Dark Justice (Croft Family Mob Series Book 1) (17 page)

She loved him so much.

“I can’t wait. We owe Emma for this. She’s really an amazing person, and we’re both really lucky to have her in our lives,” she offered.

Then, she touched her stomach.

“In our child’s life.”

Curtis was aware.

He had the best mom in the whole damn world.

Chapter Nine

Friday

Across Town

While Dimitri finished his move, Greyson took that opportunity to handle a little issue of his own. He still had to deal with a man who hurt his wife.

Greyson wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, simply because he was, at one time, theirs, but he couldn’t pick the man over his family.

That wasn’t how he rolled.

In fact, he’d surrounded himself with people who would choose family over anything else for a reason. They were the ones you could trust with your life.

What they’d gone through the last year was proof.

The family knew he’d killed Dominic. Well…actually, they assumed he’d pulled the trigger. As far as he was concerned, that was going to his grave with him.

He and Dimitri made a pact. Not even Emma would know what had happened on that ridge.

It was the killer’s code.

You did the deed and you kept your mouth shut.

Now, he was doing something that he loathed. He was saying goodbye to a man they’d opened their hearts to and let into their lives.

They both loved Chris as a brother. He’d started out the foe, but had become one of his closest confidantes. Maybe even closer than Dimitri at one point.

He mattered.

Now it was time to set him free. Greyson knew he could do one of two things.

He could forgive him and let him go or he could break him for making Emma cry.

He opted for the first one.

If this was what Chris’s path was meant to be, he wouldn’t stop him. He was making a huge mistake, ditching the family, but it was his to make.

Greyson would let it go.

So, once inside the luxury condominium that they had purchased for him, away from prying media eyes who stalked him there, he pulled out his key.

Chris had given it to Greyson in case something happened to him. They had all worried about Dominic Marianna. He wanted to have someone who could check up on him.

His only wish?

That despite it all, Emma was not to find his body. While they had a pact, it was bullshit. Chris didn’t want Emma to have to relive her past.

On that day, where he came to him and asked him to promise that Emma would never have to live that nightmare, Greyson respected him.

That was something a brother did out of love.

Now, it was coming to an end.

At his door, he stared down at the key in his hand. It was time to say goodbye to this phase of their lives.

It was time to part ways.

Unlocking the door, he placed the box inside the entrance. Inside, there were a few of his things. Greyson didn’t want Emma to find them and hurt.

There were some t-shirts, a uniform he left there in case he slept over, and a picture of Chris and Emma laughing. Greyson had taken it one day, when the two were at the pool. They’d been sitting side by side, busting each other’s asses.

It was their thing.

It was a sister-brother camaraderie that had been forged in the bowel of the Vegas beast. It was probably stronger than anything in the world. While Greyson was her husband, he knew the truth.

Chris Ford had still had half her heart—and he would until she died.

Siblings were special—whether they were from blood or not.

Greyson knew because he and Dante had it too.

Digging the note out of his pocket, he placed the key in it and dropped it into the box. Then he locked the door. Just as he was about to close it, his cell rang.

“Hey, Kitten, did you miss me?” he asked.

“Grey, you have to come, and fast.”

Her voice scared the shit out of him. Rarely, did he ever hear Emma freaking out.

Hell!

She’d been calmer when she and Chris had been ambushed at the LVPD.

That rock of ice formed in his gut, spreading outward through his body. He hadn’t felt like this since Marianna was alive and stalking them.

“Emma, are you okay?”

“I’m okay, but I need you to get to the hospital as fast as you can. It’s Steele. He’s in really bad shape. They don’t know if he’s going to make it. Dante is on the way, and he’s going to need you, Grey. God! Hurry!”

He hung up and raced down the hall to the stairwell. Once outside, he ran past the media sitting there waiting for him.

In his Challenger, it roared to life.

Greyson didn’t hesitate.

He floored it, leaving the media in his wake. He didn’t care what they thought, printed, or reported.

Family needed him.

And he was going to be there.

His brother was going to need him.

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

Hospital

When he got there, Dante was right behind him. They raced in, side by side, until they found Emma. She was pacing, looked worried, and that said it all.

“What happened?” Dante asked as the panic filled him. Granted, he and Steele weren’t a couple, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love him with all his heart.

That was the man he was supposed to marry.

He was his soul mate.

Emma told them what had happened. She didn’t leave anything out. From the mess, to the garbage, to him naked in bed passed out, Emma felt he had the right to know what they were dealing with now.

“Jesus,” muttered Dante. “I shouldn’t have let him leave. I could have forced him. I should have…”

Greyson hugged his brother. “Shhhhhh, I’ve got you. You couldn’t stop this.”

Dante began crying. “I’m going to lose him again. Fate hates me. It took him from me once, and now it’s going to be permanent. I can’t live this again,” he whispered. “I’m not strong enough to keep doing this.”

They got it.

They’d each had to do the bedside vigil with someone they loved. It sucked seven ways to Sunday.

Neither of them told Dante it was going to be all right for one simple reason.

Frankly, they didn’t believe it.

How could they?

