Chapter Nineteen
Las Vegas
Hospital
A ll the way there, Dimitri was sick to his stomach. He was so scared for his family, and he didn’t know what to do. His own flesh and blood had wounded Emma and Greyson’s heir as he got caught in the crossfire. How was he going to face them? Why wouldn’t they kick him, and his sisters out of their lives?
He would.
If someone had hurt his family, he would be furious and shove the offensive party away. Actions had repercussions, or at least that was what he had believed.
So, he knew what was coming, and he feared it.
As of late, they were the only people who had ever cared about any of them. His allegiance was with them, but now…
God!
Curtis was his brother-in-law, and he felt horrible that something from their past had hurt him.
As he raced into the hospital, he was directed to a waiting area that the family was using to wait for news.
When he ran in, everyone was there.
Kat was sitting in a chair, and Greyson had his arm around her, holding her. Emma was crouched in front of the woman, trying to calm her down.
When he walked in, they all looked over at him.
Kat rushed toward him, Natasha right behind her. It was clear they were all thinking the same thing.
What was next?
“It was meant for me,” Kat whispered, as Dimitri held her. “He was trying to kill me and Curtis saved me.”
He tried to soothe both of his sisters as best he could in the situation. They all knew it was bad.
“It’s okay. We will be okay. If this goes South, you have me. You will always have me, and I will always love you.”
Both girls wept as they understood the ramifications of what had gone down. They were technically security, and they’d failed. Natasha was supposed to have their back, but she’d missed seeing anything as she followed them around.
Kat felt horrible too. She’d been so wrapped up in her pregnancy and the Lamaze class, she hadn’t seen anything either. Dimitri always told them to be alert.
She’d failed.
Greyson headed his way, and he watched him with wary eyes.
“How is he?” Dimitri asked.
“He’ll be okay. Curtis is tough.”
Greyson took Natasha from him and held her to help Dimitri calm them down.
“Detective Riley and a few cops went to check the area where Curtis saw the flash. He went up there, and he found this.”
Greyson pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, and it wasn’t lost on him that there was no evidence bag.
That meant one thing.
The police wouldn’t be handling this. Instead, this was going to be a personal matter, dealt with by them.
Dimitri, with hesitation, opened the note.
‘Brother, we finally meet. Years ago, you killed my father. He mattered to me and my mother. Because of that, you will suffer that same fear. Today, I missed our sister. Tomorrow, I won’t. Kiss her and that baby goodbye.’
The fury rushed through him as all he wanted was to find that man and destroy him. No one was taking Katerina from them.
No one.
As he finished reading the message, Dimitri crumbled the note in his hand.
Greyson was watching him, and he knew it was going to be bad. Dimitri was a man on the edge, and this might have just been the catalyst to push him over.
“I will handle him.”
Emma heard his vow, and she headed his way. As she stood in front of him, she pointed.
“Greyson, take the girls. I need to talk to Mr. Gideon about the situation.”
“Emma.”
She glanced over at her husband. “I need you to watch the girls for a few minutes. Dimitri and I need to have a conversation—in private.”
The tone in her voice said it all.
Greyson, normally the bossy one, let it slide. Emma was holding it together, and that’s all that mattered.
“Follow me,” she said.
Both girls watched as their brother headed away, following behind Emma.
They began talking in Russian, and Greyson didn’t doubt they were scared they were going to be asked to leave the family.
It was silly.
“Shhh, Katerina and Natasha, you’re safe,” he offered, with one girl tucked beneath each arm. “Let’s wait.”
What choice did they have?
Their lives, especially Katerina’s, hung in the balance.
All they could do was wait.
And pray.
Emma headed toward the little chapel attached to the waiting room, and Dimitri followed her inside. Once there, he didn’t give her a chance to say anything.
Why should he?
He knew what was coming.
“I will take my sisters, and we will get as far from you as possible. Your family suffered because of something I did in my past. I understand, and I will go.”
She spun around, and she was furious.
“Just like that? You’ll tuck your fucking tail between your legs and leave us?” she asked.
He was so shocked he actually took a step back.
