The scum in this city would kill her just to end that baby’s life. Curtis is already marked since this fortune is mostly his, but that baby…
They will want Sadie Emma Croft to die in her mother’s belly.
That can’t happen.
Not on mine or Dimitri’s watch.
As the men heading this family, it is our duty to protect the women. Being a caveman, in my world, is a good thing.
It will keep our family alive.
Kat has gifts you just don’t find every day. She’s excellent at weapons, and can shoot anything you hand her. She’s great at breaking into buildings, and she speaks more languages than the rest of us.
She’s an asset, and once this child is born, she’ll be back in the rotation.
We need her to have our backs.
The family is blessed to have Dimitri’s other sister on our team too. So, as Kat is taking a safety sabbatical, her sister, Natasha, is picking up the slack.
The woman is a mystery.
Literally.
She pops in, disguises herself, and disappears in plain sight. She’s the Harry Houdini of our family. If you need to go invisible, she’s your girl. We haven’t found a pair of handcuffs that can keep her contained.
She’s an enigma to us all.
Lately, as she begins her relationship with Christopher Ford, she’s been a lot more visible.
She laughs.
She smiles.
She kicks ass.
Having her on the team is an asset too. Natasha can steal anything, anywhere, and anytime. She has no fear of dying, and that, in our lives, is important.
At any time, we could go down.
There is always a chance of collateral damage. It’s the downfall of what we do. Vegas thinks we are expendable.
It just may be right.
This is one more price we all pay, and one more worry I carry to bed each and every night.
I worry about the women.
I’m not alone.
Natasha’s sexy heartthrob is none other than Emma’s bodyguard, Christopher Ford. He’s big, bulky, and smart. He was once a homicide captain, and he can run any operation with his eyes closed. More importantly, he’s madly in love with my wife.
I can see it.
I’m not blind.
While he courts Dimitri Gideon’s sister, he’s still carrying a torch for the woman he now calls sister. It’s a bond I have NO intention of trying to break.
That love was forged when Emma saved his life, refusing to leave him behind. In that bloodshed, it formed an attachment that matters.
I get it.
Once, back in Celestia, she saved my bacon too. She found the killers, rescued me, and I fell madly in love with her. So, I don’t blame Christopher Ford.
I get it.
Besides, the media has played with it. They’ve twisted it, made it something perverse, and cheap—that’s on them—not him.
We are a family, and I know they will never betray me. Besides, it keeps the seedy element guessing.
If they think Emma has a few men courting her affection, they might not try to take her down.
Why risk retaliation?
I have to work with what Vegas has given me. The picture isn’t always clear, but muddied with falsehoods I’ve let slip by.
That’s the way I like it.
I have faith in my family to never cross that line, and I trust him not to break that bond.
He’s earned it.
Chris has saved my wife’s life before, and I have no doubt he will be forced to do it again. Suited up in the most expensive body armor, he faces down the fact that if he’s off his game, Emma could die.
I trust him with the most precious thing in my life, and I know what he risks for her each time they leave the house.
It is a labor of love.
It’s a risk of dying.
Chris has a hard job, and I’m not going to ride his ass. Just recently, the man has finally come around, forgetting that he was once a cop. Natasha has had a big part in that, and I’m glad.
It’s not easy going from carrying a badge to carrying the weight of this city on your shoulders.
But we do.
Daily.
That keeps everyone guessing. The bad guys fear the cops we were, and the supposed good guys fear what we know from our pasts.
It keeps the hounds at bay as our family is growing.
With each day, we have one more person signing on to fight the good fight.
We are covering our bases.
We have an ex-ME who knows the dead. Steele Bentley is on the cusp of becoming my brother. He’s marrying Dante in the next week, and he’s going to be carrying that bull’s-eye on his back too.
He’s got something that is more valuable than all the money in the world.
When he was abducted, he didn’t break. They abused his body, tried to destroy his spirit, and his soul, but they failed.
He was loyal beyond the moment they dropped his battered body into that grave.
He was going to die for the Croft family, and that’s an asset. Steele may be battered and bruised, but when he’s back on his feet, he’s going to help keep this train on the tracks. We deal with the dead.
He’s the king of them.
Having an ME at your fingertips is a blessing. The last two cases, he was able to see the clues in the victims, and that made the difference.
He may think he’s used up, but to us, he’s essential personnel.
But that’s not all…
We don’t have one doctor.
We have two.
Doctor Paris Archer is a psychologist with expertise in criminals. Once working for the FBI, beneath me, he’s now at my fingertips when I need a profile, or to help us keep this family on track.
He can analyze anything.
Anyone.
He can work a case from a totally different perspective, and that makes him incredibly valuable.
