Chapter Twenty-Nine

Layla

There were times in people’s lives when they looked around and wondered how in the hell they ended up where they were. I was having one of those moments as I sat and listened to Eamon tell the greasy pig just how little I meant to him. The answer was very fucking little. So little, it might as well be nothing at all.

And Eamon was my only hope.

Yeah, I wondered how I got here when just last week I thought the mob was something that used to happen back in the nineties. I thought they only existed for the sake of the bad guys you love to hate on every crime drama show that aired during primetime. But now, I knew the truth. The mob wasn’t just real, they were alive and well in Rocket, Nevada. What were the odds?

And I was somehow caught in the middle of a mob war. Or at least I assumed the Milanos the greasy ginger had mentioned were also a mob family because, why the hell not? Just fuck my life right now.

“He called you a piece of ass. Pretty cold if you ask me.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t ask, did I?”

And I didn’t want to hear his fucking views on the world.

“Still, if some chick I was clearly into said that about me, I’d be pretty pissed off.”

In an effort to intimidate me, I guessed, he pulled out three different guns, one from his ankle, his waistband and one holstered by his ribs. Then, as calmly as you please, he sat at a table by the window and began to clean them.

I snorted at him. “Then you have a higher opinion of women than I do of men because nothing any of you motherfuckers do can ever surprise me.”

The latest shock was Dad and his secret life that involved the mob or the mafia—what was the difference anyway?

“Really?” He snorted his disbelief. “Because I saw you two this morning outside your apartment and to me, you looked like two people falling in love.”

“Like you know what love is.”

He frowned and took a break from cleaning his guns. “Don’t judge me by my work. We all have to make a living lady.”

Who was this guy kidding? I rolled my eyes and leaned back, trying to get comfortable tied to a chair with my head throbbing along with my cheek.

“I’m sorry Mr. Kidnapper and Abuser of Women. Please tell me your philosophies on love.”

He smiled again. “I like you, blondie. And I will tell you because you need to hear it.”

“Really, I don’t. Love isn’t my thing.”

“Bullshit.”

The grin he wore took the sting off his words. “I saw you two this morning, and I heard the way he clenched his teeth over the phone, hard enough to turn them to dust. And if you really didn’t mean a thing to him, he woulda hung up right away.”

What the hell had happened to my life that I was taking relationship advice from a thug cleaning his guns while I was tied to a chair?

“Why bother giving me false hope if you’re only going to kill me?”

I was done with talking to this asshole. I was done with talking period. I turned my head away from him and stared at a crack in the wall, wondering how many other people had been tied to chairs here. How many other people had stared at that crack without realizing it was the last thing they’d ever see?

“Don’t ignore me, Layla.”

“Stop saying my name like you know me. You don’t.”

“Oh, but I do.” He grinned and went back to his guns. “You think you’re gonna be the woman who changes Eamon.”

“Wrong.”

“I’ve seen plenty of women like you over the years,” he said again and shook his head. “Guys like him don’t change.”

“Good, because I’m not trying to change anyone.” It wasn’t my job to change anyone, least of all someone so entrenched in this life. He was who he was, and I fell for him anyway, dummy that I was.

“You don’t strike me as a good time girl.”

“I’m not,” I told him angrily because there was no way in hell I would tell him what I was actually doing with Eamon. “But I am a sucker for a beautiful man so I figured a guy like Eamon was perfect.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because my heart was never in any danger with a player like him.”

If only I realized that a lot sooner.

“If you say so.” Bright red eyebrows arched in disbelief and I shrugged.

“I don’t need you to believe me, not when I’ll be dead soon anyway.” There, I’d said it out loud, the thing I feared the most. The thing that was looking more and more inevitable and I’d just blurted it out like an idiot.

“I might not kill you.”

I didn’t bother looking at him because I knew he was lying. I just wondered if he’d kill me before or after Eamon showed up.