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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Things were coming full circle, and Joey decided it would be perfect justice that Franzetti would meet his end down at the very docks where Layne was supposed to meet her fate at Joey’s hands. The shoddy building where he had briefly held her captive all those months ago was still situated across the gravel lot.
Thanks to some friendly flies on a wall, he had been able to intercept Franzetti during a small window of opportunity as he was leaving his mistress’s home.
Masked up, Joey loomed over Franzetti while a dark and sinister shadow reflected in his eyes. Michael arrogantly held his head up high while he was forced down onto his knees there on the wooden boards at the end of the very same dock Layne should have been pitched off of if Joey had done what Franzetti had hired him to do. It was nothing but them and the sound of the water lightly slapping against the supportive pilings of the dock.
“Your time’s up, Mike.” Joey’s head was already in the grim mind space where he was able to calmly focus on the process of taking someone’s life.
The sound of a car door slamming shut in the distance, and a small pair of feet pounding against the gravel neared them both. The hell if Layne was going to allow Joey to do this without her there. She had every right to witness the end of this particular chapter of her life. It was going to be her own personal version of therapy.
After trying a few other locations, she had concluded this was the next logical spot to check. Fortune was shining upon her as it seemed she arrived in the nick of time.
Not removing his eyes from the man kneeling before him, Joey sternly spoke to her, “I told you I didn’t want you here.”
“And I told you…I wasn’t going to listen.” Her chest rose and fell from the quick sprint across the large lot from where her car was parked.
She took in the sight of Franzetti kneeling there, hands secured behind his back. It appeared Joey had already repaid a few debts to him from the fresh swelling around his eyes and the busted lip.
Franzetti laughed as he saw the two of them standing before him. “What a joke - the two of you. The stone-cold killer turned weak by an uptown bitch who doesn’t know her place. Have you even told her? Does she know about your deepest, darkest secret?”
Layne’s brows furrowed as confusion settled in as to what type of deep dark secret Michael was referring to. Joey had confessed to his lifetime of crime, and not once had she ever judged him for that. In return, Joey had never judged her for her own lifetime of sins.
A delighted grin popped across Franzetti’s face. “She doesn’t know, does she?”
Joey’s hand grasped a handful of Michael’s greasy dark hair, shoving the barrel of the pistol against Franzetti’s temple. “Shut the fuck up, you sorry excuse for a human being!” His words seethed with anger.
Layne’s fingers wrapped around Joey’s arm to give him pause. “Wait! Stop!” She glared down at the man who had brought so much pain and mayhem into her life. If anyone was going to have the chance to eliminate him, she wanted to be the one to do it if she was ever going to sleep at night.
“Don’t listen to him, Layne, he’s trying to buy time I’m not going to give him.” Joey cautioned her, but she ignored his warning.
Her hand remained on his arm which was flexed tight with tension. She wanted to try and make sure that Joey didn’t pull the trigger. “No, I want him to think that whatever he says is going to make a difference.”
Not even flinching, Franzetti continued to casually speak like his life wasn’t about to end within minutes. “I’ve known Joseph here for a long while. The first job he ever did for me, was a doozy. When was it? About fifteen years ago?”
Michael kept his eyes on Layne’s face, ready to soak in her reaction as he continued to share the bombshell. “I couldn’t risk one of my own men placing the explosive on your mother’s car. I needed someone without any known ties to me. I needed someone just like Joseph here. He did such a good job, too. Don’t you think?”
The world began spinning around her as she tried to reconcile what Franzetti said. Her hand fell from Joey’s arm as she backed up a few steps, staring at the man who had promised her everything. The very same man she had been willing to risk her life, job, reputation, and heart for.
“Layne…” Joey’s words to even begin explaining himself were lost. He glanced over at her, regret flooding his face.
Her chest grew heavy while her chin quivered as the vivid imagery of her mother’s last moments flashed through her mind. Layne’s green eyes—her mother’s eyes—began to blur with a well of tears. The tears were packed full of anger, betrayal, pain, and sadness. Her heart was being squeezed by a vise until it released into an eruption of rage.
Her hand pulled her firearm from its holster underneath her jacket and without a second thought, she fired a chain of rounds.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Click. Click. Click.
The entire contents of the clip were emptied, and even then, her finger still squeezed the trigger several more times.
All the bullets formed a cluster in the center of Franzetti’s chest. His body jolted and jerked with each impact until lifelessness overcame him and his corpse slumped onto the boards. The scent of gunpowder, singed flesh, and blood tainted the night air.
There was a moment where Joey thought that she might have shot him as well, and he would have deserved it. He moved slowly, sliding his pistol into his thigh holster not wanting to make any sudden movements that might startle Layne.
His hand pulled down the front of his mask, exposing his face to her. He placed one boot in front of the other towards her, keeping his palms open and in front of him. The last thing he wanted to do was come off as anything but harmless.
Her arm was still extended out towards Franzetti’s body with her baby Glock still tightly grasped in her hand, but steady it was not. Her entire body shivered from the adrenaline wracking through each of her muscles. Now, tears were freely flowing from her eyes, and when she finally noticed Joey making a slow approach.
“Why?!” Her voice screamed out with all the pain of unanswered questions. Her dominant arm lowered under the weight of the hunk of metal. “WHY?!” She repeated herself, simultaneously hurling the Glock right past him into the water of the depths of the Hudson behind him.