He’d never seen her this angry at him. Emma was three days past pissed.
“What choice do I have? He’s our brother. My blood nearly killed Curtis.”
She stopped him.
While she wasn’t surprised, she was irritated.
“You know what, Dimitri, you probably should go. It’s fine. Why worry about your family or the people who love you? Forget us. It’s easier that way. You can run, and you don’t have to look back to see what you’re leaving behind. I’ll find him, and Greyson will handle him. Just don’t let him know you’ve bailed. It’ll make our jobs harder. You know, the job of cleaning up the mess.”
“Why would you care?” he asked, getting just as angry. “He hurt Curtis. That’s on me. We are your damn security team, and we’re a mess. My one sister married into the family, and she is pregnant. The other one is so besotted, she didn’t catch this, and then there’s me. I should have suspected! I should have known!”
Yeah, he should have been there instead of off having sex with Marissa.
Emma got it, but life wasn’t always so cut and dry.
Things happened, and this was one of those cases. They could worry about the what ifs, or they could focus on the what is to come.
She chose the latter.
Emma moved closer and shoved her finger into his chest. “That’s on HIM. You didn’t make his choices. You make your own. Only, you’ll have to wait for Curtis. He’s going to want to go with his wife and child. He’s not going to stay here while his wife disappears. If you take her before he’s able to move, you might as well go into that operating room and tell them let him die. You’ll kill him if you steal Katerina away. You’ll end him.”
He was frustrated.
“I don’t want to see you hurt. I don’t want to make you mad, or hurt anyone else. I don’t have choices. I can’t make the whole family disappear. I can make us three invisible.”
And that was what pissed her off.
His willingness to leave them all behind like they didn’t matter.
She moved closer. They were toe to toe, and she stared up into his eyes.
“You bailing makes me mad. When people are gunning for us, what do we do? We put our trust in family. We stand there, knowing you and your sisters had our back. Before we can do the same for you, you’re running. You can’t hide forever, Maximillian. At some point, you have to accept what you did, learn from it, and stand your ground.” She backed away. “Or we just didn’t mean as much to you as you three meant to us.”
Now there was hurt.
“You mean everything,” he said. “I’m scared.”
She didn’t move.
“He’s making his choices. You have to make yours. Do we stand and fight, Dimitri, or do we run? We do it as one. If you leave, we follow. When the shit hit the fan, you three opted to stay. We wove our families together. We made them one, and now you want to pull them apart. That’s not family. Apparently, we weren’t permanent. We were temporary, and to find that out now sucks.”
“No, you weren’t. I’ve never loved anyone but my sisters. I’ve never had this. I can’t let my past destroy it. I’m trying to protect you. Why can’t you see that?”
“Tomorrow, this will be considered your past, and it will destroy us. While you’re hunted, you can hide. We can’t, so we are still wearing the bull’s-eye. I’ll let you go because I love you three with all my heart. I’ll stay and fight to buy you some time. Hopefully, you and your sisters survive. We won’t.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
He watched her.
“Go, if that’s your plan. Run. It’s easier. You’re a coward, Mr. Gideon. I’ve never judged you until this moment. I could forgive you anything, but this. You abandoned us when we needed you the most. That’s not family.”
She turned around and headed toward the door.
She heard him walking toward the altar and candles in the front of the chapel.
Curiosity got the best of her.
She watched him light a candle, make the sign of the cross, and kneel.
Then, she could hear him praying.
It was shocking. Out of all the things she suspected in life, it was never this.
Dimitri believed in God.
Then, she could hear him crying. It was soft and it tugged at her heartstrings.
As someone who loved him, it was hard to ignore.
Quietly, she moved closer. She could pick up a few words—not many. Dimitri was offering himself up if his sisters would live.
She knelt beside him, and he looked over.
Emma waited.
“I don’t want to lose my family.”
“We’ll protect them.”
He stopped her. “No, I don’t want you lose all of you. I’ll fight. If anything happens to me…”
Emma took his hand in hers. “We fight side by side, Dimitri. We will make sure we catch him. This won’t be uncontested. Greyson will make sure of it.”
He stared at the giant cross.
