Dark Justice (Croft Family Mob Series Book 1) (15 page)

Greyson laughed. “Welcome to my world.”

Emma pointed at him.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m going to say this off record. Curtis confided in us, but we need to discuss this one thing, and then we can move ahead with how to rectify it.”

Dimitri couldn’t figure out what this had to do with him. Honestly, he was going to talk to the man, and that should be enough.

“Curtis said that Kat, after sex, won’t sleep with him.”

Dimitri closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the couch. “I’ve had less torture as a prisoner of war. Now I’m picturing that in my head, and I think I want to cry.”

Emma laughed, punching him in the leg. “Let’s be serious. This is a problem. She leaves right after, and he thinks it’s him.”

“The women I sleep with leave after too,” he pointed out. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

They stared at him.

“Did you just compare your sister to a hooker? Because that’s what it sounded like to me.”

Greyson laughed when Dimitri began sputtering like a teakettle, and then cursing in Russian because Emma was right.

He had.

“I don’t know if I like you right now,” he finally got out.

“Well, she told me it’s because it’s disrespectful to shack up in your parent’s house.”

“It is,” Dimitri said, “but I’m bringing my hookers here anymore since you’re torturing me with this conversation.”

“Want me to hit you again?”

He laughed.

“What do you want to do?” Greyson asked. “Buy them a place?”

She opened her mouth, but Dimitri cut her off.

“No. They aren’t moving in together until they’re married. I won’t get into their business with the baby, but my sister is not giving it away for free like some…”

He stopped.

“If you say cow, I’m hitting you.”

“She’s not living with him without a ring on that finger, and besides, Curtis needs to stay where we can keep an eye on him.”

Dimitri cracked his knuckles.

Emma wasn’t buying it. “You like the boy.”

He didn’t say anything. Yes, he did, but that could change damn fast if he hurt Katerina. Killing him had nothing to do with liking him, and everything to do with his behavior.

“Anyway,” Emma said, “I’d like to give them some privacy. They could have the pool house. It’s two bedrooms, and they could stay there, it wouldn’t be like having a home, but it would be theirs. Plus, they’d be safely within Terrace Glen’s walls. It kills two birds with one stone.”

“I’d like to kill two young horny birds,” Dimitri muttered.

Emma snickered. “You would not. Really. Be serious. I want to let them have the pool house.”

“Uh, that’s the place I use as my central command. That’s not going to make Curtis happy as I'm working in the next room while he’s trying to...”

He couldn’t even say it.

Thinking about his sister having sex was bad enough. If he had to hear one moan, he’d vomit and be scarred for life.

That was saying a lot considering his past.

“Yeah, about that little detail. You’re being evicted.”

He stared at her.

Was she serious?

“To where?” A part of him wondered if she meant out of the compound all together. Could this still be payback for killing Mace Bristol?

“We have a room that we can convert to your office. You need one, and they need some privacy. Let’s face it. We all like to have a place to shack up with the one we love.”

She pointed at Dimitri to stop him from sharing any details. “I don’t want to know where you go.”

He laughed.

She was being incredibly kind, not only to Curtis, but to his sister. Dimitri knew that not everyone would be so nice. While Kat had her own money, Curtis was the heir to a fortune.

There were plenty of gold diggers in Vegas. Emma never looked at Katerina as if she was one, and that endeared the woman to him.

“Well?” she asked. “We don’t really use the pool house, unless,” she began and shuddered at the mere thought, “Greyson’s mother comes to visit.”

Croft laughed. “Now she’s going to call. You just released the Kraken. It’ll be all your fault.”

She punched him next.

“I think that’s a really nice gesture, Emma.”

“I have some errands to run, but Greyson will help you clear out the pool house and set up your office. You can talk to them, give them the good news, and take one for the team.”

“And where will you be?” Greyson asked. While he didn’t have Emma on lock down, he didn’t like her wandering the city. Call him caveman, but he liked to know where his babe was at all times. The term
‘errands to run’
wasn’t really specific.

“I have to fix another part of our family.”

He looked at her. “Chris?”

She flinched at the mere mention of his name. “No. He’s dead to me.”

Maybe if she said it enough, she’d buy it. Yeah, that was never going to happen.

“I’m going to go see Steele. Out of all of us, I’m the one he’s most likely going to talk to if I show up there. Besides, he didn’t ban me from the place.”

She had a point.

Greyson wasn’t really sure if he could go there. Since he and Dante looked alike, he figured he was public enemy number two—right behind his brother.

“Okay, but you take Natasha with you for backup.”

“In case of what? He tries to critique my clothing? He’s a gay ME, Greyson, not a hitman. I think I can take him. I’ll throw some prints at him and run.”

He snorted. “Just do it. It’ll keep me calm. A relaxed Greyson is a rational Greyson.”

He had a point.

Emma didn’t need backup, but she was good with that. “Deal, Mr. Croft.”

“I’ll send Kat a text and get her back here. I’ll make her wait in uncomfortable silence.”

“Dimitri!”

He laughed, heading toward the pool house. “I said I wouldn’t ride their asses about a baby. I didn’t say I wouldn’t make the entire thing as uncomfortable as possible—especially since you put the sex pictures into my head.”

