Dark Justice (Croft Family Mob Series Book 1) (6 page)

How?

Her face must have said it all.

“What’s your concern?” Dimitri asked. “You were fine earlier with me, so I have to assume it’s my associates.”

“It’s just…they’re not the police anymore. I don’t see how they can help. I figured…”

“That we’re dirty?” Greyson asked. “It’s okay. You won’t be the first or the last to think that.”

She swallowed some of her chicken. “I don’t mean to offend you,” she began.

“You haven’t,” Emma reassured. “We left our jobs because of the corruption. We’ve decided to fight it the only way we know how—by solving the cases that have fallen through the cracks. Dimitri is our associate, and family, and he finds the cases for us, so what can we do for you?”

She had to make a decision.

Trust her gut and save her brother, or wade into the mess she believed these two might be. The media called them dirty, the mob, and killers.

Shit!

Well, here went nothing…

“Seth is my twin. He was a cop in Las Vegas.”

They continued eating.

“One day, he was at his house, and the door was kicked in by the authorities. The police arrested and took him to jail. They accused him of killing five women. They indicted him on rape, murder, desecrating a corpse after death, and they threw him in prison.”

The threesome listened.

“He tried to tell them he wasn’t guilty—that he was being framed, but no one would believe him. He didn’t do this. Seth isn’t a mean person, and he certainly isn’t a killer. Plus, he’s gay. Why would he kill women? Why would he rape one when he can’t stand to have sex normally?”

“What else do you have on all of this?” Emma asked. “Did he have an alibi? Could anyone corroborate his location?”

“Yes, at first he did.”

“Explain,” Dimitri stated.

“On two of the occasions his lover said he was with him, but as the police investigated, it turned out that his boyfriend was lying to cover for him. It ended up hurting him more than helping. Adam tried to save him because he knew he wasn’t guilty either. Their lives were ruined by this, and he still mourns not being able to save his partner.”

Emma got that.

She didn’t blame the man’s boyfriend for lying. When Greyson killed Dominic and the police came investigating to find the truth, their whole family had lied to protect him—including Dimitri. They weren’t letting him go down for killing some scumbag.

“What else?”

“I have some files and some information, but I can’t get my hands on anything else. The lead investigator has since died, and I can’t talk to him.”

“Who was it?” Emma asked, eating her salad.

“A Detective Mace Bristol out of the LVPD.”

Greyson began coughing on his bourbon at the mention of his name.

Emma slapped him on the back, giving him a look. He was staring at Dimitri, and the other man was sharing a warning look with her husband.

Something was going on there.

That felt off to her.

Emma would get to the bottom of it later. First, she’d handle their prospective client. Later, she’d handle the sneaky men.

“So the lead investigator is dead, and we need his files. I’ll swing by the police station tomorrow, and I’ll see if I can convince a certain captain to give them to me.”

Neither man spoke.

If there was a way to keep Emma from heading there, they’d do it. Only, with her…yeah, it wasn’t going to happen.

“I’ll go,” Dimitri offered.

She stared at him. “Uh, no. I’ll be fine. It’s Chris. What could happen?”

Greyson bit his tongue.

“Let’s talk about the case.”

“What do you have?” Emma asked. “Anything will be a good place to start.”

The woman dug in her bag, handing Emma the papers she had collected over the trial and last couple of years. “Here are the names of the five women. I had to get them out of the newspapers. I’m sorry I can’t be much help. Are you sure you can save him? His execution is next week.”

Greyson was going to be honest with her. “Listen, Ms. Bell, let’s put our cards on the table. We’re going to do our best. We can’t promise miracles. If we can’t find a way to clear him, there’s nothing we can do. I can call in a few favors, maybe buy him a stay of execution, but that’s about it. I know you want to save him, but we’re in the eleventh hour. If the governor hasn’t stayed it yet, he’s likely not going to do so. With what’s been going on with police brutality in the news, he’s going to want to make someone the posterchild for his strong belief in punishing those who break the law in law enforcement.”

She was aware.

It made her want to cry. Miranda couldn’t imagine losing her twin. They were two halves of one whole.

“You can’t give up on him. They’re going to kill an innocent man. I know my brother. He wouldn’t rape a woman. He wouldn’t kill anyone, and he certainly wouldn’t have sex with a corpse. He’s highly religious.”

They didn’t tell her that people on the outside often didn’t match up with people on the inside. There was a disconnect between a good person and a criminal. They looked the same, but they acted completely different when no one was looking. You couldn’t judge a criminal, much like a book, by his cover—so to speak.

The only way to find out if this man was guilty was to start at the first victim and begin working their way through the crime—until they found the truth.

“We’ll do our best.”

“About your fee…?”

Greyson shook his head, stopping her from going any further. “We don’t want your money.
IF
, and that’s a big if, we solve this and get Seth off, we want you to take the money and donate it to the charity of your choice.”

She stared at him. “Are you serious? You don’t want me to pay you for your services?”

Dimitri shrugged. “We don’t do it for the money.”

“Then why do you do it?” she asked. “Certainly, you have better things to do than this.”

They looked at each other.

“We do it for the glory and to level the playing field. We like making things fair.”

She didn’t know what to say. “If you’re sure.”

Oh, they certainly were.

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

Terrace Glen

When she found him, he was working on a computer. His sleeves were rolled up, and he was lost in the work.