“I’m sorry about Curtis.”
“He was protecting his wife and child. I’m proud of him. He did what a man is supposed to do. He learned from Greyson. He did the job, and if he is to die, at least he protected the people he loved most. She gave him happiness that I’ve never seen him have before. Katerina is his soulmate. That matters.”
He listened to her as she knelt with him in that chapel.
“If he hurts someone else…”
“We will not blame you. We will not push you away because of his actions. You’re not a Gideon. Today, you’re a Croft. We protect our own, and you are ours.”
He didn’t know what to say.
Emma tucked his shoulder length hair behind his ears, and wiped the wetness from his cheeks.
“I love you, and I’ll fight for you.”
Dimitri didn’t know how to accept that. No one in his life had ever offered him that. No one had ever valued him enough to make sure he was safe.
Now he had it, and he was afraid to lose it.
“You need to make a choice, and I’ll accept it. If you have to leave, then we all do. We’ll close the house down, sell it, and go under with you. We’ll let Vegas fall to stay with our family.”
“I don’t understand why.”
Emma leaned against him, resting her forehead against his. In Russian, she told him. It was choppy, didn’t flow as well as she would have liked it, but he got the point.
More tears came.
“You are mine, too,” he said, letting go of some of the pain so Emma could carry it. Dimitri gave her something he never shared with anyone.
His faith.
He wrapped his arms around her.
And together…
They prayed.
* * * G r e y s o n C r o f t * * *
Courthouse
There was chaos going on all around her. Delilah had been in the middle of the court trial to defend her client, and the shit had apparently hit the fan.
People were running around like maniacs, trying to get out of the courthouse as if their lives depended on it.
Then she heard the two bailiffs talking about the shooting in the upstairs office.
It shocked her.
Thomas Christ, the man who Riley had overheard threatening to hurt her, was dead.
She didn’t know what to think.
There were cops running around, news crews, and even the commissioner. He was lurking, and that freaked her out.
Her first instinct was to call Riley to see if everything was okay, and maybe to get some reassurance. She was nervous, and she didn’t know what to think.
Pulling out her phone, she dialed his number with shaky fingers.
It didn’t take him long to answer.
“Delilah, honey, are you okay?” he asked, the second he answered.
“I’m good. Are you okay?” she asked, praying he was somewhere safe.
“I’m good, but Curtis is in surgery. The Crofts have a giant mess on their hands.”
She paused.
What?
“Why is he in surgery?” she asked.
Riley gave her the abridged version.
There were shouts from behind her, and she could barely hear anything he was saying.
“What’s going on there?” Riley asked.
She told him.
“Commissioner Raye went to arrest Thomas Christ for his involvement in the murdered of your partner. That’s why I called to see if you were okay.”
“WHAT?”
“You didn’t hear?” she asked, nearly getting run over by three cops with guns.
“NO! What the hell happened?”
She told him what she knew, and there wasn’t much. It was just word traveling around the courthouse.
Riley couldn’t believe it.
Well, he could believe it because Thomas Christ was a psychopathic lunatic, but his partner? He was shocked the man hadn’t come after him.
“And he’s dead too?”
“Yeah, apparently, the commissioner was trying to get his gun so they could arrest him.”
Riley felt like he was in some weird soap opera.
Vegas was losing its mind.
“Then there were shots fired. They are closing down the courthouse. It’s a crime scene, so I’m heading home.”
“WAIT! I’ll come get you, Delilah! Don’t go anywhere that there are no people! Stay in the thick of it until I get there!”
“Riley.”
“Honey, Thomas Christ had been planning your murder with the commissioner. This doesn’t make sense. He wouldn’t be trying to arrest him.”
Her eyes went big.
“You think…?”
Yeah, he did. He was going to call Greyson to discuss this with him as soon as he hung up.
“Loose end, honey. Christ may be dead, but we don’t know if they had other plans to move on you. You’re still not safe, Delilah. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Okay, Riley. Be careful. This whole town is going to Hell in a hand basket.”
Oh, she had no idea.
The corruption was everywhere.
