He feared Croft was going to bail.
So, that meant burning one of his best agents.
From here on out, she couldn’t go back under.
“You help them any way you can. Your job is to make sure they get this information, and while he’s out trying to bring her back, you stick close.”
“How close?” she asked.
“So close no one takes them down. I don’t trust the players in the game, but I do trust the Crofts. They are now your main focus, but you work for me. If he tries to hire you, I’ll double your salary.”
She got it.
Blackhawk had always played square with her, and so had Gabe Rothschild. She’d run into Ethan’s wife a long time ago when she had been working a serial killer case. They’d not been married at the time, and she’d barely escaped with her life.
Gabe had saved her and made her one of their team.
A silent player—if you will.
She respected the Blackhawks.
“I’ll handle it, boss.”
Oh, he knew she would.
There was no doubt about that.
The woman was lethal. She made Elizabeth look like a kindergarten teacher—and he’d often wondered if they met, again, head-to-head, who would win.
Nikita was a killer.
Elizabeth was too.
Nikita played dirty.
Elizabeth too.
Nikita was for hire.
Elizabeth had loyalty.
If his wife ever knew who he was using to do the job, the shit would certainly hit the fan. The FBI had its resources, and he’d pulled from the well of killers he could use.
Elizabeth would not be amused.
That’s exactly why he’d put her in Vegas—far from DC and Elizabeth—just in case.
With Nikita, she’d get it done. She had no problem blurring the lines to get the buyer’s end result. Well, she was likely going to have to do just that.
It was time to secure their stronghold.
For Ethan, it came down to one thing.
It was the Devil you knew.
And Greyson Croft needed to stay in power.
At all costs.
* * * G R E Y S O N C R O F T * * *
Sky Villa
Monday Mid-Morning
When they all got the text, they knew it meant business. Greyson and Emma didn’t call a family meeting unless there was an issue or problem.
They hadn’t had one for three months. While they normally met to discuss a case, they hadn’t taken any jobs lately. It didn’t feel right to go out and try to help people when their own family was one hot mess.
This text…
It felt…urgent.
So, the whole family showed up not knowing what they should expect from the people they respected.
It was anyone’s game, and they knew it was going to be something.
When they began arriving, not everyone was there. Paris was working, and Tessa was on bed rest—trapped in her condo downstairs. She was carrying two babies, and they were trying to keep them both viable. She was off duty for the next couple of months.
Riley and Delilah were also not present.
This didn’t involve them, and Greyson and Emma wanted to see the immediate family. While they mattered, as newlyweds, they had other things to handle.
This was a Croft and Gideon matter.
That was the bottom line.
Blood was the bond, and that was the criteria to be at that meeting. The only two people there who weren’t of those bloodlines were Chris and Heath.
So, in the living room of the penthouse, Curtis and his wife joined Dante and Steele as they waited for the shit to hit the fan.
Something big was coming, and they didn’t doubt it was related to the mess they had going on in their personal lives.
No one missed it.
The family was fractured by the tension.
“Where are they?” Dante asked. “I have to get to work,” he stated. “This family burns through money,” he stated, “like Curtis’s porn bill.”
The man laughed.
“Yeah, you should talk. We all know you’re looking at tits on your cell phone when Steele isn’t around. Maybe you should pull up your browser history.”
Dante was amused.
Well, at least some things didn’t change.
While they were joking, you could tell it was only to alleviate some of the stress.
“They are kicking Dimitri out,” Kat stated, tears in her eyes. “He’s being told to leave the family,” she whispered, knowing what was going to go down.
She could tell. The gym had been a bad thing, and he was going to be ousted from their family.
Curtis patted her leg as he tried to reassure his wife. He didn’t want her so stressed.
“They won’t do that,” he promised.
She didn’t look so sure of that.
“You didn’t see the meltdown in the gym,” Chris stated. “Dimitri was wailing on Greyson,” he stated. “He dinged him up, and Emma nearly shit a ton of bricks.”
“Greyson didn’t fight back?” Dante asked, surprised by that fact.
Everyone who witnessed it shook their heads.
Well, that was a bad sign.
A really bad one.
Greyson was more than competent when he needed to defend himself. That he took it was scary and said something about his state of mind.
“Dimitri is going to have to go,” Kat said. “I’m going to lose him. This family is all that keeps him sane and whole.”
They knew how symbiotic the whole family was when it came to member. They all brought something to the table and were important.
As they heard them coming, the whole family shut up and braced for what Emma and Greyson had to say. They walked in hand-in-hand, a unified front.
Yeah, the shitstorm was coming.
Greyson had a steri-strip on his brow, and his face was a battered mess. He was going to have a black eye.
Shit.
That he didn’t fight back…
“Thank you for coming.”
They all held their breath waiting for what he was going to declare. He was, after all, the head of the family.
No one wanted to speak or say anything, unsure what Greyson was going to say.
“We’ve made a decision,” Greyson stated. “It took us a while to decide, but we’ve made up our minds.”
