Lost Justice (Croft Family Mob Series Book 2) Read online

  Her past was a blessing.

  And a curse.

  “Dimitri?” Emma asked. “What is it? We’re family. If you can’t be honest with me, then we don’t have a good relationship.”

  He sighed.

  “We may or may not have done some work for him in the past,” he stated.

  “Which is it?” Greyson asked. Now his interest was piqued. He liked to know what he was walking into when it came to swimming with a slug like Tony Mays.

  Truthfully, he didn’t want to start a war. They had enough on their plate with the commissioner, the police, and the FBI. He didn’t need more mob drama.

  Dimitri stared over at Chris, weighing whether or not he should say anything.

  “Well?” the man asked as he waited for the answer to Emma’s question. He really expected him to lie.

  Why?

  He knew that Dimitri was a killer, but what he didn’t know was if the man truly trusted him.

  “I allocated some things for him,” Katerina finally said, taking the heat off her brother. She didn’t mind telling the family. After all, she was going to be one of them in a few days. They were giving her their name, and the least she could do was be honest with them.

  She loved her new family.

  Only, she wasn’t the only one to own up to it. Natasha raised her hand, and she spoke up.

  “I smuggled some art,” Natasha added. “He needed a specific painting, and I was in charge of stealing it.”

  They all stared at her.

  Dimitri wasn’t going to let his sisters cover for him. There was no way he was hiding behind a girl—let alone two girls. It was his job to protect them, and he would.

  He would wear the armor for the ones he loved.

  “I took out a rival.”

  While he appreciated his sisters trying to cover for him, he wasn’t ashamed of what he’d done. Greyson and Emma wouldn’t turn their backs on him.

  He trusted them with his heart and life.

  “So, does he hate you or does he love you?” Emma asked. “That’s going to make a world of difference when this goes down,” she stated.

  She was right.

  Dimitri relaxed. He had to trust his team and family. “Let’s just say that when he wanted me to be a hired hitman on a regular basis, I bowed out, he threatened to go to the cops, and…”

  “You scared the shit out of him?” Chris asked.

  He pulled a zip drive from his pocket and tossed it to Curtis. “Everything on the man is here. I keep very thorough records on everyone I work for just in case something like this is to come up.”

  He caught the little stick and booted it up.

  They watched Tony Mays’s financials roll across the screen. They also watched Katerina and Natasha move toward their brother to stand by his side.

  They were expecting the worst.

  She could see it on their faces.

  It broke her heart.

  Emma knew they expected admonishment from everyone who had been a cop in the room.

  Well, it wasn’t going to happen.

  Kat looked like she was about to cry as she stared at her fiancé.

  How was Emma supposed to heal this gap? The last thing she wanted was anyone from the Gideon family feeling like they could be kicked out at any moment.

  It wouldn’t happen.

  Once part of the family, you got to stay no matter what.

  “Grey,” she said softly, touching his leg.

  He stood and crossed to the three Gideons. “You broke the law working for him.”

  Dimitri didn’t move. “Yes, we did.”

  He hugged the man. “Life as a soldier isn’t black or white,” he offered, much to his surprise.

  Dimitri actually accepted the hug.

  “When you’re at war, you do what you have to do to survive. This family doesn’t judge. You’re going to be tied to us for a very long time. Katerina is having my grandchild. She’s carrying the next Croft.”

  He focused on Kat. “You’re safe here, and you’re accepted as you are. I promise.”

  She hugged him. “Thank you, Dad.”

  It made him smile. While Curtis teased them, calling him that, it still touched his heart.

  “Natasha, you’re safe too. We protect our own, and you are part of us.”

  She accepted his hug. “Thank you.” It always befuddled her. This family offered up affection so easily. She liked when they would include her.

  Who didn’t like a hug?

  “So, it’s settled,” Emma stated as her husband returned to the couch to sit beside her. “Relax and enjoy dinner.”

  Curtis hugged his wife-to-be. “Welcome home,” he whispered in her ear.

  It made her smile.

  The silence was broken by the head of the family.

  “This will be helpful,” Greyson said, watching the numbers scroll by the screen.

  Then he saw it.

  “Wait!”

  They all froze.

  “This is up to date. You have information on this year’s financials.”

  Dimitri shrugged. “When he started trying to push into your business areas, I opted to keep an eye on him. It’s good business to know who wants to take you down.”

  They didn’t buy that.

  Dimitri didn’t like the man.

  It was clear.

  Emma placed her plate on the table and crossed to the two standing Gideons. When she stopped in front of Dimitri, she stared up at him. There was worry in his eyes, even as his body and outer demeanor said otherwise. Greyson’s words only went so far. She was the other part of the family, and they needed to know she trusted them.

  She did what she knew would reassure him.

  Emma hugged him too.

  Immediately, his arms went around her body and held her to his. He relaxed.

  Emma always knew what he needed.

  “It’s okay, Dimitri. It’s okay,” she said, keeping her voice low so only he could hear her.

