He had to decide.
A man his wife loved.
A woman his son loved.
Or a man who hated him, and apparently, them.
“You’re firing me?” he asked.
Greyson was emotionally and physically drained of everything inside him. He’d hoped the Blackhawks could help, but it was too late.
Dimitri was too far gone. In two days, the man had gone from bad to worse.
Here was the end of his family.
“Yes, because you’re out of control, reckless, and going to get us all killed. I can’t save you. I’m sorry, Dimitri, but I can’t save you.”
It hurt to say it.
“Chris, Kat, Heath, you don’t answer to him. You answer to me, and this is done. No more training. You aren’t going to be abused.”
It was done.
Greyson knew what he was doing.
Now, the target was off of them, and onto him. They would be safe. As the head of this family, it was his duty to do what he could to protect them, and he would.
Starting now.
He went to walk away, but Dimitri stopped him when he grabbed his arm.
“This is because of you,” Dimitri stated. “This is all because of you.”
There it was.
Sadly, he wasn’t telling him something he didn’t know.
At that moment, Greyson’s heart broke. With that one sentence, his world died. Now, he understood what it was like to lose a brother. Dimitri had severed that last tenuous bond to him and the family.
It was over.
Poppy Wayne had been their destruction.
While he wanted to rage himself, Greyson didn’t give in to that hurt. Greyson didn’t say anything.
Instead, he went to walk away.
As he did, he knew what was coming. Turning his back to Dimitri was always dangerous, but when this ended, he wouldn’t be the bad guy. He would know that, deep down, he’d never betrayed that bond. He loved him to the end.
From behind him, he felt it.
Rage.
It was there.
Only, there was no way he’d cower to it anymore. Greyson knew Dimitri’s intent, since he’d been a soldier and was smart enough to know not to turn your back on the enemy.
Dimitri would never be his enemy. He only wished he could say the same of the man.
In that second, Dimitri attacked.
He drop-kicked him so hard, Greyson slid across the floor and into the wall. When he came to a stop, Heath was up and in front of him.
Greyson stopped him.
If Dimitri was ending this, he was ending it. For the last three months, everyone had tried.
They tried to reach him.
They tried to love him.
If this ended today, it ended with Dimitri’s choice. Men had to be men, and they had to live by their choices.
Greyson was good with his.
He wouldn’t lose sleep over it.
Now it was about saving who he could, and there was no doubt that wasn’t Dimitri.
His brother, and best friend, was a lost cause.
“It’s okay, Heath. Don’t touch him,” he stated. Greyson faced the man. “Once, you’d never strike out at me. Once, you were my brother and we were on the same side. At one time, you had my back, and now you’ve attacked it.”
The room was deathly silent.
Everyone held their breath.
Kat moved into Chris’s side. He placed his arm around her shoulders in a sign of unity, and also to keep her from getting involved.
She would side with Dimitri out of blood.
Only, she couldn’t this time. There was too much on the line.
“At one time, you were my best friend,” Greyson stated. “We would have died side-by-side. That Dimitri, the loyal one, is dead. Poppy Wayne killed him—not me.”
At the mere mention of her name, it was done.
Dimitri couldn’t fight the anger anymore. Instead, he needed to hurt something. He took a swing, and it connected. Then another, and another. He pummeled Greyson.
Kat went to move, and Chris held her.
All of the while, they watched as Greyson gave Dimitri the rope to hang himself. They knew Greyson could fight just as well as Dimitri.
Only, he wasn’t.
Dimitri wailed on him, and the man didn’t stop him. Instead, he went to his knees, accepting each blow to his face, his body, and his soul.
When it didn’t abate, as Dimitri stood over Greyson, Chris was done with it. He went to help Greyson, only he didn’t get the chance.
They all heard her.
Here came the reckoning.
“DIMITRI!”
He glanced over his shoulder at his name.
There stood Emma, and she was weeping. She moved toward her husband. She stood in front of him, protecting him with her own body. His lip was split, and his nose was bleeding.
Emma and her large baby bump became Greyson’s armor—proof of who had his back.
Family.
The tension in the room was palpable as Dimitri stood there with his fists clenched.
It was as if he was trying to figure out if he should hit her.
That said it all.
He was dead inside.
Emma had followed her husband downstairs and found him on his knees being struck by a man who vowed to protect him to his dying day.
She was done.
Enough was enough.
“Go,” she stated. “Just leave. We get it. You hate us. You hate us so much that you’ll do this to him!”
She was furious.
Dimitri stood there, staring at Greyson. He was still on his knees. The rage was creeping away, and in his place, sanity returned.
He saw what he’d done.
He’d hurt someone else.
Emma wasn’t done defending her husband—not by a long shot.
“You don’t get it! He let you beat on him. He let you do this because he feels like this is his fault,” she stated. “Greyson is suffering too. This isn’t only about you!”
Greyson stared up at him.
