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“I’m going upstairs to try and catch a quick nap. Feel free to help yourself to whatever food is in the fridge.” Layne jogged up the stairs, walking down the hall to the master bedroom. She shut the door behind her, stripped her jacket off, and flung it onto the bed.
From behind, a gloved hand clamped down over her mouth to stifle any screams. Layne instinctively went for the gun still tucked in the waistline of her pants. Her attacker’s free hand snatched her wrist and twisted her arm behind her, limiting her movements.
“Shhh,” a husky voice hushed into her ear. Seamlessly, as he spun her around, he disarmed her of her pistol while releasing her. Layne was ready to lunge at the intruder until she saw a very familiar sight. He had on the same black tactical attire and the same black skull mask concealing his face that she had seen down at the docks weeks ago.
Her muscles relaxed as she recognized it was Joey, her heart rate slowly recovering. She approached him, expectantly holding out her hand palm face up.
“My gun.” She kept her voice quiet so James didn’t hear anything from downstairs.
Joey gave a playful grin, feeling proud of himself. “You promise not to shoot me?”
“You will just have to take your chances. Right now, you’re looking at a fifty/fifty shot.”
“Ouch, I would have thought it would have been at least forty/sixty.”
“You should be so lucky.” She waited until he finally passed it back to her. Layne walked over to her dresser, ensured her Glock was unloaded and no longer live, and laid the weapon right on top to be cleaned later. “What are you doing here?”
“You’re a hard woman to get alone these days.”
Wasn’t that the damn truth? “I’m working on that.”
He followed her over to her dresser and plucked a bright pink thong that was hanging out of the top drawer. “I didn’t peg you for a fan of the color pink.”
Layne pulled the panties off his finger and flung them back into the drawer, shutting it tightly.
Joey suddenly went quiet, shifting in his stance, in a way that was unnerving to her. She looked over at him while she took her hair tie out of the ponytail it had been in all day, allowing her dark hair to drop down behind her shoulders.
“You haven’t come back here to finish the job, have you?” Only partially teasing him.
He shook his head, but his demeanor screamed that he was all business now. “No, but I found out some information that you need to know. I don’t have all the details yet, but it’s not looking good.”
Confused about what type of information he could have she crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Usually any information in our line of work isn’t good. What is it?”
Joey stepped up to her, his hands gently sliding up onto her arms, “The 227 project I asked you about at the docks. It’s you. You’re the project.”
He wasn’t making any sense and it prompted her to wrinkle her brows together and shake her head. “That doesn’t make any sense, I have never even heard about it. I would know if I was working on something.”
He corrected her. “No, Layne, it’s about disposing of you.”
Downplaying the scenario she shrugged. “I pissed someone off, what else is new?” She had heard all these things before. All it took was one whisper to get the criminal rumor mill lit up in a frenzy.
Frustrated, he gave a short sigh at how little she was taking seriously. “Layne, you’re not listening to me. This isn’t a Franzetti project, we don’t know where it is coming from.Initially, we thought that you were working on something that was going to be a massive blow to the Franzetti family, that’s why Michael needed answers to see what you knew. But, that’s not the case, Layne.”
“As much as I would love to give Michael a run for his money, I’m not that stupid.” It had been a long day and Layne couldn’t wrap her brain around what Joey was telling her. It didn’t even make sense. Sure, she had been increasing her footprint in the organization, but she still wasn’t making the big decisions in the family.
Why would she be considered a big enough threat to anybody? As a pawn, she could see that scenario, and as a target to leverage that would even make sense, but what he was insinuating didn’t.
“Your intel is wrong, Joey.That doesn’t even make sense.”
“My sources are always right, don’t you just brush this off as nothing.”
Layne stepped back from him as she battled all the feelings inside of her right now trying to come to terms with whether he was telling the truth and what if he was right. What did that truly mean for her?
“I will take it under advisement.You need to leave before someone realizes you’re here.” After their last encounter, he had made it clear he wasn’t going to play the role of Prince Charming and be her gallant knight, not that she wanted him to.
The puppy dog brown eyes of his had a softer look than normal in them. “I’m not going to leave and put you at risk.”
“That’s funny coming from you. Look, you can’t—” starting to have raised her voice she caught herself and lowered it again, “—you can’t stay here. Looking all,” she waved her hand around to wildly motion at his attire, “like this. It’s creepy as shit.”
