I’m on the cusp of giving up.
My wife is marked, and so am I.
We are on Marchenko’s list, we are on the list of the people who are trafficking in Vegas, and we are tagged by every fucking cop in this city who thinks I’m crooked.
The weight on my shoulders…
It’s heavy.
No, that’s an understatement.
It’s CRUSHING.
On top of that weight, there is pain and guilt for the men I call brothers.
I’ve lost Chris.
I’ve lost Dimitri.
Only a miracle will bring them back, and we’re all out of miracles. It’s the ONE thing I can’t buy in Vegas. My money won’t get me any.
This sinner is going up in flames.
We have nothing left to hope for when it comes to surviving this, and all we can do is pray someone else doesn’t die.
Dimitri…he’s the likely candidate.
He’s begging for death in his blood-filled suicide mission. We can’t even sit by and watch. If we could, we might be able to talk him down, but that is likely the point.
He doesn’t want us near him, so he can take out Viktor and then end his misery once and for all.
I feel so helpless.
On top of losing Dimitri, Chris is barely hanging on too. He’s a shattered mess.
Chris Ford wept for three days straight, staying in bed with Emma as she held him in her arms. At least he didn’t run.
Yet.
We can see it coming, and we know why he’s going to walk away from the family. Who can blame him?
He’s nothing left here to fight for, and he wants silence.
We certainly don’t blame him.
That one bomb, it blew all of us to hell. We’re living it, we’re fighting it, and we can’t get free of it.
This is our penance.
This is our purgatory.
The family is broken.
Emma is marked to die.
Chris is damaged.
We are on the cusp of losing it all. If we don’t get some salvation soon, we’re all going down, and I know it. I’m the sole man at the helm, and it’s slipping.
I can feel it sliding through my fingers, and the harder I try to keep it in check, the faster it falls.
I’m losing it all.
The mob man, who feared nothing, is now fearing everything. Something has to give, and it looks like it will be me.
A part of me wants to pack the family up, all of them—and run.
I want to send Curtis and Kat to Europe, where they can hide in some small village, where Viktor Marchenko can’t find them.
I want to send my brother and his husband to New York, so they can hide in our apartment there.
I want to make Paris and Tessa leave—especially now that they are pregnant.
They just found out.
There are two babies.
Two little lives and they are on my shoulders too.
I want to send everyone away and face this on my own, so I can be focused. What can Marchenko possibly do to me?
I’ve already lost my armor.
I’ve already lost my friends.
I’ve lost my brothers-in-arms.
All that’s left is my wife, and to lose her would put me on a rampage like no one has ever seen before. I know there’s a bounty out on us.
I know the time is coming.
How did it go this far south?
How did I lose control?
What the hell happened?
One day, we were fighting the good fight, and the next, we were getting ready to bury one of our own. We were getting ready to celebrate so many babies in the family—and our family growing—and now, we are putting the charcoal remains of Natasha Gideon in a hole.
NO ONE saw this coming.
At all.
For the first time in a long time, Captain Greyson Thaddeus Croft, the soldier, the warrior, and the man who would go to his death defending his family, was ready to run.
I am ready to let Vegas die.
I’m ready to let it slip into the hands of a man who wants to make the Russian mob’s home here.
I don’t know if I can save anyone else when I can’t even save us.
I’m out of options, out of people I trust, and I’m standing alone in the rubble of our lives.
Before, I was ready to fight the battle.
Before, I was ready to wage the war.
Now, I’m ready to throw in the white flag.
I have no hope left, and I’m out of chances. I’ve lost control of Vegas, and I don’t know who to ask for help.
My family is about to go under.
And no one is around to save us.
Someone, save us.
I’m only as strong as the people around me, and I’m only as strong as the people I love.
We are broken.
We are losing Vegas.
And there’s no one to help.
Greyson Croft
Prologue
Somewhere In
Vegas
O h, it was on. There was nothing like watching his brother scramble for cover as he regrouped over their sister’s death. Yes, Viktor Marchenko was glad she was dead. Ironically, she wasn’t the one he really wanted to die. He had another target in mind, trying to keep his brother off guard.
Emma Croft.
He’d seen the woman show up at his brother’s condo in Sky Villa. He saw them through the window as she sat on his lap, held him in her arms, and tried to help him through whatever demons were chasing him.
That was all he needed to see.
They had some bond, some connection, and he knew—in that moment—that he needed to destroy it.
It was that moment where the game went from killing their blood to killing someone his brother really loved. From the looks of their closeness, he didn’t doubt that they had something more than just friendship.
He knew Dimitri.
He’d studied him.
His brother didn’t make attachments, and that Emma had one with him…yes, she was marked to die.
Not because he hated her.
It was nothing personal.
In war, you killed some innocents, and she was collateral damage to him. Eventually, he would have to take her out when he went after Greyson Croft, but now it seemed perfect.