* * * G r e y s o n C r o f t * * *
Back at his hole, Viktor was happy. He’d taken a shot at his sister, and granted, he missed, but that was fine. He’d studied the Croft family, and he knew what made them tick.
If they tried to stop him, he’d start to take them apart too. He was going to enact his vengeance on his brother, whether they liked it or not.
In fact, he might just kill them off for shits and giggles.
He liked Vegas.
It was his kind of town.
Maybe, when he’d cleaned up his family issues, he’d stick around. With the Crofts dead and the Gideons gone, the city would need new mob.
Maybe Mother Russia would have to represent.
Meaning him.
He could be happy here. There were all the women, the crime, and the opportunity to make big money.
Yeah, ‘Sin City’ was full of murder, death, and corruption.
It was his kind of town.
And shortly, he would own it.
* * * G r e y s o n C r o f t * * *
Hospital
Waiting Room
It was all over the news.
As Greyson stood there, he watched the media replay the shot over and over again.
It pissed him off.
It also taught him a lot about the shooter.
As someone who did what he did, he could spot a pro or a wannabe sniper.
There were tells. The man was NOT a pro, and that might work to their advantage.
He was just about to head into the chapel to get Emma when his phone rang. Greyson stared down and saw Riley’s number.
Maybe he’d found something new.
“Yes, Detective?”
Riley told him about Thomas Christ and his death. He told him about the commissioner being the one who took him down, and then he told him about his partner.
“He’s cleaning up loose ends,” Croft said into the phone.
“What do you want me to do?” Riley asked. “I heard him and Christ plotting to hurt Delilah. I can take this to the media, the investigating officer, or let Delilah handle it.”
Greyson mulled it over.
“Don’t do anything.”
“What?”
“We can use this as leverage, Riley. He killed Christ for a reason. Let’s watch it play out, and see what happens. He’s going to be running scared now. He likely set Christ up to save his own ass.”
Riley agreed.
“This isn’t a race. It’s a marathon. We’ll keep this information to ourselves, and at some point, we may need to whip it out for protection. Vegas is exploding.”
Yeah, he’d noticed.
“Where are you?” Greyson asked.
“I was out in the field trying to contain Curtis’s shooting. Now I’m heading over to the courthouse to get Delilah.”
“She’s going to be safe,” Greyson offered. “He won’t do anything high profile.”
He hoped not.
“I’m still going to get her somewhere safe. I don’t want to see her hurt.”
Greyson figured. There was something blooming there.
“If you need us, call,” Croft said. “Just try and stay out of the commissioner’s way, and keep your ass out of the sling.”
Oh, that was his plan.
“How’s Curtis?” he asked.
“Still in surgery.”
“He’ll be fine. He’s tough.”
Greyson was aware. For now, that wasn’t his concern. Emma and Dimitri were. They were still talking, and he didn’t doubt it might be getting ugly.
“Be safe, Riley. Head to Terrace Glen if you need to. You can hide out there with Delilah.”
“Thanks. I may do that.”
He hung up.
Greyson was pacing as he prayed they were doing the right thing. Hang the commissioner now, or wait to really put the screws to him?
He and Dimitri had been digging into the man’s past, trying to find something to bury him.
This was huge.
It was also going to be hard to prove. It was hearsay, and he knew it. A lawyer, like Delilah, could tear it apart in seconds.
Yeah, they’d hold this one.
Greyson stared up at the TV, and they were running side by side stories. Curtis’s shooting, and the dead homicide captain.
The city was stirred up.
Speaking of which…
As Emma and Dimitri came out of the chapel, the Russian went to his side.
“Greyson…”
He wasn’t going to let the man apologize for something that wasn’t his fault. Dimitri didn’t do this. This was on his brother, and they all knew it.
“I need you to focus.”
He stared at him. “Okay, on what?”
He pointed at the screen and told him what Riley had told him.
“Holy shit!” Emma muttered. “He’s taking out loose ends. We need to hold onto this. We can use it.”
Croft kissed her.
She was thinking like a mob boss’s wife.
“That’s what I told Riley. We can shelf that, for now, but look at the shooting footage. Tell me what you see, Dimitri,” Greyson asked.
