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Her fist connected and followed through with the side of his face. He dropped to the floor, and before she could strike again two barrels for arms encircled her waist and drew her back. Layne’s legs kicked to squirm out of the lock hold.
“You’re a piece of shit, Liam! You’ve been riding dad’s coattails since we were kids! You’ve had it all handed to you because you’re not man enough to do it on your own!” It may have been harsh, but from Layne’s point of view, it was the solid truth.
She was getting pulled back further and further away from Liam who was now just sitting up groggily as his hand rubbed his temple. As for Layne, Mick had her off near the staircase a few feet away. Finally, he set her down on her feet and stood in front of her blocking her path. “Alright, alright, knock it off.”
Layne was fuming as she stood there but knew damn well she wasn’t going to be able to get around Mick. That was, not without trying to throw a punch at him, too.
After witnessing the entire situation unfold, Scott stood outside his office door rubbing the bridge of his nose as the impending headache descended upon him. “Mick, call Ian and cancel tonight’s dinner.”
Dinner wasn’t the only thing that got canceled. Shortly thereafter, her father canned the engagement as well. It was painfully evident to the O’Reilly patriarch that his daughter had far too much of his spirit in her to be cast off to the side, all because he wanted to spare her from being exposed to the same life of organized crime that had robbed him of his wife.
CHAPTER TWO
Present day
The past three years had been a whirlwind of highs and lows. Finally, Layne was getting her way and making a name for herself in the O’Reilly family business.It started with small tasks such as picking up and dropping off packages, graduated to being present during discussions with folks who were late on debts owed, and then slowly she was given the blessing to be free to negotiate terms and collect debts on her own. Recently, she began playing an integral role in strategic planning and advanced discussions in evolving their enterprise to the next level.
Scott had insisted she continue to work with some of his top men to refine her ability to physically defend herself and fine-tune her expertise with various weapons. She hit the gym regularly and worked with weights to keep her strength up to par and cardio to ensure she had endurance worth a damn.
These days, Layne had her hands in a little bit of everything when it came to projects she managed. She was like a bit of honey with a killer bee sting: she could assist in negotiations by supplying that charming smile of hers or be the small but mighty strike.
A lot of her interactions had been mostly with weak, small-minded, white-collared businessmen that pissed their pants the second you brandished a gun in their presence. Of course, she had her own learning curve of understanding when to reign in her hot-headedness.
Liam was still being groomed to take the lead over the entire enterprise, which was fine by Layne as she had zero interest in being the head boss lady. Over time, the tension between her and her younger sibling eased up. He had done a lot of maturing, and Layne had been willing to give him the space to earn her respect while he worked on proving himself capable for his eventual promotion. There were still those days though when she wanted to smack the crap out of him for his holier-than-thou attitude.
She had woken up to her phone buzzing on her nightstand. Wearily, she answered and immediately regretted it when she was informed that today was not going to go as she had planned. Layne expected to sit in her feelings today, drink heavily, and wallow in solitude. It was the one day of the year she allowed herself to come undone. Instead, she had to get herself up out of bed and take care of a small matter down in Chelsea.
Layne ended up paying a visit to one of her more problematic clients, George Sallakis, who was about as shady as they came. He was a small-time attorney with a big-time ego problem. Surprising for a lawyer, huh? However, he was conveniently useful when it came to handling any run-ins with the law. The number of times charges were dropped thanks to his connections was invaluable, and her family richly compensated him for it.
There was the expectation per their agreement that he was on retainer solely for the O’Reillys and keeping the details of their delicate matters to himself. Yet, intel was drifting in that he was passing highly sensitive information freely between the two biggest factions of the criminal underworld in the city: the O’Reillys and the Franzettis.
The Franzettis were headed up by one supremely arrogant Michael Franzetti. Michael, by comparison to Scott, was less old-school about how he operated his business. He got his hands dirty occasionally using outside resources that weren’t in his circle of trust, and as long as those hired resources got things done, he didn’t give a shit how they accomplished it.
Sometimes these hands Michael hired were some thug-wannabe that was sloppy as fuck. Why did the O’Reillys care about the way Franzetti handled his business? It put all the city’s factions at risk thanks to these punk kids having no loyalty, no respect, drawing far too much attention to themselves, and having no ability to intelligently execute a simple assignment without collateral damage.
As for poor little Georgie, he had made the mistake of getting drunk and bragging to a hooker about how he was raking in all the dough from double-crossing the two largest elite factions in the city. That particular hooker just so happened to be on the O’Reilly books for exclusive entertainment for extraordinarily important clientele. More importantly, she was Liam’s own personal booty call. When Liam got the word from his favorite piece of ass, she was rewarded very generously for her contribution.
Layne found herself leaning forward, her hands on the edge of George’s cheap metal desk in his musty-smelling office. Files were scattered haphazardly across the top of the desk, the computer monitor collecting a layer of dust on the back of it, and a half-drunk cup of coffee sitting on top of a pile of papers. Framed certifications and licensures hung crookedly on the wall. It was amazing this man had any level of competency based on the state of affairs of where he spent his time working.
“George, I am having a really bad start to my day. Do you want to know why?”
He was held down by his shoulders in the creaky office chair on the other side of the desk by two of Layne’s muscled helpers. He shook his head, a bead of sweat slowly rolling down his temple.
“Let me tell you. I was supposed to have today off for some critically important self-care. I even had a spa day scheduled that I booked for myself six months ago, but I had to cancel because I received some very troubling information. I heard that you might have been running your mouth to the wrong fuckin’ people. A slutty little bird told me that you’ve been sharing with some friends over in Franzetti’s camp.”
Immediately, he tried to interject with his defense, “That’s not true, I?—”
“Don’t interrupt me with your bullshit, Sallakis.” She could feel her blood pressure rising at the thought of how this was how she was spending today of all days dealing with this asshat.
“I thought to myself when I was told this little piece of information that no, you couldn’t possibly be that much of a moron. So, naturally, I looked into it. Imagine my surprise when I came to realize that you’ve been helping Franzetti’s goons with get-out-of-jail-free cards. It did not give me the warm and fuzzies, George.”
She frowned at him and straightened up, walking around the desk so she was now on the same side as him. She perched her ass up on the edge of the desk, resting her hands on top of her thigh.
“You’ve been working for us for a very long time, and you know we reward loyalty. But, this?” Layne shook her head with a sigh of straight-up disappointment. George sat there, getting antsy in his seat like he had roaches crawling up his legs.
“You don’t understand,” he responded in a panic, quick to plead his case to her. “They were threatening my sister and her family. I didn’t have a choice.”
“You’re right, I don’t understand. But, that’s the easy part of my job here, George. I don’t have to understand. You could have come to us first and let us handle things. Instead, you run off and stab us in the back after all we’ve done for you. The Benz you have out front? Wasn’t that a generous Christmas bonus last year?”