  Emma had learned a great deal about this man over the last few weeks. He’d killed, he’d sold his services, and it ate away at him for years. Only as of late had he been getting his soul back.

  She wouldn’t let him stress this.

  “We love you.”

  He dropped a kiss to the crown of her head.

  “Thank you, Emma.”

  “I meant what I said,” Greyson reiterated as Emma hugged Natasha. “We don’t judge you by this,” Greyson stated.

  Dimitri stared over at Chris Ford. Could everyone in the room say that?

  He hoped so.

  If not, Natasha might get hurt.

  “Thank you, Greyson. I appreciate it. That was before you both, and when I was less selective with whom I associated with. That has changed.”

  It was true.

  Dimitri was basically above the books and toting the company line.

  Okay, not completely, but he wasn’t giving all of his endeavors up.

  Not yet.

  Chris said nothing. He simply watched Natasha. He knew that she had a past linked with a shitload of crime. That should bother him, but it didn’t. He could only imagine what their lives were like after starting all over again.

  He wouldn’t judge.

  As much as he didn’t trust Dimitri at the beginning, he trusted him now. Greyson was an excellent judge of character, and Emma was too.

  If they loved him and believed in the three of them, then he did too. Plus, the man was his boss.

  “Like I said earlier,” began Greyson. “Tomorrow, Dimitri and I will be heading there to handle Tony Mays. He might be able to give us something.”

  “I don’t know if having me with you is a good idea,” Dimitri admitted.

  Greyson got it.

  He simply didn’t care.

  “You’re our family, and I don’t want Emma going. If you can’t face him, I’ll take Chris and you can go to the Harding’s house and search it with her. He won’t take a shot at me. I’m not afraid
of him.”

  That was all he had to hear.

  “I don’t mind facing him, Greyson. I just know I’m not his favorite person. He’s going to want to make me pay, and if you’re with me, he’ll be even more focused on you and your businesses.”

  That piqued Emma’s interest. Just turning down the man to be his hired killer shouldn’t cause that much hate.

  There had to be something more that Dimitri wasn’t sharing with them.

  She had to get to the bottom of it.

  “What did you do to really piss him off?” Emma asked. “We need it all, Dimitri.”

  “I may have given a police detective in Vice some information on where he was shipping some low-level drugs. Half of his inventory was absconded and they harassed him for a few months. It shut down his business for a while.”

  Chris laughed. “I recall that bust. One of the detectives on the squad was talking about it.”

  “He threatened my sisters. I don’t take that lightly,” Dimitri said. “They’re my family, and I do everything I can to protect what is important to me.”

  Emma didn’t speak. Instead, she simply waited for him to get it off his chest. She was married to a strong man.

  She got it.

  Dimitri and Greyson weren’t that different. They were cut from the same mold, just different cloths.

  “We’re your family now, too, and we won’t let anything happen to the ones I love.”

  He stared at her and said something in Russian.

  Emma didn’t look away. “Thank you for that.”

  Greyson glanced over. “Uh, when did you start understanding Russian?” he asked. That was definitely new, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

  “Our son is marrying a Russian woman and our grandchild will probably want to know his or her roots. I’m trying to learn the basics like ‘Grandma has a cookie for you’.”

  She tried it in Russian, and Dimitri helped her with a couple of the words when she stumbled.

  “You will have it down in no time,” he offered. “You’re very good at it.”

  Emma was happy. This was her gift to her family. She could see Curtis smiling from the couch.

  Greyson did too.

  “Why does he look like he swallowed a canary?” he asked, pointing at the man.

  “We know the sex of the baby,” Curtis blurted out, much to everyone’s surprise.

  Katerina pointed at him. “Don’t! It’s bad luck to spill it! Don’t you dare!”

  Emma smiled. “We won’t ask. We’ll let it be a surprise,” she stated.

  Greyson wasn’t letting the language thing go. “What did he say to you before?” he asked.

  “He called me ‘little mother’.”

  Her husband smiled at the man. “It’s very appropriate. You do a good job of mothering.” Greyson only wished she’d be the mother of his child.

  They’d been trying for a couple weeks, and he had to admit…he was getting worried. They were having sex two times a day—sometimes three, and he was wearing down.

  Still, his wife wasn’t showing any of the signs of his efforts working.

  Greyson wanted to be a father in the worst way. He knew how Paris felt.

  He was desperate.

  “Are we all good?” she asked. “Dimitri? Will you be joining me tomorrow or will Chris?” she asked, hoping he’d choose her husband. If there was someone who would kill to keep her husband safe, it was the Russian man.

  Chris might hesitate.

  He might worry about what was right or wrong.

  She didn’t want to sit there and worry that it would go bad. Emma needed her husband to stay alive.

  She was feeling nauseous.

  She was beginning to suspect that his efforts to knock her up had been successful.

  Or she was just coming down with something. In a couple days, she’d find out.

  Dimitri smiled at her in reassurance. One of the things he liked most about the Crofts was that they didn’t force him to do something he didn’t want to do. It was always by choice.

  He had free will.

  When you’d spent your life as a hired killer, a mercenary of sorts, you appreciated having that choice.