Ideal.
A gift from his dead sainted mother and father.
The man was smitten with Emma Croft, and that worked for him. He was going to take down the head of the Vegas mob so he could have the city for himself.
Viktor liked it there.
It was…fun.
He’d not traveled a lot, but he knew that he wanted to be here in the city that never slept. Vegas was full of sin, evil, and his kind of mayhem.
Viktor was home.
He could tell.
Here, he could get sexy young girls to feed his appetite, and he could have as much as he wanted. It was an endless supply being shipped into the city.
In ‘Sin City’, it was all about money, and he had plenty to throw around. He’d gotten all of his father’s money when his bastard brother killed a good man, and he’d also squirreled away his dear mother’s nest egg too.
She’d earned it all by being a KGB spy. So, needless to say, he could wait his brother out until the time was right to end his life—and he would.
Plus, Viktor had his own money. On top of all his inheritance, he was making a name for himself too. He’d killed a few people, laundered some money, and there was no doubt he’d one day be on the FBI’s most wanted list.
That was his goal.
Notoriety.
He wanted to be bigger, badder, and more horrifying than his pathetic brother—Dimitri.
With the ‘investments’ that he was funding, he was getting some of the seedier element—excluding himself—to rise up and create some mayhem. They were looking at him as the next power player in Vegas, and that was a dream come true.
He
was going to be king.
When he’d arrived there, he’d watched and listened, and he knew that the city was trying to dethrone Greyson Croft. They couldn’t bear to be under his pristine thumb.
Well, that worked for him.
If they wanted dirty…so be it.
He’d give them dirty.
Instead of jumping in and screwing it up, he watched and learned so he could create the perfect plan. From simply observing, he noticed that his soon to be nemesis relied heavily on his family.
No.
On HIS family—as in Viktor’s.
The would-be ruler of Vegas was poaching Viktor’s bloodline, and that had to stop. So, ultimately, he needed to send a message.
And that was exactly why he was glad that he didn’t blow up Emma Croft when he’d been given the chance.
To take out the king in chess, you had to take out the rook, the knight, the bishop, and THEN the king.
Oh, don’t get him wrong. Emma Croft was scheduled to die, but not quite yet. That would have pissed off Dimitri and Greyson. With killing Natasha, he’d stripped away a rook and a knight.
The queen still had her life—for now.
When dear, sweet, damaged Natasha got into that ride, he knew it was time to hit them BOTH where it hurt.
By taking out Natasha, he’d take Dimitri and Katerina to their knees. Once that first layer of armor was down, he’d take down the man that NO ONE seemed to be able to stop.
He’d been a Fed, and they couldn’t bribe him.
He’d been a mobster, and they couldn’t break him.
Now…
He was destined to fall. In the background, Viktor had some security guys on his payroll. Once the ‘king’s’ security was gone, they’d hire more. When they did…
Yeah, the fun would begin.
He’d studied them.
He knew how they’d work.
Once he got security on the inside, the rest would be easy. Maybe he’d take Emma and play with her. He’d been experimenting with some fun torture, and he’d love to damage her.
He’d love to break her.
He’d love to kill her.
Once Croft fell, and Vegas was crumbling, then he would be there to rebuild it to anything he wanted.
While he told his dear brother that he planned to go after the woman who sold him pussy in Vegas, that was a lie. Rosemary Harrington was safe as long as she satiated his needs, and she had. Her people were giving him exactly what he wanted, and that kept them all alive.
She’d given him some excellent playthings, and for that, he was grateful. In fact, right at that moment, there was a pretty young thing waiting for him.
In a box.
A small.
Dark.
Water-filled.
Box.
He was breaking her spirit, and soon, he’d break her body. The best way to train his pets was to destroy them little by little, and he was doing just that.
His dick twitched, and he knew he needed to stop focusing solely on the Crofts and on the ‘pets’ he’d taken on. After all, his mother would kill his playthings if he didn’t feed them, water them, and play with them.
That’s how he learned.
That was how he was created.
So, it was time. Later, he’d focus on his brother. He knew what he was going to do. The man was scouring Vegas looking for him, and he’d planted some lies.
By now, his brother was getting ready to ‘find’ him, and he couldn’t wait.
But first…
Fun.
He wanted some pussy, and he was going to have it before he headed out to end his brother. The man was simple, and Dimitri was clueless. Dimitri used the same sources that he did for intel, and they were more than willing to betray anyone who stood against the evil in the city.
Him?
Not so much.
They feared him, and Viktor would use that to his advantage to end Dimitri’s life.
His brother had been fed faulty intel as to where he was ‘lying low’. At that very moment, he was out buying shit to prepare for his little excursion.
It was perfect.
Why?
Because he wasn’t hiding.
He was waiting.
