Dark Justice (Croft Family Mob Series Book 1) (3 page)

Chapter One

Terrace Glen

Tuesday

It was a gorgeous day in Las Vegas.

Then again, any day that you woke up, had your family around you, and there was peace, was a good day. Greyson Croft was a damn lucky man, and he knew it.

He was happily married.

He had a circle of people who cared about him.

It truly was a beautiful thing.

As he sat on his patio, he watched his wife doing laps in their pool. Her body effortlessly cut through the water as she finished her exercise for the day.

Well, that wasn’t really the only exercise she’d had that morning. There had been plenty of calisthenics in their bedroom when they woke.

And the night before.

And the morning before that.

One of the luxuries of not being a slave to work was that he and Emma could relax and spend every waking hour together.

And they did.

Some people had told them that they’d fight and be divorced within the year, but he called bullshit on that. As of late, it had been even more peaceful than before.

They were enjoying each other’s time—and bodies.

They’d both turned in their badges over six weeks ago, and it was nothing but bliss. They’d worked a few cases, helping people who found Dimitri at
‘Club Aquarius’
, took a few trips, and hit up a few parties in their downtime.

There was nothing he’d change about his life.

Nothing.

At first, he really believed that he’d miss being a Fed. It was something that Greyson had always wanted to do, and he’d excelled at it. Being the top cop in the city was a beautiful thing, but this was even better.

He could see that now.

When Elizabeth and Ethan Blackhawk strolled into his home, after Dominic Marianna was mysteriously killed by a single bullet, he thought life was over.

He was wrong.

That moment didn’t bring the death of him, but the life. It was all blossoming before him, and he couldn’t be more grateful.

That fateful day had been a new beginning for all of them. Honestly, he was glad it went down that way.

In his life, he’d learned that you couldn’t change the past, but you could direct the future. His only regret after the Dominic Marianna incident was that Steele Bentley had been abducted.

If he could change one thing, that would have been it. Since that day, when they barely got him back alive, his life had been a mess. Steele had pulled away, leaving the family.

And Greyson let him.

It was the least he could do, since the only reason he had been hurt was because of him. He was buying Steele time.

Yes, Dante, his brother, had lost his fiancé, but Greyson had faith. Steele refused to marry him, believing he was too damaged to be worth anyone’s love.

They all knew he’d come around. They had to believe that. Family stuck, and Steele was part of them—and he’d always be too.

They missed the man.

Each and every one of them wished he’d come back to the family. As hard as Dante was trying to repair the damage, Steele wasn’t receptive.

All they could do was hope that time would heal his emotional wounds.

Greyson knew his brother was suffering without the man he loved, and he felt horrible. He truly loved Steele, and he wanted to marry him. They’d come so close to walking down the aisle to be husband and husband.

Now… there were two men broken by what happened. Truthfully, Greyson knew he’d have to step in at some point, but he wasn’t sure when that should be. Dante was failing at getting the man back, and he might need backup.

As soon as it looked like Dante was out of options, or asked for his and Emma’s help, he was making that his main mission in life. Then their family would be complete.

Someone had to fix this mess, and since this was, in a way, his doing, it would be on his shoulders.

Greyson didn’t want his brother to suffer.

Today, when Dante had headed off to the casino office to do his thing, he had looked like hell.

Granted, he hadn’t missed a day of work, and this was proof that he was falling apart. Dante was using the job as a crutch. The more upset he was, the more he became the moneyman.

Even though they had more money than God, thanks to Randall Mason, Dante was ensuring that even more came in to fund their little
‘business’
. Without Steele, Dante was on a mission to take over the business world.

Eyes were on them.

What amused Greyson the most was that at that very moment, the FBI was trying to open an investigation on him and their businesses.

In fact, so were the local cops.

They all believed him to be crooked, and in a way, they were right.

He was.

The Croft family was breaking the law by helping people in the city. From the outside, they looked like the typical mob family. Truthfully, they weren’t. They were helping people who had fallen through the cracks.

There was a reason.

Las Vegas was a soul-sucking hole that threatened to let the bad guys run rampant. When Dominic Marianna was killed, the dirty element began scrambling for control. They all wanted to be the next power player.

When Greyson was forced to resign, they were even more overjoyed. They figured it was an easy run for control of
‘Sin City’
.

The joke was on them.

As soon as their badges were gone, he, Emma, and Curtis took control of the empire.

They were all over the media.

They were the talk of the town.

Everyone wanted to know more about them, including the people who wanted to usurp their power. It didn’t play out like they wanted. Where the seedy element craved the power, the Crofts weren’t letting them have it.

They were keeping it in check in their own way.

It was entertaining.

The criminals never had a chance. Dimitri and his sisters were the best security team money could buy, and they were on the Crofts’ sides. As a team, they’d singlehandedly pushed back the mob wannabees, leaving Greyson the space he needed to rule the kingdom.

And rule, he was.

With the money and power, Vegas was theirs, and they were using that to their advantage. So far, they’d gotten their feet wet with some small cases.

They were the ones the cops didn’t want to work. They were too small, not important enough, or as the cops put it,
‘they deserved the outcome’
.