  “I’ll be joining Greyson as his backup at Tony’s home. He’s not going without me.”

  It was settled.

  “I’ll make sure Emma is safe tomorrow,” Chris said, standing up from the couch. He rolled his neck. “I’m going to head to bed. I’ve been abused today by a couple people in this room who shall remain nameless.”

  Dimitri and Greyson laughed.

  Emma gave him a hug. “See you in the morning, Captain. We have some house searching to do.”

  He saluted and lumbered out of the room.

  The second he was gone, Emma glanced over at Natasha and jerked her head toward where he’d just gone.

  It was time for someone to make a move.

  “Natasha, don’t you think you should go to bed early too?” she stated.

  When Dimitri opened his mouth, she elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up. He’d already sucker punched Chris to prove a point.

  It was her turn to drive the bus, and the first stop was Romance-ville.

  Dimitri grunted. He wasn’t wearing a protective vest, and the shot hit him in just the right spot.

  She had gotten him good.

  “I think so,” she said, slipping out of the room to follow the captain to his bedroom.

  When she was gone, Dimitri finally spoke, “That really hurt.”

  She patted him on the shoulder. “Suck it up, Dimitri. That was nothing.”

  He lifted a brow.

  “There’s more?”

  “You still have to watch one more sister get entangled with a man, who is your employee, who is our family, and who you can’t kill because I won’t let you.”

  Curtis objected. “No one told him he couldn’t kill me! How come Chris gets lucky?”

  “There is time yet, man-child. Don’t make me come over there,” he said, growling at him.

  It wasn’t a real growl, but he liked to keep the man on his toes.

  Curtis closed his mouth.

  He had a point.

  Dimitri stared at his sister, who was laughing. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “Three more days, and you’re going to be my brother,” Curtis offered instead of Kat. “Or is that my father-in-law, since you raised them?” he teased.

  “I have a headache,” Dimitri stated, rubbing his temples.

  No one believed him.

  They could all tell one thing.

  He loved the boy.

  * * * G r e y s o n C r o f t * * *

  When Chris got to his room, he wanted to hide inside and be alone. It had been one hell of a confusing day. His brain was on overdrive, and he needed to contemplate everything that was going on in his life.

  Frankly, he needed time to regroup. He’d told Dimitri he was going to ask his sister on a date, and that had been the easy part.

  It was funny.

  He’d faced a killer down and took a face shot, but he was stressing asking a woman out for the evening.

  How bad had his life gotten that he was afraid of a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound female?

  Yeah, he was screwed.

  He was a big fat chicken, and he knew it.

  As he headed down the hall toward his room, in Emma and Greyson’s section of the house, he wasn’t paying attention to anything around him.

  Instead, he was lost deep in thought over what he should do. As he passed Emma’s room, he stopped when he thought he heard something.

  Their private quarters weren’t far from his. He wasn’t sure if that was for protection or because Emma was generally worried about his well-being the last few weeks as he healed.

  As he listened, there was nothing there.

  Okay, he was losing his mind. Here was the proof. Chris was now hearing things that didn’t exist.

  It was time to call it a nigh
t.

  Gratefully, he was going to slip into his room, grab a shower, and then sleep. He could avoid Natasha tonight until he worked out a plan in his head.

  It was sad he was freaked out.

  Once at his room, he headed in, hit the lights, and nearly jumped out of his skin.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Natasha was sitting Indian style on his bed, and she was smiling at him.

  “Hey.”

  He couldn’t think.

  His brain had gone fuzzy. Whenever she was around, his ability to talk was forgotten.

  He became mute.

  How could he not?

  She was so lovely. There was something about the aqua cat eyes that watched him and the long red hair she had resting on her shoulder.

  He wanted to sniff it.

  Man.

  He had it bad.

  “How did you beat me here?” he asked, finally finding his voice. Then it occurred to him that she was the sound he’d heard out in the hall.

  A part of him knew that instinctually, he knew when she had been around.

  Damn it!

  “I scaled the house and slipped into your window.”

  Yeah, that sounded dangerous.

  “Do you need something?” he asked, finally gaining the ability to talk.

  “I came to see you.”

  Chris wasn’t ready for this.

  Yes, he was going to ask her out, but he was a planner. He needed to think this through, plot out his words, and then do it. If one step of the process was taken away, his whole plan was shot to shit.

  He didn’t work that way.

  Crap!

  “Uh. I was going to go to bed. Alone.”

  Jesus!

  What was he thinking? This was proof that he was a freaking idiot.

  Her face said it all. “I’m sorry. I figured…I guess I was very wrong.”

  She moved off his bed.

  “I’ll say goodnight,” Natasha said, moving backward toward the window. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Captain. It won’t happen again.”

  He didn’t know what to do.

  Shit!

  This was going way wrong, and fast.

  “Natasha. Wait.”

  She didn’t. She stepped onto the window ledge and jumped. Chris raced to the side to find her, only, she was gone. She’d vanished into the night, along with his hopes and dreams.