“What?” Curtis asked.
“We are leaving Las Vegas.”
It hung there.
The whole room became silent. No one spoke, but they did look around as if they’d each misheard them.
Greyson couldn’t be giving up.
Finally, Chris regained his senses and spoke up, needing to find out all of their fates.
“Are you serious?” he asked. “You’re packing it in and heading out?”
Greyson helped Emma sit.
“Yes, we are. I’ve fought the good fight. I’ve tried to do the right thing, and no matter what way I turn, someone I love gets hurt. I can’t do it anymore,” he stated. “We’ve decided that it’s time to pack it in.”
Emma held his hand in support.
“I can’t believe this,” Curtis stated. “I never saw this day coming.”
And he hadn’t.
Greyson didn’t back down. He was tenacious, and he fought like a caged animal when backed into the corner. Now he was doing anything but fighting.
He was lying down and giving up.
“We lost Natasha, we ended up helping Jeffrey Raye, and Poppy was raped. I had the best intentions to cleanup this town, but I failed. That’s on me. When I handed in my badge, I really thought that with Dimitri, I could make a difference. I really believed it to the bottom of my soul.”
They were all shocked.
He sounded…defeated.
“Now, I see that with each case we take, I risk the people I love in life. I risk all of you. Well, I can’t do it. I can’t look at Katerina, and think that one
day, Sadie might lose her mom,” he stated, then focused on Chris. “I have one friend left, and I can’t risk him either.”
Jesus.
The man was giving up.
Chris knew he had to do something.
“Grey, I’m good. I’m fine. Don’t do this.”
He patted Chris on the shoulder, and his heart broke that he’d failed in leading these people.
“I can’t risk you too. I lost Dimitri, but I can’t risk losing another brother. I just can’t.”
They all got it.
It was time to tell them what he’d done.
“I went to see the Blackhawks this past weekend. I thought that maybe they would be able to help, but all hell broke loose before that. I have to cut my losses. I can’t save this town if I can’t save the people I love first and foremost. So, we are done.”
That didn’t sit well with any of them.
Vegas had become home.
It was all of their homes.
“And Aquarius?” Kat asked. “What of that and the people you were going to help? What about all of the lost souls that need someone to stand for them?”
He shrugged.
It was not his problem.
That wasn’t on his shoulders.
“Honestly, Katerina, that was Dimitri’s baby. We all know what happened today,” he stated. “I won’t pretend that you haven’t discussed it.”
They all looked guilty.
“Dimitri has made it perfectly clear. I’m public enemy number one. I’ve caused all of this, and I’m leaving. If me being here hurts him more, I will go. He needs to be here. His life is here. Mine can be moved. I’m taking my wife and leaving.”
They all stared at Emma.
“Yes, I’m going,” Emma stated. “We tried, we fought the good fight, and sometimes, it takes a bigger person to walk away when they know that it will do more bad than good.”
Still, deep down, she hoped he would change his mind.
Emma began praying for a miracle.
Something.
Anything.
Chris crossed his booted heels and had no choice.
“Well, screw that then. I’m going with you. I have nothing here to fight for. I only stayed because of you and Emma, Greyson. I’ll go with you.”
He stopped him.
“Chris, here you’ll be fine. With me gone, Vegas will go about its business. I’ve realized I’m the blight on this city. It’s me. I’m the reason it’s falling apart. I tried to save it. You can’t save the unwilling,” he said, thinking about Dimitri. “You can try, but you can’t always win that battle.”
Curtis was appalled.
“Dad, you have to fight.”
No, no, he didn’t.
“I have nothing left, Curtis. Dimitri was more than my friend, he was my brother. He doesn’t want me in his life. He was here first. He can have Vegas.”
They couldn’t believe it.
Chris couldn’t believe it.
“So you’re telling me you don’t want me to be by your side?” he asked, a little hurt. “Is that what this has come to?” he asked.
“Chris, you can have a life here.”
No.
No, he couldn’t.
“Where will you go?” Kat asked before Chris could say more. She wanted to know where the people she called family would go.
She’d just gotten a mother when she married Curtis, and she was going to lose her.
Damn Dimitri.
She wanted to kick his ass. This had cost them all.
Poppy Wayne…
Damn her to Hell.
“I don’t know where we’ll end up, but it will be somewhere I can give Mac a normal life. It’ll be somewhere that he’ll be safe. I have nothing left to fight with,” he stated. “I’m empty.”
They all understood.
“I’m sorry,” Dimitri said, getting everyone’s attention when he spoke.
They all turned in their seats to find him standing there.
Across the room, standing in the entryway was Dimitri. He was dressed in a suit and his gear, and it was clear that he was ready to work.
Yeah, and that he’d clearly missed the memo about a meeting.
Instead, he’d walked in on a discussion where the people he didn’t deserve in his life were getting ready to bail. The entire time he’d been getting ready to come up here, he’d been prepping for this.