He gave up his legs out of love and loyalty, and he’s helped us make a difference. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him.
Nothing.
He’s mine to protect.
Why?
I put him in that chair, and I’ll give him anything he needs to keep his life intact.
Beside Doctor Archer is his girl. Tessa was a Fed, and she’s good with details. We use her a lot to do the legwork. She’s got a propensity to work the details, find the threads that tie them together, and help us reel in a killer.
She helped find the last one with her deep searches, and we are blessed to have her on our team.
In Vegas, so much is fake and a fraud. It’s hard to tell what is real and what is going to bite you in the ass. One can’t be too careful, as you dig for the truth.
Beneath the lies.
Beneath the ugliness.
Beneath the vile disregard for human life.
It’s a never-ending battle, and I have some secret help from the other side.
Yes, I own a cop.
Don’t be surprised.
What kind of gangster would I be if I didn’t have someone working the cases right under the other cops’ noses?
He wants to clean up the corruption, and I think he’s bat shit insane to think he stands a chance.
Just like us.
So, Riley Henderson, the son of a cop, who was the son of a cop, who was the son…
You get my point.
It’s in his blood.
He’s out for justice, and with him on the inside, I know I can pull it off. We have our eyes and ears in place, and we’re ready to do battle.
We have our bases covered.
Our lawyer rounds out the power players on the team. Delilah Fleur is damn pretty to look at, but beneath that defense attorney gleam is a savvy woman who knows what she wants in life.
She defends the wrongly accused.
While the local cops despise her, she has her own little way of taking the bad guys down a notch. Delilah uses her law degree to make their life h
ell.
She’s a nightmare in the courtroom, and she’s playing for Team Croft.
Last, but not least, our newest team member is a child. He was tossed by his family, abused by the system, and now is one of us too.
He knows what the bad side of Vegas looks like, since he was dropped into it as a baby.
Sam is on the cusp of becoming ours.
He’s chosen Dimitri to be his father, and he’ll learn the ropes. Hopefully, we can teach him how to be a bad guy the right way. We have high hopes, and know the boy will do the family proud.
He has light fingers.
He’s silent when he stalks.
He’s got the makings of a perfect criminal.
Emma wasn’t the only one who fell in love. He has all of our hearts.
Sam has found his father-to-be, and he’s staked his claim on the Gideon clan. We are training him to fight for the underdog, like him—to always do what you can—even when it skates the line between wrong and right.
Most importantly, to fight for your family—blood or not.
And he’s learning fast.
He’ll learn from his soon-to-be sisters, his new father, and from me.
I’ll take him under my wing, and he’ll one day run this empire beside my son, my child growing in Emma’s body, and the people we leave behind.
We aren’t just a force to be reckoned with.
No.
We are an empire.
Destiny.
We are the ones you find when you can’t get justice from anyone else.
We are the Gideons and the Crofts, and we are going to save you.
No matter what the cost.
Signed,
Greyson Croft
Prologue
Las Vegas
The Strip
Two weeks Ago…
N o one would notice if she were gone. If she just disappeared from the world, no one would even miss her, and that’s what made this all perfect. She would be off the street in one minute, and in the hands of the buyer by the following week.
She would be cleaned up.
Promised a life.
And trained.
Then, when she was perfectly groomed, ready and able, she’d be someone’s wildest fantasy.
Middle Eastern men.
Russian gangsters.
Men who liked them young.
Men who had to hurt women to get off.
The clientele possibilities were endless.
To them, it didn’t matter where she came from, but that they could pick up a phone and have a girl delivered to their door. That was what gave them power in Vegas.
They had a specialty, and they provided the pedaled flesh in ‘Sin City’.
How apropos?
It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it, and they were the ones to make a name for themselves in the seedy underbelly of that town.
They were damn good at it too.
In the city that never slept, there was a need for fresh, young women—all day and night.
That sweet piece of ass was a commodity, and they’d dialed in to the perfect source.
They’d hit the mother lode.
Vegas was the best city in the country if you were looking for some nubile flesh.
These girls knew no bounds. They were willing to do whatever they were asked if given a little booze, cash, and drugs.
They would open their legs for any man.
They would do anything to survive the streets.
That’s why, after working in New York and Houston, they’d made Vegas their home base. It was a city built on the working girl’s body.
Sex sold in Vegas, at the bunny ranches, in the private transactions between the madams and their clientele, and now with their high-end clients.
It was all good in Vegas.
Well, as long as you weren’t the one being bought and sold. Their expiry date was short, as they’d all come to see.
The women they found were bought, sold, and used up. Most never came back. Most found their way into dumpsters, crack houses, and the city morgue.
That was life.
And death.
