new ways to spread the pain across Eric’s body. Despite his wishes, he wasn’t going to risk leaving Layne to fend for herself very long.
Panting from the onslaught of pain wracking his body, Eric’s strained words were barely audible. “You’re no…better than me.”
Joey ripped the knife out of Eric’s body. “Maybe not, but Layne is. And, I plan to be the man who sees to it that it stays that way.” He heard the gunshot from downstairs and it served as a reminder that he had better places to be than letting Eric take another breath.
Eric coughed, the blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. “She’ll never?—”
One bloody hand grabbed the back of Eric’s skull while his other grabbed his jaw and cut off Eric’s words with one sharp force fracturing a cervical vertebra. He released Eric’s body, letting it fall to the floor lifelessly.
“Fucker.”
Joey’s client be damned, Eric was never going to leave here alive if he had anything to do with it. He stepped over the shitbag’s corpse. Quickly, he ran downstairs to track down Layne and hopefully an unharmed Rebecca.
The previously still water was now showing signs of being recently disturbed indicated by the ripples on the surface. A tint of red from the blood seeping from the last of Eric’s men swirled unnaturally in the already swampy-looking water.
Layne shoved Rebecca up to the surface as her legs burned under the weight of her kicks to get them both back up for air. Her hand reached up and grasped onto the pool ledge to pull herself up with her other arm around Rebecca’s waist to get her above water as well. Rebecca gasped as the air finally greeted her lungs.
Joey ran over and immediately hoisted Rebecca up out of the water to sit her on the floor next to him. She coughed and took several deep breaths for air. After seeing she was okay, he turned his attention to Layne.
With a pained sigh of relief, Layne hooked both her arms on the wall and rested her forehead against them while trying to catch her breath from rescuing her bestie from a watery grave. Layne was the only one here that ever needed to have experienced that.
Each gasp for oxygen prompted a sharp jab from her very pissed off rib.
“Come on, you too.” He grabbed Layne and lifted her from the water and set her on her feet. His hands held onto her face as he stared at her with a light smirk. “What is it with you and water?”
With the water dripping down along her face in tiny rivers, she gave a small laugh followed by a groan as she placed a hand onto her rib. Before Joey could get himself all fussed over it, she shook her head to head him off. “I will be fine.”
He pulled his mask down so he could capture her lips with his to help ease some of her pain. It was a small gesture, but one he could offer in the moment. When he pulled back, he leaned in and whispered into her ear. “You’re going to have a lot of making up to do after that stunt you pulled tasing me earlier.” He kissed her temple with a grin.
Rebecca sat up, having recovered enough oxygen to get back to her sassy self. “I hate to break you two up, but I could use a little help here.” She raised her bound wrists.
Layne’s attention was finally drawn back to Rebecca, helping her onto her feet. “Sorry.” A sheepish smile appeared on Layne’s face having nearly gotten lost in Joey’s words.
Joey pulled a knife from his pant leg. Taking Rebecca’s hands, the tape was quickly severed.
Immediately, Layne tugged Rebecca into a big hug. “I’m so sorry you got pulled into this. It should have never happened.”
Rebecca pulled back and looked at Layne with her stern mama bear face. “Stop that. Don’t you dare apologize for something a mentally unstable creep did.”
Layne’s mouth pulled down into a frown, still letting her guilt weigh on her.
“You know what you can apologize for?” Rebecca eyed up her best friend.
Layne raised both of her brows wondering what else she was going to bring up in the moment.
Rebecca motioned over at Joey. “Not introducing tall, dark, and handsome over here. How the hell can I do my obligatory best friend due diligence if you keep these things to yourself?” She gave a little wink to Layne.
The light tease chased away some of the guilt as she glanced over at Joey. “Rebecca, this is Joey—the guy. Joey, Rebecca.” Her hand motioned at each of them.
Rebecca scanned Joey with a suspicious eye. “Oh, so you’re the one? Hm. Well, just know that the jury is still out on you.”
Joey grinned at how much spunk Rebecca had. He shouldn’t have been surprised given anyone lucky enough to have Layne in their life needed to have a bit of a spark.
Before Rebecca could give Joey the third degree, Layne looked at them both. “We should get the hell out of here.”
Nobody argued with that plan of action. While they were walking out, Layne looked over at Joey as a question nagged at her. “How did you know where I was?”
He smirked. “I can’t give away all my secrets. Although,” he reached over to take a look at the soaked mask down around her neck, “it looks like I’m not the only one keeping secrets.”
After getting Rebecca back home safely, Layne met Joey back at O’Reilly Manor. She parked her car out front. The Beamer had been the one thing that had been spared from the fire all thanks to the inability of people to read a damn sign that said not to block the driveway.
Layne turned off the engine and sighed as she leaned back in her seat. It had been a hell of a night. She tried to summon what little energy she had left to get out of the car.
One final sigh and she opened the car door. That’s when she remembered that Rebecca had written down the name of a doctor who could squeeze her in for a quick look at her rib. Layne had insisted that a doctor wasn’t necessary, but Rebecca threatened to never make her famous berry oatmeal bake for her again if she didn’t agree.
She opened up her console and saw the note sitting right on top. However, something else caught her eye. Layne had completely forgotten that she had left the blue envelope she had found in her dad’s paperwork in her car. She reached in and pulled it out to take inside with her.
Joey was already waiting for her when she walked in the door, though she still had her eyes focused on the envelope in her hands with her name written across it. She opened it up and unfolded the papers inside. Her eyes looked over the contents with the expectation that it would be nothing important.
When Joey saw her jaw drop and her expression go wide-eyed, he walked over to her side to see what she was looking at. “What is it?” His eyes scanned over what she was staring at on the first page before he muttered. “Holy shit.”