How lucky could Steele get? He’d avoided death by the hands of three killers, he’d been buried alive, and he’d had to deal with his body being broken.

This didn’t bode well for him.

As they were comforting Dante, the doctor came out to talk to them. “Mrs. Croft?”

She glanced over. “Yes?”

“Doctor Bentley had you down as family in case there was an emergency. Is it okay to discuss him in front of your husband and brother-in-law?” he asked.

It hurt Dante that he wasn’t even his emergency contact. It appeared that Steele had really cut him out of his life.

“Absolutely. We’re his family. Speak freely.”

The doctor began, “Steele is going to make it, but he has a lot of issues that we’re going to have to address.”

He glanced over at Dante. “I saw in a tabloid that you two had broken up. Is this why he’s done this?” he asked.

Dante wanted to be sick. He could feel Greyson’s hand on his shoulder, offering him strength.

“Don’t believe everything you read, Doctor. I’m still very much his fiancé,” Dante said.

“Oh?” he asked.

Dante wasn’t having it anymore. He let Steele have space, and look what the hell had happened.

NO.

This time, it was his way.

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t marrying him. Now...what has happened?”

The man seemed to buy it.

“He either accidentally overdosed or he tried to end his life. With his medical history, after his abduction, the pain might have been the contributing factor. He is a doctor, and I’m assuming stable.”

“He is stable!” Dante stated. “He wouldn’t kill himself.”

Yeah, no one there believed that.

They knew what Steele had lived through. He’d been sexually assaulted by Dominic’s goons with a bat, his body had been destroyed, and he had been blinded in one eye.

If any of the three were going to guess what the hell went down, they were definitely going with suicide.

That Steele held out this long was a miracle. Greyson knew PTSD when he saw it. He’d seen soldiers come back after being prisoners of war.

This was their fate too.

They’d numb the pain and then try to die.

“We pumped his stomach, gave him drugs to counteract what he’d taken, and all we can do is wait. He opened his eye once, and that’s a good sign.”

They relaxed marginally.

This was going to be one hell of a battle, and they knew it.

“The issue that concerns me is that as a doctor, he was able to call in his own meds. No one questioned it. The medics brought in the empty bottles. He’s lucky to be alive.”

They agreed.

“I have to report this,” he stated. “He’s going to lose his license as a doctor.”

Greyson couldn’t let that happen.

If Steele had his medical license revoked, that just might be the killing blow. It was a thing of pride to him.

They had to preserve this one thing for the man they loved. It was all he had left.

“What if I made a big fat donation to this hospital, Doctor? What if I made sure that this ER became the most technically advanced one in Vegas?”

“Is that a bribe?” he asked.

Greyson didn’t even bat an eyelash.

“Yes. I believe that my lovely wife has a seat on the board of directors here at this fine hospital.”

“I do,” Emma stated. “In fact, Randall Mason had a few different boards he sat on.”

The doctor listened.

“Let’s just say that I will make this one my pet project. Think of how many lives you can save,” Greyson offered.

No one missed what he was offering.

This was huge.

He stared at Greyson and lowered his voice. “I can’t sweep this under the rug,” he offered. “I can accidentally lose the empty bottles and buy you some time. If someone, say the police, open an investigation, I have to report what I saw. The medics from the ambulance have it in the report.”

It was good enough.

Greyson would handle the rest. It looked like Curtis had a little hacking job to handle later. That medical report, from the ambulance company, and the hospital was going to go missing.

Things like that happened.

Vegas was a busy place.

“What I won’t do is let him avoid therapy. I have to put him in under a twenty-four hour watch and psych evaluation in the morning. The doctor on call will decide his fate.”

“I want to use a private doctor,” Emma stated. “I don’t want this leaking out.”

“That’s not customary.”

“He works here on per diem cases,” she offered. Emma was going to call in a favor, and she knew he’d do it for her.

“Oh, who?”

“Doctor Paris Archer.”

The man relaxed. “Perfect. I trust Doctor Archer’s assessments. I’ll have his name noted in Doctor Bentley’s file. I’ll be right back with the bottles.”

He went to walk away.

Then he stopped and turned. “I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing it for the community. They deserve the best.”

Yeah, neither Emma or Greyson cared.

They’d buy the damn building and everything in it to protect the people they loved. Steele had suffered because of them. Not once, during all the torture did he break. He didn’t betray them to Dominic, even if it would have stopped the rape and pain.

The Crofts owed him.

They owed Dante too. Steele was taken on their watch, and they were going to make this right.

“What happens now?” Dante asked. “I want to see him. I need to see him.”

Emma and Greyson would make that happen. When the doctor came back, they’d get Dante to his bedside.

“What comes next is we get Steele the best rehab in the world. We make sure he gets a private stay at the most successful place we can, and we help him get better.”

Dante closed his eyes.

“He’s going away again.”

Greyson hugged his brother. “You can work remotely. Take your laptop. When he’s in therapy, you work. When he’s free, you stick by him no matter what!” he ordered, staring into his brother’s gray eyes. 

Dante would do that.

He would stick.

Forever.

When the doctor came out, he quietly slipped Emma the bottles in a plain envelope. She dropped them into her purse.