He watched it, and it pissed him off. Still, he saw what Greyson was talking about.
“He’s an amateur.”
Greyson agreed.
“How do you know?” Emma asked.
“Watch this part right…here.”
Emma did.
There was an angle from one of the cameras that had been ahead of Curtis and Kat. When Curtis turned, to talk to the detective, Emma saw it.
There was that flash.
“Fourth floor, third window,” she said.
Dimitri agreed.
“Okay, and that means?” she asked.
“When you snipe, where do you do it from Dimitri?” Greyson asked.
That was easy.
“You wanted to be the furthest away from the scene. The recovery time isn’t the same. You take the shot there, and you have minutes to escape. Plus, you’re heading out into the mess,” he offered.
Exactly.
“If it were me, I would have picked that building.” Greyson pointed to one in the distance on the Vegas strip. “I would have used the roof. It’s an easier shot. Further can be better if you’re a pro.”
She got it.
“I would have gone with further away,” Dimitri said, agreeing with him. “I would have had more time to break my gun down, pack it up, and get away. That close is dangerous. You’re in the epicenter, and the cops will be shutting everything down as fast as possible.”
Emma understood.
Greyson wasn’t done. “Ditto. This man is self-taught. He also didn’t use the right bullets for the job. He used one that would go right through his target.”
Emma hated this conversation, but she was learning something huge. Her husband and Dimitri Gideon had a lot in common.
“What would you have used?” Greyson asked him.
“I have a collection of Black Talons. I got my hands on them on their way to being destroyed a few years back.”
“Why?” Greyson asked, keeping the man focused on the details so he wasn’t thinking about Curtis or anything else.
“They curl on impact, and they make a mess of the human body. They would have torn the victim to pieces, and they wouldn’t have been fixable.”
While morbid, it was true.
“Agreed. I would have used a hollow point too. Our killer isn’t trained.”
Emma had been listening. “What does that tell us?”
“That we can catch him. If it were Dimitri, we wouldn’t have a shot. Viktor Marchenko has left his mess all over Vegas. He’s going to have flaws, and we can pick them apart and catch him.”
Dimitri got it.
“And this case?” Emma asked. “We really haven’t given it one hundred percent. We’re chasing too many details.”
He agreed.
“We are only going to have this one shot with the FBI being off our asses. So, we work the sex ring, we find the persons behind it, and we end them. IF your brother is raping women and part of this, we’ll catch him. He’s sloppy.”
Dimitri could deal with that.
“We may not catch him immediately, but let’s cut off his fun, and he might do something to come out of his hide-y hole.”
They all knew how dangerous that was, but they didn’t have a choice. He was shooting at people. One head shot, and they were down family.
“There has to be a trail. We only have to find it,” Greyson offered. “I say we start looking for it.”
Emma got it.
“Then let’s work.”
The whole family pushed the chairs away and settled down on the floor to do what they knew.
They were comparing notes to begin the chase. Up first, they wanted the sex ring. Since Julie was found, they could free up time from looking for her. Now they would find the people who set her up to die at Viktor’s hands.
“What do we know?” Greyson asked, as he sat beside his wife and Dimitri.
Emma shared what they had found out from the janitor of the strip club. “There’s an apartment on Vine. Apparently, Gerald had a flop there.”
Tessa made notes.
Dimitri lifted a brow. “Wait. Marissa’s sister lived on Vine. She’s there now. That building is full of hookers.”
Greyson jut realized he was right.
“She does. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. If you’re going to be dragging your ‘merchandise’ around, you want the place to be close. He would want to watch over his prime goods.”
Emma knew he was right.
They were going to have to check that place out.
“It could be the same. He wasn’t really specific,” Chris said, as Natasha sat beside him. He was holding her hand, and they all knew why.
He was worried that she was going to disappear with her brother if he ran.
That would break his heart.
“That’s going to be a good place to start, and I AM going, so if you were planning to tell me no, don’t,” Emma stated.
Her husband stared at her.
“Not today, Greyson. Put the caveman back in his cave.”