His brother would come for him, and when he did, there would be only one outcome.
BANG!
There would be a bullet to his head.
Dimitri was getting sloppy in his mourning, and that would work toward Viktor’s advantage. Through all of this, he would find a way to break his dear old brother. It was a matter of time and one well-placed bullet.
But until then…
He had some fun things to do.
Heading into the room he kept for his pets, and only his pets, he headed to the chest in the corner. It was only big enough for a small person or child. She fit in it perfectly.
Kicking the box, immediately, there was whimpering from his captive.
Good.
She survived.
When he lifted the lid, he stared down at the young girl inside. She was huddled in the fetal position, and her face was barely out of the ice-cold water that he kept in there to ‘tame’ her wildness.
She’d bitten him once.
When sucking his dick, she took a chance, and it backfired. From that day on, she’d had to be punished, and this was it. She was kept in water all day long.
One would think it wouldn’t be horrible, but it was. It was a way to break someone’s spirit, and it had. She was shattered.
“Little one,” he said, his accent thick. “Are you ready to give yourself to me?”
She whimpered as her teeth chattered together as her body fought to keep her alive and warm. Her lips were blue, and that meant she was struggling.
Good.
He liked to watch them struggle. He was studying them, and he couldn’t help but be amused. Before, he’d had to buy ‘meds’ to keep them manageable.
He’d found drugging them to be…mundane.
This torture was better.
He wanted them awake as he raped and abused them to see how much they could take.
This one he’d only had for a week, and he was disappointed in her. She wasn’t as strong as he liked. The one in the closet…she was a good specimen. She was with him almost two months, and she was still going.
His mother would be proud.
He was using some of her techniques.
“Well?” he asked.
“Y-y-y-e-e-s-s, sir?” she asked, her teeth chattering together so hard that he assumed they would break.
“Perfect. You called me by my title. You’re learning. Now you may get out.”
He held out his hand, and she hesitated.
“NOW!”
She actually jumped at the sound of his voice.
Getting out of the water, he enjoyed how the cold had made her nipples erect. She was barely eighteen, and while he had wanted younger, he couldn't get everything he always wanted.
She looked twelve.
That’s all that mattered.
He could pretend.
“Go lie on the bed,” he said, pointing to the square monstrosity that was in the middle of the torture-device-filled room. It had chains, cuffs, and bolts on the headboard and with good reason.
It was where he did all his best work.
As she walked past him, Viktor was no fool. Immediately, he saw the intent.
She was going to run.
Excellent.
He was tired of caring for this pet anyway. She bored him like the last one. As long as he had his Molly, he was happy. She was the best pet he’d ever had and ever would have.
“I hope you’re ready,” he said to the wet girl.
She moved closer toward the hopes of escape. He could see it on her face. She was waiting for him to be distracted.
That was why he left the door to his little torture chamber ajar. He knew she still had some fight in her. She still had that will to live, and he would strip her of that.
And her life.
This one was a spare and nothing more. In fact, he had not tortured her nearly enough. Yes, he trapped her in her own feces-filled water, but he changed it daily.
She wasn’t grateful.
That meant he could damage her.
The second she thought he was distracted, she raced for her freedom, and he was on top of her.
Viktor was no fool.
He knew his prey.
With handfuls of her hair, he dragged her back to the box from which she came and shoved her head into the icy cold water. She fought, she battled, and he refused to let her up as he ran his nails down her back, leaving bloody trenches of his anger.
She struggled to get her head out of the filthy water before it went into her lungs.
He refused to let her out. In fact, the more she struggled, the more he was turned on by it. His dick was already out of his pants, and he was rock-hard.
Yes, he would reward himself with one farewell fuck.
“Come on, baby, fight for a little while,” he said, as her body bucked against him.
He moaned as her bare, cold, wet ass rubbed against his warm groin.
“You’ve never turned me on this much,” he admitted, as he pulled her head out a little bit, so she could catch her breath. As soon as she did, he forced her legs apart, so he was between them.
She was shaking and coughing.
“Yeah, baby, that’s it. Breathe for daddy.”
“Please,” she begged. “I won’t run away,” she promised.
Oh, he didn’t believe that for a second, and that’s why he’d made sure his favorite one couldn’t leave him.
Ever.
“Daddy wants you. Beg me.”
She opened her mouth, but before she could lie to him, her head was back under the water.
This went on for twenty minutes.
He’d almost kill her, and then save her to make sure he could prolong his fun.
The entire thing had turned him on so much, that he was ready to mount just about anything. Watching her struggle, watching her battle death, and hearing her beg had made him crazy.
Yeah, it was hot.
When he lifted her head again, she had very little fight left in her. By now, she had a belly and lungs full of water.
Perfect.
“Tell me to fuck you. Tell me to take you.”
True Justice Page 2