It wasn’t their fault. When the johns paid, they bought the full service.
Snuff films.
Sex orgies.
Daddies who liked little girls.
It took all kinds to make the world go around, and they were locked into the sleaziest clientele.
It was perfect.
Then, it started going downhill.
At some point, word spread, and it became harder and harder to find willing girls. These weren’t your normal hookers. When they would go to a buyer, they soon began to realize that they weren’t coming back.
It got harder.
So, no longer were they looking for women to work for them. These girls had to be taken.
It began with tricks, continued with drug addiction, and then off to the men who used them up.
No one liked the words ‘sex slave’, but it happened in Vegas. Trafficking of fresh, nubile flesh was a big market, and they were at the top of the list for supplying the girls.
And they did it with a smile.
The repeat clientele gave them a reputation, and they had earned it. They’d transported, hooked up with pimps for any ‘special’ girls, and then they got them to the training expert.
He was a sick fuck.
He’d let so many people use them, that they were conditioned to perform. They were nothing more than little girls locked in cages, but when the client pulled them out, they were whores with a purpose.
It was dark.
It was evil.
It was a money-making gold mine.
They were living large, and that was a beautiful thing. Everyone knew money talked, but in Vegas, it bought the finer things.
It was good to be powerful.
When the sun came up, the world was a sunny place, but at night, when it was dark, dirty, and dingy, the cheap motels lit up with deviants from every walk of life—they were on the speed dial.
They came to them, begging for a taste of their goods.
The deviants would peek their heads out of the shadows and have incredibly eclectic tastes.
Take the latest buyer.
He wanted young pussy.
She had to be blonde, she had to be under eighteen, and she had to fight like a hell cat.
That’s not easy to find.
Specialties like that were…pricey.
If they were going to pick off the menu, they were going to have to pay a premium. Their Russian gentleman was their best client. He bought, used, and was a return customer.
He’d just put in that order, and it was time to make it happen.
While their buyer waited, they were going to make sure he got what he wanted. With the money being dropped, there could be no mistakes.
So, they began searching.
Finding the perfect girl was a science. You just couldn’t grab anyone and try to pass them off as quality.
So, they hit the clubs.
One by one, they would weed through the prospects to find the perfect girl.
It took days.
Weeks.
Sometimes, months.
Their clientele was patient, and this man didn’t mind the wait. He wanted perfection, and he wanted it to be a right fit.
So, they stalked the women out of the ‘Titty Corral’. They had questionable strippers, and they didn’t follow the rules. Luckily for them, the pimp hanging out there, who they had worked with often, had some fine fillies in his stable.
They saw her.
She was a child.
She was perfect.
The deal was made.
The young girl was handed over with the promise of her being ‘used’ for a few nights.
All was well.
As they got her into the car, they asked her if she wanted to make so much money she could retire.
That piqued her interest.
Then they
gave her water.
Tainted water.
It had enough drugs to knock her on her ass for a week.
That was what they needed to subdue her. They couldn’t risk her getting away, telling the police or her pimp.
They needed her malleable, moldable, and ready to learn for her new life. She was going to the rich Russian, and she was going to be his toy.
When they took the picture, and sent it off, she was drugged, naked, and being trained.
Immediately, he fell in love.
She was blonde.
Young.
And not long on the street.
She was their perfect candidate, and he wanted her for his own.
The deal was done.
The money traded hands.
Only, there was one problem.
The pimp.
It was time to tie up loose ends.
Sitting in the dark alley, the snoozing treasure in their trunk, they waited for him to start his walk home. As he headed out, taking his pimp stroll home, it was time.
He’d made his money, and now he was going to leave this world. He was no longer of any use, and that meant he had to go.
Besides, would Vegas really miss one more pimp? They were a dime a dozen.
So, it began.
The headlights flashed on, the engine raced, and there was the squeal of tires. Before the pimp even knew what hit him, he was dead.
His body met the front of the car, and he flew over the hood, slamming into the metal dumpster. The sick thud told the tale.
They didn’t look back.
They didn’t slow down.
All they did was head back to the training area. It was time to see what this little girl could do.
Oh, the irony.
If only the pimp knew.
In a couple hours, she’d be going ‘home’. She had a new daddy now, and he was going to rock her world.
Or whatever.
She was only flesh. It didn’t matter.
When the money was paid, and the goods delivered, they had fulfilled the contract. That was what mattered most.
The sex trade was a dirty business, but tonight, they’d given their client what he wanted.
Young.
Sexy.
His.
That’s all that mattered, and the best part?
No one would notice her missing. They never did. What was one more slut on the street, passed off to a foreign gentleman who wanted to use her up?
Paid Justice (Croft Family Mob Series Book 3) Page 2