They were the reason his family was doing what they were doing. Justice needed to be served, and it shouldn’t matter who you were, what your bank account looked like, or your past.

Justice was supposed to be blind.

Only in Vegas, it was far from it. Here it was all based on who you knew, or the power you wielded.

That was a huge issue to the family. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t what they had dedicated their lives to all those years ago.

So, they were doing the job the cops wouldn’t even touch. They would singlehandedly help each person they could—for a long as they could.

This was their mission.

When the police commissioner turned a blind eye, they stepped in to fix it. When the new director of the FBI didn’t do his job, they took over and ran it.

Frankly, Greyson had begun to hate cops. He hoped he hadn’t been like these men when he ran Vegas.

If he was…shame on him
.

All of this was sad, since he once believed in the job. Now on the other side, he knew the truth.

It was corrupt.

When he’d resigned, Director Robert Lee took over. He was hardcore, took no shit, but he played favorites. Anyone who’d been in Greyson’s circle had been ridden hard.

Special Agent Tessa Brass-Archer was one of them. She was on Greyson’s team, and Director Lee had tried to make her life hell. She’d been given the shittiest of shitty jobs, ridden her like she was a trouble maker, and finally, she gave up.

They’d pushed out a good Fed that day. Tessa was the badge, and she’d die for it. Director Robert Lee didn’t go by her file. He went by the rumor mill that she was dirty and family.

While he wanted to fix it for Tessa, it wasn’t like Greyson could contact the Blackhawks. They no longer ran FBI West, and their replacement didn’t give a shit.

So Tessa was done with being the law.

When she left, so did her husband. Doctor Paris Archer was an excellent profiler. He’d purposely bombed his recertification to be let go. He now had an office in a building Greyson and Emma owned. He was still helping people, and Croft was glad.

A great mind was a terrible thing to waste. He and his wife were running a business and making their mark on the city. Vegas could use more people like the Archers.

What was amazing was that they were still loyal. After everything that had gone down on that fateful day, they kept his secret. Only the family knew that he’d been the one gunning for Dominic Marianna. Despite what they believed he’d done, they still came by Terrace Glen weekly to hang out, and they still wanted to claim the Crofts as family.

That was loyalty.

That mattered.

Greyson didn’t know what he’d done to deserve that, but he was grateful. He loved both of them as if they were his own. How could he not?

They’d earned it.

Then there was Captain Chris Ford.

He was Emma’s adopted brother, of sorts. She loved him so much, and he felt the same. The trickiest part was that he had to play Homicide captain and adopted Croft.

It was a fine line to walk.

After Dominic Marianna had Chris and Emma targeted, he’d nearly lost his life. He’d finally made it back to work the last week, taking back his job.

They’d yet to see him, and they weren’t sure if he was just cleaning up Commissioner Jeffrey Raye’s mess, or if he was distancing himself.

They couldn’t blame him either way.

After Detective Mace Bristol was found dead in his own home, there was speculation. Had he found something out and been offed? The rumor mill was swirling—especially since he’d been Emma’s latest partner.

First Brynn had been killed.

Then Mace.

The cops in her precinct were beginning to believe Greyson was behind it. In fact, they were so certain, that the FBI was running an investigation alongside the LVPD.

The day of his demise, the truth came out. It turned out that Mace Bristol wasn’t a Homicide cop after all. He’d had a secret. He was actually a Fed, planted by the director well before the Blackhawks took over at FBI West. Director Greene wanted eyes on the inside, and he was their man.

Was he crooked?

No one knew for sure, but he’d worked under Director Greene, and the man had been on the take.

Still…

The FBI was trying to figure out what had happened. When one of their own turned up dead, there were questions that had to be answered.

Who killed him?

Was it an inside job?

Greyson was well aware who it was, but he wasn’t saying jack shit. He recognized the method of killing as one man’s favorite way to end a life.

Dimitri.

It all but screamed the man’s name.

There was a line, and Greyson wasn’t willing to cross it. Dimitri had his back, and he was going to protect him to the best of his ability.

They were family.

Yes, he’d look the other way. Emma wouldn’t be happy to know what had happened, and he couldn’t blame her. After all, she’d genuinely liked Mace, and they’d been partners.

Unfortunately, Greyson knew the world wasn’t black and white. There were so many shades of gray in between. Dimitri was definitely a shade of gray. He lived between the lines.

Still…

He felt bad about keeping Emma in the dark. He didn’t believe in secrets in his marriage, but this one was something he couldn’t help. Dimitri needed to be trusted, and Greyson had learned that the man wouldn’t kill unless there was a reason.

Before losing his badge, he would have been locking him away for being a criminal.

Now…

They were partners of sort. He found the cases, and they worked them.

Speaking of partners, his main one was heading his way. As Emma Croft pulled herself out of the pool, Greyson enjoyed the way the water ran off her skin. She was wearing the smallest bikini she owned.

It showed off her body and that turned him right on. There was no doubt that she was doing it with the intent to heat him up. If anything, his kitten liked to torment.

Considered him riled.

His body was reacting to the sight of her breasts nearly spilling from the small triangles. If there was a Heaven, he prayed this was it. Greyson wouldn’t mind spending his eternity by this pool.