“Let him fucking finish,” he stated. “Let him do it. I’ll take it. I’ll fucking take it because I love him,” he stated. “He is my brother, and I’ll take the abuse from him.”
She wasn’t letting that happen.
Emma had enough of the entire thing. She was so sick over all of this, and how one woman had destroyed their family.
She never saw this coming.
“Leave. You’ve betrayed us for the final time. Your second chance is over. Go!”
Dimitri stared at all of them.
It registered.
At that moment, he saw what he’d done to them. Kat was limping, Chris was bleeding, and Greyson…
Jesus.
His heart ached.
“Leave,” she said. “At one time, you loved us! We get it! We’re to blame for everything! Take your life and leave! Take your kids and go, but you will not come into this gym and beat on my husband, my brother, and my daughter-in-law because you are angry at the world!”
He backed up.
Emma pulled a gun out of the back of her pants and handed it to Heath. They never allowed guns in the gym—and this was the reason. In the last three months, no one trusted Dimitri with one.
That trust was dead.
“Heath, if he moves at anyone in this room, fucking shoot him—to kill.”
He took it.
“You’re the boss,” he offered.
And that said it all.
Everyone knew Emma was done. She was at wit’s end, and she was drawing the line. While they all knew she loved and doted on Dimitri, she wouldn’t tolerate this.
Her husband was not the sacrificial lamb.
“Since you hate us so much, hate him—for whatever sins we’ve done to you, then go. Leave! We are not going to let you beat on us because Poppy Wayne was a coward and ran.”
Kat gasped.
Emma didn’t care.
“That’s right. She was a coward. I’m sorry she was attacked and raped. I’m sorry that she was hurt, but we didn’t do that. Greyson didn’t rape her. Chris didn’t rape her. Kat didn’t, and neither did Heath. I have never hurt her or you, and I’m sick of seeing this. I’m done. You’re killing us!”
Dimitri felt each word, and he deserved them.
He needed this and more.
The woman he loved like a sister, a mother, and more, was handing out his lesson, and he deserved it.
She helped her husband up.
“We are no longer family. We accepted you betraying us once, and we forgave. We accepted you as you are, and with open arms. We loved you with all we have, but you can’t expect us to let you abuse us because of her. We are not the guilty ones here. We don’t carry that, but you still make us the ones who need to pay. We are done, Dimitri.”
“Come on, Grey. Let’s get you back to our place. I’ll clean you up.”
Dimitri was horrified.
He’d hurt them. In his process of trying to stop feeling so dead inside, he’d killed his family.
He’d killed what they’d had.
“Chris, Kat, come along,” she stated, waddling out of the gym with them.
They grabbed their things and nothing further was said until Chris glared at him.
“You’re an asshole,” he stated, walking past the man who was still being held at gunpoint by Heath.
Kat stared back at her brother.
This was so hard for her.
Did she choose to stand by a man who saved her but was wrong, or by people not her blood but who were right?
It was hard.
She had to choose.
“I’m sorry, Papa,” she said. “I love you, but she’s right. You chose her over us, and we can’t make you see. We never made you do that. The choice was yours. I love you, Papa, but I don’t deserve to be abused. My life was hard enough, and I want to be happy. I deserve a family who won’t hurt me anymore.”
Her words damaged him.
They were a dagger through his heart, and sadly, he knew he deserved them.
What had he done?
When she was gone, Dimitri stared down at his hands. There was blood on his knuckles, and it wasn’t his.
The symbolism wasn’t lost on him.
He had so much blood on his hands throughout his life, but this time, it was done out of something he found soul-crushing.
He’d hurt his family when they didn’t deserve his anger and hate.
When he looked up, the big man was glaring at him.
“I don’t like you,” Heath stated, “but I respected you. Why?” he asked. “Because you loved your family. I grew up without one. I know what it’s like to run the streets, steal, kill, and try to find anyone who saw worth in me.”
Dimitri’s heart hurt.
That had been his life too.
“They’ve tried for weeks to get through to you. You were so lucky to have people who loved you like that.”
He was aware.
No one had ever loved him before Emma and Greyson.
“What you don’t know, Mr. Gideon, is that this weekend, while you were angrily holed up in your place—having your pity party, Mr. C crawled to Ethan Blackhawk to get you help.”
Dimitri was surprised.
He hadn’t known he’d even left Sky Villa, and that said a lot about how much he’d let slip. His duty was to make sure the Crofts were safe.
He’d dropped that ball too.
“He flew ten hours to beg for someone to save you. The man swallowed his pride and did it for you, and you just put your hands on him. I can’t respect you. I can’t like you. I can’t figure out why they mean so little to you when they’ve never done anything but been there for you.”
It was true.
“Goodbye, Mr. Gideon. If you come for them again, like today, Mr. C won’t be able to stop me. I will kill you. They are my family now, and I won’t do this to them. I know better. Shame on you.”
Heath backed out of the gym, closed the door, and headed upstairs, leaving Dimitri to stand there.