Croft laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Dimitri offered a suggestion, “I’m fine with Emma going, but maybe we should do it after dark,” Dimitri offered. “Then I can help.”
Emma laughed. “Yeah, no. You, your sisters, and Curtis are out of the game. He’s going to stay here…”
Kat spoke up, “I’ll stay with him. I’m pregnant, but I can handle a gun. As long as he’s not by a window, I’m safe.”
Greyson looked at Dimitri.
“Okay.”
He knew how hard that was for him.
“I can disappear until this is under control,” Natasha offered.
Chris glanced over at her. Even though he was afraid she’d not come back, he’d take his chances. He would rather she live.
“Please do. I don’t know when you’re around half the time. This is going to be a good time for you to vanish in plain sight. Just make sure you come back to me.”
Natasha’s heart skipped.
That was love.
She kissed him on the cheek. “Yes, Captain.”
Greyson thought that was a good idea.
“And me?” Dimitri asked.
“The house it is.”
“I’m not hiding from him,” Dimitri said. “He called me out, and we are going to keep working this case. You told me to decide my own fate, Emma, and I will. I’ll take precautions, but I’m not hiding from him. That’s not the man I am.”
Well, had she known before hand, she might have not used that as her defense.
She took his hand in hers. “I stand by your choice.”
They were all on the same page.
Greyson continued with the update, now that everything was under control.
“The only thing that’s left is an update I got from Riley a few minutes ago.”
“What?” Dante asked.
He shared the information, again, with the rest of them.
“Thomas Christ was killed.”
They all stared.
Greyson flipped the channel to another station, and they watched the chaos at the courthouse. No one said a word, until after it began looping from the beginning again.
“Well, I didn’t see that one coming,” Dante stated.
“Does anyone here actually believe that Commissioner Raye was trying to bring the man in for justice?” Katerina asked.
Emma, Greyson, and Dimitri started laughing.
There was their answer.
“So, Thomas Christ played fast and loose with another cop’s life, and he was busted. That seems like poetic justice. He killed my brother the same way, so I’m glad he got his ‘just desserts’. I would have rather been the one who pulled the trigger, but we can’t always get what we want.”
She left that there for Dimitri.
He didn’t miss what she was talking about. It was a Mom moment if he ever heard one.
“The commissioner likely did it because Thomas Christ was a runaway train,” Greyson offered. “He brought him here, and he couldn’t control the crazy.”
Yeah, he was definitely cleaning up a mess.
“So now we know that the Commissioner is as dirty as the day is long, what are we going to do about it?” Tessa asked.
Her husband was curious too.
“We handle it later. Right now, we have a shit mess. We have dead underage girls, and we have Viktor Marchenko. From the second I took this case, we were focused on too much. With our attention scattered, we may have missed something. I think we need to find this sex ring, and that might bring us closer to Viktor.”
“And the commissioner?” Dante asked.
“Like I told Emma and Dimitri. He’s going to hide out for a while. We’re presently trying to dig up more on him. I want to take him down with things he can’t explain away. Riley heard him put a hit out on Delilah, but we don’t have proof. We know that he was likely behind a cleanup effort, but we can’t prove it. It’s his word against ours. We keep digging until we find substantiated evidence.”
They all agreed.
“I think we should focus on what we know,” Greyson stated.
“We know that Julie was at the strip club with her pimp and then went missing,” Emma stated. “Then he was killed.”
Tessa made notes.
“We know that Julie lived on Vine, and we have a pimp flop on Vine.”
Greyson brought up one other thing. “We also know that Anthony Delmarco was murdered by someone, and he was left in a park. Again, more loose ends.”
Paris thought about it. “What park?”
He wasn’t sure.
“You know there’s a big one over on Vine, right?” he asked.
That was more proof that they had an area to focus on to find the sex ring.
“I wouldn’t be shocked if it were that one,” Greyson stated. “Let’s aim our focus there.”
Dimitri agreed.
Tessa and Paris knew what he was asking. They knew exactly how the man thought.
“You want us to pull Vine Street apart?” Tessa asked in clarification.
“Yeah, let’s go with that. If it smells like smoke, chances are there’s a fire.”