Greyson laughed.

Emma sighed.

There was no doubt in her mind.

The testosterone in this house was going to be the death of her.

Chapter Eight

Friday

Mid-Afternoon

Steele Bentley’s

Emma actually enjoyed the company on the way to Doctor Steele Bentley’s condominium. The last thing she wanted to think about was Chris Ford, and how she’d lost a man she cherished.

Yes, she still had men in their family who really had her back.

Curtis.

Paris.

Dimitri.

They were men who she could rely on, and going forward, she would do just that. Family would stick, and she knew where she could place her trust—and where she couldn’t.

She did feel bad about Chris though—if not for herself, then for the woman sitting beside her. Emma knew that Natasha had an attachment to Chris. All the while he was in the hospital, recovering from being shot, she stayed there to
‘guard’
him. Emma knew it was more than that.

She could see it in her eyes.

Nat had a crush.

When she brought Chris to their home, giving him a plush room to recover in, access to a PT coach, their personal gym, and the chef cooking nutritious food for him, he’d still needed something more.

Chris was struggling, and Emma saw it.

He was lonely.

The man needed a woman, and when Natasha was around, he looked to be at peace. She brightened his day, and Emma was secretly thrilled. Chris had always sworn that he was going to be a bachelor until the day he died, but Emma had hope he’d be brave enough to get back on the horse.

Now that didn’t matter.

The horse…it ran away.

Chris wasn’t her concern anymore, and she knew that was going to upset the woman beside her.

In fact, Nat was relatively silent.

“Are you okay?” she finally asked. Emma didn’t really want to discuss it, but she would for her sake. Family did things like that.

“Yes.”

“Great.”

Emma drove a little more.

“Can I ask you something?” Natasha inquired. She glanced over at the other redhead, hoping she’d heard wrong. Nat didn’t want it to be true.

If it was…

Yeah, she had to pray.

“Sure. What’s on your mind, Nat?”

“Is what you said true? Is Christopher Ford gone from your life for good? Is he really dead to you?”

Emma hated doing this.

“Yes.”

“I see.”

What could Emma say?

“That sucks.”

Emma reached over and patted her hand. Natasha was the only one of the Gideons who didn’t flinch away from contact. It told her everything she needed to know. She’d never been victim to her father’s cruel sexual abuse. She’d been saved in time.

Katerina and Dimitri weren’t as lucky.

As an ex-cop, she could see it. It was crystal clear.

“I’m sorry, Nat.”

“He wouldn’t hurt you, Emma. He loves you. You’re the only woman in the world who owns his heart.”

She had believed that until that morning.

“Nat, he made his choice. I can’t make Chris be part of this family. That was his decision, and he picked work over everything else.”

“I can’t believe that. He loves you. I believe in him.”

Yeah, and she loved him.

Nat knew that Chris was the one she was meant to be with for the rest of her life. The heart knew when it knew. Only she didn’t have a clue how to approach him and bring that up.

He was Emma and Greyson Croft’s family, and still there was that worry that it was hands off from her end. Yes, Kat had managed to find happiness with Curtis, their adopted ‘son’, but she wasn’t going to get that lucky.

Here was the proof.

“Can’t you reconsider?” Nat asked. “Can you really stop loving someone that easily?”

Emma’s heart skipped. “No, I can’t stop loving someone that easily, Natasha. I still love Chris, and I always will. I just can’t make him choose us over the world. Some people value family more than anything and that’s how we live. Look at Dimitri. What wouldn’t he do for you and Kat?”

The answer was simple.

Nothing.

Dimitri wouldn’t stop at anything to make them happy. She still remembered being saved by him so long ago. She didn’t even think about her mother anymore.

She was a distant memory.

Having a roof over her head, food in her belly at night, and safety—it was the best feeling in the world.

Well, next to love.

That’s how Natasha knew she loved Chris Ford. She’d give all of that up for him. Despite her past, she’d sacrifice the things she’d come to cherish for him.

If Emma gave him one more chance…

Maybe…

“He threw me out of his office, Nat. I won’t go back and beg to be part of his life.”

Natasha wanted to weep.

“There has to be something more, Emma. That’s not like him at all. Chris is…”

She closed her mouth.

“He’s what?”

“It’s not my place to say.”

“I know you’re attracted to him, Nat. I know you watch him with more than just bodyguard intentions. I saw you in the hospital when you gave him your number.”

“He never called. That should say it all.”

“I wish I could say something more. I don’t know what the hell he’s thinking. Maybe he hit his head,” Emma admitted.

Or maybe he used them.

That option made her sick.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Nat said. “If you say he’s dead, Dimitri will stand by that. He’s not going to let him come back and hurt you or Greyson.”

Yeah, Emma was aware.

Look what he did to Mace for snitching.

For Chris’s sake, even though she was angry with him, she hoped he had the common sense to sleep with one eye open. While she told Dimitri hands off, he was a force unto his own.

No one controlled the Russian.

Hell!

His own blood didn’t have that ability, so she knew she wouldn’t either.

“We’re here.”