Alone.
When they were gone, he sat on the mat.
He took in everything they had said, and the cold, hard reality that Greyson, even as he tried to push him away, had been silently fighting for him.
When he’d felt alone, he hadn’t been. The family had been trying to be there for him.
They’d been trying to save him.
Dimitri felt horrible.
He’d crossed a line and done something so vile that he couldn’t blame them.
Heath was right.
All weekend, as he sat there watching his kids, he wallowed in what he’d lost, and not what he’d been blessed to find.
What was wrong with him?
Then he thought about Emma, and what she’d said to him. She was also right.
They hadn’t done this to Poppy. They tried to protect her, and they tried to help. When that car had hit them, and she’d been taken, Greyson had rushed there. They’d rushed to Poppy’s home, and they’d tried.
They’d done everything they could.
And he’d shit on it.
Lying back, he stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out how to fix this whole mess. He tried to figure out how to make this right.
For them.
For his family.
And for his soul.
When she got him back to the penthouse, she knew how close Greyson was to breaking. Leading him into their room, she sat her husband on the edge of their bed so he could take a moment to regroup as she cleaned him up.
“I’m sorry,” she stated. “I know how hard you’ve been trying to tolerate all of this, and I know how your heart is breaking.”
He stoically tried to swallow it.
It was his duty.
“I’m in charge of this…”
Emma stopped him.
She placed her fingers over his split lip.
“Greyson, you are not responsible for the actions of that man. You are not responsible for what Jeffrey Raye put into motion. You are responsible for what you do. That’s all. Sometimes, you have to take it for a while until it soaks in. Now it’s time to realize that.”
He dropped the bomb.
“We’re leaving Las Vegas.”
She cleaned up his face and didn’t even flinch. She knew he didn’t really mean it. Her husband wasn’t a quitter, and when he calmed down, he’d realize that wasn’t the answer.
Until then…
“Okay, Grey,” she offered, refusing to talk him out of it. Emma would follow this man into Hell and back, and if he needed to believe that was the way through this, so be it. She let him lead because without him, she couldn’t survive.
He kept going.
Clearly, he was having his own meltdown—only not violently like Dimitri’s.
“I’m done. I’ve fought the good fight, and I’ve lost. I know I can’t beat this. I feel like I’ve done all I can at this point, and it’s time to throw in the towel—for all of our sakes.”
Emma cleaned off his eyebrow.
It was cut too.
Instead of trying to talk him out of it, she let him vent. Sometimes, you needed to get it off of your chest.
Like now.
“Okay, where are we going?” she asked. “Do you have a place picked out?”
“I don’t know. We have enough money to disappear, and that’s what I want to do. When I went to see them, I realized something.”
Emma knew who he was talking about, but still, she clarified.
“The Blackhawks?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you realize?” she asked.
“They get it. Until that moment, I didn’t understand. When I walked into the Blackhawks’ home, it was filled with children, laughter, toys, and peace.”
Technically, before this whole Poppy Wayne thing, theirs had been filled with that too.
It was funn
y how one woman could bring a family to their knees.
Like Marissa.
Like Poppy.
“Well, I can’t do this anymore,” he stated. “I thought I was strong enough, Em, but I’m not. This has broken me. Losing Dimitri and hearing him tell me this was my fault…”
While she wasn’t big on defending the man after she saw what she saw, she still did it.
“Out of anger, we say stupid things.”
He was aware.
“It hurt.”
She gave him a kiss on his cut, trying to make him, and it, feel better.
She understood his frustration and his pain. Emma also understood why he wanted to run. It wasn’t only Dimitri.
They’d gone at Jeffrey Raye, trying to take him down, and instead, they’d ended up helping him prove he didn’t kill his wife. They’d made him a millionaire.
They’d really jacked that one up.
It was proof that when you did things out of revenge, you usually got your ass handed to you.
“So, we’re going,” he stated.
She didn’t believe him.
Still.
With Greyson, he was more talk than anything. He would keep it bottled up, vent, and then be good to go, and she was betting this was exactly that.
“Okay, so let’s leave. Can we bring our family, or is this a you and me thing?”
He laughed.
“You amaze me.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Just like that, you’d leave?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I married you for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, and in sickness and in health. You’re my husband. I will always stand by you. If you can’t live here, and you need to go, why would I stay behind?”
He let that sink in.
“Even though I jacked this up?”
“No, Grey, you didn’t. I’m big on coddling someone who is hurt and protecting people, but for the last three months, I’ve said nothing. I’m done. You are not to blame. Neither is Dimitri. We didn’t cause this.”
“I pushed Jeffrey Raye. I provoked him, Emma. He went after Poppy to teach me a lesson.”
“Yeah, and he made the decision to let that lunatic loose on Poppy. You didn’t. Grey, stop.”
He looked up at her.
“He was my best friend.”
And there it was.
No Justice_A Croft Mob Family Book Page 5