They had to start somewhere. There was so much going on in Vegas, and their lives, that they needed to focus.
“Can I task you guys with that?” he asked the Archers.
“We’re on it.”
They grabbed a tablet and headed to a corner to work.
Okay, that took care of that.
Emma pointed at Natasha. “Go under for the time being. Then we don’t have to worry about you.”
“I have a change of gear in the car. I’m going to be the nun.”
Chris laughed.
Dimitri pointed at him. “Don’t be a pervert. We are Catholic.”
He laughed even more. Not that the man would be offended if he made a sex joke, but that Dimitri was religious.
Who saw that coming?
“Say your goodbye,” Greyson said.
Natasha crawled into her boyfriend’s lap, and she slowly kissed him. When she was finished, she pulled away, Chris’s lower lip between her teeth.
Emma put her hand over Dimitri’s mouth.
“I’ll see you later,” Natasha stated. “Miss me a little bit.”
He would miss her a whole lot. When she got out of his lap and headed out, he stood to watch her.
When he turned back around, and they were all staring at him.
“What?”
Emma laughed.
“Someone is madly in love, and I think I hear wedding bells.”
He yanked on her hair. “Brat.”
That one comment, actually calmed Dimitri. Natasha would be safe. He didn’t doubt the family would protect her.
In fact, he was going to ensure the whole family was safe. He didn’t like what he was planning, but Dimitri had a backup plan to save them all.
He only needed time to slip away.
Kat broke the silence. “Can you give me something to do?” she asked, worrying her hands. “I need to do something to keep from going crazy,” she said to Greyson. “Please, Dad.”
His heart flipped.
Katerina was like his child. If anything happened to Curtis, he’d protect her.
“Why don’t you work on Anthony Delmarco? We still have the FBI’s tablet. Maybe you can find a way to connect him to someone.”
She was grateful.
She took the tablet from Emma.
“Thank you, for this.”
Katerina went to a quiet corner and began working to keep her mind off her husband.
Emma, Greyson, Chris, and Dimitri would handle the apartment search that the janitor had brought up.
Until that moment, Dante and Steele had been relatively quiet. Investigating wasn’t really their thing, but they would jump in and help where they could.
“If you can get the autopsies,” Steele offered, “I can go over them to make sure nothing was missed.”
Emma gave him a kiss.
She knew how hard that was on him.
Steele, after his abduction, had a hard time dealing with the dead, since he was almost one of them.
“I think that would be great,” Greyson offered. “I’ll contact Riley and see what he can do.”
Before he could, a nurse walked in.
They all stood and waited with baited breath. Kat rushed over, and she took Emma’s hand when she offered it.
“Mr. Croft is out of surgery, and he’s doing fine. He’s going to be in the recovery room a little while longer. Then, you can all see him.”
Kat started crying.
Emma pulled her against her body and held her through the storm. She let her weep it out so she’d feel better.
“How bad is he?” Emma asked. “His arm…”
“He’s going to need therapy, but he’s going to be fine. He got lucky. It went straight through.”
They all relaxed.
Viktor’s error had worked out in their favor.
“We’ll wait to see him,” Greyson offered.
“Yes, Mr. Croft. I’ll come back for you.”
When she left, he was only thinking one thing. It wasn’t about Curtis’s recovery, or how close they’d come.
It was all about revenge.
Viktor Marchenko was going to pay.
With his life.
* * * G r e y s o n C r o f t * * *
He’d spent most of the day touring the FBI building in Las Vegas, and Ethan Blackhawk knew one thing.
It was one hot mess.
No wonder the OT was off the charts, the budget was way off, and absenteeism was running rampant.
Robert Lee had no idea how to run the place. To make it even worse, he didn’t answer directly to him. He answered to Miles Lane out of FBI West.
Well, that was about to change.
Ethan was going to whip both buildings back into shape, whether they liked it or not. While Greyson ran it, the place was doing well. Crime was down, and he’d managed to scare his employees into doing their job.
Much like he did.
What Ethan had learned from visiting the FBI building was no one liked Lee, and no one was worried about their job.