“Emma, something has to be wrong for Chris to betray you. Please. Give him a chance. Give him one for me. I know I have no right to ask you, but I don’t want to see him go.”

She got that, but it was out of her hands.

She hadn’t even gotten a text from him apologizing. He let his detectives rip her to pieces on her way out. She didn’t matter to him anymore, and there was nothing she could do to change that.

This was out of her hands.

Still…

She happened to agree with Nat. This was out of character for the man. Something didn’t add up.

“Let’s go check on Steele.”

It appeared that Emma was finished with the discussion. Nat wanted to weep. She loved the Crofts.

She just hated this decision with her whole heart.

As they headed inside, she handed the man behind the desk her ID.

He read the name and checked it against the ban list.

Emma crossed her fingers.

“Go ahead. We haven’t seen Mr. Bentley in a couple days. Here’s his mail.”

Emma took it and they headed into the elevator.

Nat pushed the button for the fourth floor, and they rode in silence.

“Nat, I’m sorry.”

“Me too, Emma. It’s okay. It has to be your call. If it’s meant to work out, it will.”

Nat wasn’t going to give up.

If Dimitri said not to follow Chris, she’d do it in her down time. She couldn’t give up on him.

She wouldn’t.

As the door opened, Emma and Natasha headed to the end of the hall.

They knocked.

There was no sound.

They’d seen Steele’s Mercedes in the parking lot, and that meant that he was home. Plus, the guard hadn’t seen him leaving or returning.

Was he hiding from her too?

Well, she’d had enough.

“Can you pick it?” Emma asked, glancing at Natasha.

“It breaks my heart that you even have to ask that,” Nat said, pulling out the slim case. “That was the first thing Dimitri taught us.”

Emma laughed. “Open it. I’ll go to jail if we are caught, but you make sure Greyson bails me out. They’ll kill me in there.”

Nat got it.

Emma was probably right.

She dropped down, pulled out the tools, and got to work. It didn’t take long for the lock to click.

“All yours.”

Emma pushed the door open, and she was infinitely grateful that Steele didn’t believe in using a gun.

At least they wouldn’t die in some accidental shooting.

As they walked in, something was off. The place smelled horrible, as if something was decaying. As they entered the kitchen, Emma noticed the place was disgusting.

The garbage was full.

The sink had dishes that were crusted with food.

This was a bad sign.

Steele Bentley was a neat freak who took pride in his cleanliness and tidy life. The man wouldn’t wear a wrinkled shirt out to the movies, let alone have his home look like this.

“Emma, look,” Nat said, pointing to the other counter.

On it were tons of empty pill bottles.

They were all prescription, and they were all ordered from him, a few other doctors, and in multiple doses.

Shit!

This was bad.

They were all empty, and only filled ten days ago.

Her heart began thumping in her chest.

“Steele!” she shouted, moving through the condominium. As she approached his bedroom, one where he and Dante used to cuddle up, she could see his legs on the bed.

Then she saw him.

Oh sweet blessed Jesus.

Steele was a mess.

His face was gaunt, like he’d stopped eating and drinking. He had bruises all over his body, likely from falling or passing out. He looked like a corpse.

She began praying.

“Please let him be alive,” Emma muttered, moving closer. She’d never approached a body with such trepidation before. Being an ex-homicide detective, death had been the norm.

Seeing this…

It scared her.

The second her fingers touched his neck, she could detect a very weak pulse.

It was coma like.

“Nat, call an ambulance, and then get downstairs to wait for them.”

Natasha pulled out her phone and made the call as she dug through the man’s drawers for clean clothes. He was naked, and a mess.

“Thank you,” Emma stated.

She called Dante as she struggled to get Steele dressed. They had once joked about never letting anyone find their bodies naked and a mess.

She and Chris had that same pact.

Maybe it was a cop thing, because they’d all had to stumble upon scenes like this.

“Yeah, Emma, what’s up?” Dante said into the phone when he answered on the second ring.

“I need you to meet me at the hospital.”

“Why? What happened? Is Grey okay? Are you okay?”

“Jesus, Dante. It’s Steele.”

He’d recalled once that she told him if she ever called and sounded panicked, then he should freak out.

Emma sounded scared shitless.

It was time to lose his damn mind.

“What happened?”

Emma looked down at his face. There was white dried foam at the corners of his mouth.

“I think he overdosed on drugs.”

“WHAT?”

“Get there, Dante! Just get there!”

The call ended, and Emma pulled the sweats onto Steele’s nude body. He was healed from most of the scars inflicted by Dominic Marianna.

Just not the emotional ones.

She felt guilty.

They never should have let him come back here alone.

It was clear what had happened—Steele had tried to kill himself or was addicted to drugs from the pain.

Or both.

When Dante saw his ex-fiancé, he was going to lose it. Emma wouldn’t be the only one who felt guilty.

Dante was going to blame himself for this too.

This was about to get worse.

                              
* * *
  G r e y s o n   C r o f t   * * *

Terrace Glen

Dimitri had finished moving his things to a private room in the master house. Honestly, he didn’t mind vacating the pool house. He actually liked being inside.