Kat couldn’t help watching him.

This was the man she loved. The way his strong hands moved effortlessly across the keys reminded her of when he touched her.

It made her heart skip in her chest.

Sneaking up on him, she slowly wrapped her arms around him. “Hello, handsome. Are you busy or do you have some time for me?”

He grinned. He’d been thinking about her all day. She’d been working on some patrol and security, and he’d missed seeing her.

Know what else he missed?

Sleeping with her.

Kat was in her own room at Terrace Glen, and he hated every second of it. They would make love, and one of them always left to go back to their private room.

He always tried to stay, but she kicked him out each and every time. Curtis was beginning to get a complex.

He didn’t get it.

“Of course I have time for you, Kat. You’ll always have my full attention when you enter a room. For the record, I missed you when I woke up,” he said, turning his head for a kiss. The second their lips met, there was that feeling of complete calm and peace.

She gave that to him.

Curtis only hoped he did the same. He wanted to give Kat the world on a silver platter. He wanted to make sure she knew that he’d be the best husband in the world for her.

She was his destiny, the mother of his child, and his all. He couldn’t live without her, and he knew it. Before Kat, life was colorless, and now it had meaning. He got why Greyson fell so hard for Emma and doted on her.

Curtis wanted to do the same for Katerina.

“How do you feel today, Anfisa?” he asked, using her original Russian name.

Her heart skipped at his term. It was a nightmare from her past, but on his lips, it sounded like Heaven. She loved when he used it. Curtis was trying to learn Russian too, and she appreciated his effort.

“I was tossing my cookies most of the day. Your child clearly hates me. I hope this isn’t a sign of what kind of teenager we’re going to have. If so, we had better start panicking, and fast.”

He laughed. “Well, he or she didn’t get that from me. I clearly love you, and I’m well behaved. One of us breaks into things for a living, and one of us…”

She pointed at his laptop. He was doing some felonious things too.

“Yeah, we’re screwed. Neither of us are going to be able to go to the school on career day.”

When Kat began laughing, he pulled her down and into his lap so they could cuddle.

“You make me happy when you sit on me.”

Yeah, from how hard he was, she could tell. “Mr. Croft, I think you’re not thinking about work.”

Curtis stared into her aqua eyes. “What gave it away?” he asked.

She laughed and then kissed him again.

When he wrapped his arms around her, it was the most amazing thing in the world. She felt safe, loved, and cherished. As he pulled away, he tucked her red braid over her shoulder. “Stay with me tonight. I mean the whole night. I want to wake up beside you for a change.”

She stared into his eyes.

They’d had this conversation many times before.

“Curtis.”

“Kat, please. I’m following your rules. You said you didn’t want to marry me. I let it go. You didn’t want me telling anyone, and I didn’t.”

Well, that wasn’t really a lie. Emma had guessed. Surely, that didn’t count.

“You have sex with me and leave my bed. It hurts. I feel like some cheap booty call.”

She touched his cheek. “Curtis, I can’t stay. I wish you’d understand.”

He clearly didn’t.

It was eating him alive to the point he was getting damn angry about all of it.

“So, you can have my baby, but you can’t sleep with me a full night. Yeah, I completely understand where you’re coming from with this. Why would that upset me? Clearly, I’m being irrational when I want to sleep with the mother of my child. How wrong of me to feel like a cheap piece of ass.”

His heart skipped in his chest, but not in a good way.

“I love you. You have to believe that.”

“It’s fine, Kat. I’ll get over it. I don’t seem to have a choice. You’re calling the shots—whether I agree of not.”

She began worrying. Curtis wasn’t happy. The smile was gone, and his body gave him away. Gone was the erection, and he wasn’t looking her in the eyes. In fact, he was trying to get her out of his lap.

That hurt the most.

Plus, it scared her.

“I can’t until we tell Dimitri. I feel like I’m sneaking around behind his back. He’s okay with us dating, but sleeping in a room together…that’s just asking for trouble.”

“Kat, we live in the same house. We’re under the same roof. I don’t see where it matters which room you sleep in at night. Technically, we’re living together.”

Kat got out of his lap.

When she went to touch his cheek, he turned his face. She could see the red creeping up his neck.

Oh, he wasn’t happy at all.

In fact, she’d never seen him this angry with her. No, that wasn’t true. The day she tried to tell him she’d go to the gala with him he’d been equally pissed.

“We can’t sleep in the same room, Curtis.”

“Why? Because he’s going to make you marry me, and you don’t want to?”

Oh, this was escalating, and fast. One of the good things about Curtis was that he was patient.

The bad?

Once that well of patience was gone, he went from zero to irrational in a heartbeat.

He was on his way…

It looked like the day Greyson adopted him, someone inherited the Croft temper.

She stared at him. “Is that how you see this?” she asked. “When you think of us, that’s what you think I feel about our situation?”

He didn’t want to be angry or hurt, but he was. What was he supposed to think? She wouldn’t let him tell anyone they were having a child, she wouldn’t sleep with him, and she was afraid of a shotgun wedding.

To him, that screamed shame.

Shame of him.

Shame of their life.

Shame of their child.

“Don’t worry about it, Kat. It’s fine. I’ve built up a thick skin over the last year. I’m used to having my heart kicked around by a woman. I’ll get over it in time. Honestly, I just didn’t expect it from you.”