When you could lose your career and paycheck, you stayed hungry for work.
It made you a better employee.
It made you do your damn job.
What Ethan had now was a clusterfuck. He hated to admit it, but he was going to have to come back.
There was no way he could let that place run the way it was going. When he asked for reports, Lee stared at him like he was crazy.
Apparently, his secretary was keeping him afloat.
It was as if the man had never heard those words before.
Then, as he toured the place, the employees were afraid to talk in front of Lee.
Ethan knew intimidation when he saw it, so he did what he had to, and lost the man. The second he was gone, the dirt came out.
The man had been fraternizing with the police commissioner. That didn’t bode well for Ethan, considering what he knew was going on in Las Vegas. So, Ethan could only do one thing.
He was going to watch.
Wait.
Bide his time.
And then handle it.
If Robert Lee thought this was going to be Ethan’s only visit to Vegas, the man had another thing coming.
This was only the beginning.
As he walked onto the jet, the pilot was waiting for him.
“She’s in the last seat, and I think she’s sleeping. She got here about an hour ago. She was quiet.”
That said it all.
Elizabeth wasn’t normally described with that one word. She was chaos, active, crazy, and boisterous.
He was worried about her, and this was just more proof that Bonnie had turned their lives upside down.
Heading to the back of the jet, he touched her leg, and she sat up, a gun in her hand.
He stared down the nose of her Glock, and her finger was on the trigger.
His heart thumped.
“Hey! I missed you too. Well, not enough to pull a gun on you when I saw you, but I still missed my wife.”
She lowered her arm.
“Sorry. I was napping.”
Yeah, she did that a lot lately instead of sleeping. When Elizabeth went deep, the nightmares began.
“The pilot said you just got back an hour ago. Were you out exploring Vegas?”
“Yeah, I was.”
“Doing what?”
She glanced over. “Tracking Bonnie.”
Of course she was.
“Elizabeth.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it, Ethan. Let it go.”
He gave her some emotional space, like she had always given him. Something was eating away at her, and he didn’t think it was only because of what had happened.
“Okay, baby. I grabbed you something to eat,” he said, handing her a takeout container.
“Thank you.”
“Was it nice?” he asked.
“What?”
“Vegas.”
“Yeah, in a tacky, ‘I love Elvis’ kind of way. I did like all the lights. Those I don’t mind. How was the FBI building?” she asked, changing the subject so he wouldn’t dig back into her day. What happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas.
“Good. Greyson has some wiggle room. You didn’t tell him about Viktor Marchenko, right?”
She smiled.
“No, I would never do that. That’s classified intel that I shouldn’t have heard about when you were talking to yourself on your way here. I know the rules.”
He kissed her on the cheek.
“I figured as much,” he said, knowing she absolutely gave them the heads up. He’d cover them all if it came to that.
“Oh, and I lost my tablet somewhere. I’m so damn forgetful. Maybe you can forget to cancel my password for a couple of days. You know…I may find it again.”
He laughed.
“I can do that.”
She began eating.
“Baby?”
She looked over.
“I love you.”
That made her smile. “There’s no one I love more than you,” she said.
“Uh, Callen.”
“Okay, well him.”
“Our kids.”
“Yeah, and them.”
“Wyler.”
She didn’t say anything.
That silence spoke volumes.
“Elizabeth.”
“He left, Ethan. That’s on him. Don’t bring him up. I can’t fight his wars too. I have enough on my plate with explaining to our kids why Grandpa is gone.”
Ethan wished he could heal them all. When Wyler bailed, it created a huge hole in all of their lives, and Elizabeth was picking up the slack while chasing Bonnie, and doing her job.
Then there was little TJ.
They all were taking turns loving that baby as much as they could to make up for his father leaving him the day he was brought into the world.
He dropped his arm around her shoulders, and she shared her food. It was peaceful and calm.
Yet, she was anything but.
“We’re ready to go,” he said, signaling the pilot when the man stuck his head out of the cockpit.
They closed the doors.
The FBI jet began its taxing down the runway, and before long, they’d be back in DC.
And Ethan had to prepare.
For what was coming.