Exactly this.
While he knew he deserved it, it still hurt that they were cutting their ties.
“What do you want?” Greyson asked, his body not tensing. He had no fight left in him.
None.
He was empty.
“I have nothing more to do battle with, Dimitri. You won. I took the blame. I caused Natasha’s death, and I caused Poppy’s rape. It’s all on me. You found your enemy. I’m leaving so you don’t have to look at me anymore. This town isn’t big enough for both of us. It’s yours. Congrats. Have at it.”
Dimitri knew he’d broken them.
He’d broken himself.
If Greyson, the strongest, most stubborn man he knew, was ready to walk, he truly was done.
It was time.
“I owe you all an apology.”
No one spoke.
It was clear they weren’t going to make this easy, and he deserved that too.
“Chris, you were right. You didn’t deserve to be my whipping boy in all of this. You didn’t deserve my anger. I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I know it’s not enough, but when I was raising the girls, I told them when you made an error, you corrected it or apologized. I can’t fix this, clearly, but I can say I’m sorry.”
Chris said nothing.
Dimitri faced Katerina.
“I’m sorry, Anfisa. First, for not seeing that I was an asshole, but also for striking you. You should have hit me back. I deserved it.”
“WHAT?” Curtis blurted. “HE HIT YOU? When was someone going to tell me about that?” he asked, ready to lose his cool.
She patted his hand.
Kat appreciated his need to protect her, but what happened in the gym stayed in the gym. Her husband didn’t need to fight her battles.
Not against her brother.
So, she explained to keep the peace.
It was funny.
She did that a lot as of late when it came to Dimitri. She had become the one who tried to rationalize it all away.
“In the gym, we were doing hand-to-hand. That’s what he means.”
Somehow, that didn’t make him feel any better about the whole thing.
His wife hadn’t told him about any of this.
Curtis glared at his brother-in-law/father-in-law and knew something had to give. The family was a hot mess.
Dimitri continued, and he focused on Emma.
“You were right to tell me to leave. I don’t want you and Greyson to go. I’ll go. If we can’t both be here in Vegas, I’ll leave. This is your home too.”
She stared at him stonily.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t enough, Dimitri. You don’t get it,” she said, struggling to get to her feet. “You don’t turn on your family. You just don’t do it. We are all we have here. You turned on us for Marissa, and now against us because of what has happened to Poppy. Family sticks. You crossed a line.”
Oh, and he regretted it.
It hurt him, too, that she was the one person who promised never to get this angry with him, and now, she was also abandoning her promise too. She told him there would be nothing he could do to make her hate him.
It had been a lie.
She hated him.
They all did.
“I know it’s not enough. I lost my way, and I know I’ve said that a lot this last year. I know I’ve been hard to live with, tolerate, and work with every day. Marissa Pierce fucked me up, Natasha’s death did me in, and Poppy’s assault ended me. I feel empty too.”
He focused on Greyson.
Not to sway him,
but because he owed the man the biggest apology.
His lip was split.
His eyebrow had a steri-strip on it.
There were bruises on his cheeks.
Dimitri clenched his fists and stared down at them. He could still see the blood on them even though he had cleaned up.
Yeah, Dimitri had done that to him, and he wasn’t proud of it either. Dimitri had put his hands on his brother when he hadn’t betrayed him, lied to him, or screwed him over. Greyson hadn’t done a damn thing wrong but love him.
“For so long, I never had this,” he said, meaning a family. “It was always foreign.”
Emma glared at him.
She had NEVER been angrier at anyone in her life. Dimitri had struck her husband.
That was unacceptable.
Boys may be boys, but in anger…no.
“Now that I have it, I take it for granted. Greyson, I’m so sorry I hurt you. I didn’t….”
He couldn’t tell him he didn’t mean to do it.
That wouldn’t be the truth.
“I needed to punish someone, and I lost my control. That makes me just like my father. That makes me that monster. I’m sorry about what I did, and I only hope that one day, you can find it in the goodness of your heart so you can forgive me.”
Greyson saw the pain.
“Not today,” Emma stated.
Her tone caught them all off guard.
Emma doted on Dimitri. There was a soft spot in her heart for him. This only proved how angry she really was over all of this.
Yeah, the family was fracturing.
“It won’t be for a long time, Dimitri. You burned that bridge to the ground. No, you blew it up.”
Her words stung.
Dimitri burned through his chances, and that left only one thing. If they couldn’t forgive him, he had to go. He’d prepared for that.
“I understand.”
He glanced over at Chris, and then Kat.
“I contacted my attorney to draw up paperwork. Delilah will be giving you those papers.”
“For?” Kat asked.
“I hereby relinquish my third of the business to Greyson. I’m leaving and giving my business to someone who won’t destroy it out of anger or self-loathing. I worked too hard to create it, and I know it’s time to let it go. He’s your third partner and CEO. I’m sorry,” he stated.
No Justice_A Croft Mob Family Book Page 7
