Paid Justice (Croft Family Mob Series Book 3)

by Morgan Kelley

  The woman did that.

  “Was anyone hassling her?”

  “Other than Gerald? He was an asshole,” Goldy said. “He made her degrade herself. I know you’re thinking…she’s a hooker, she’s degrading herself, but Gerald was a scumbag.”

  Croft met him.

  He agreed.

  “Did he hurt her?”

  She nodded.

  Emma handed her a bill.

  “What else?”

  “He’d bring her here with some guy.”

  “What guy?” she asked.

  “He bounces at the club.”

  That had her attention. “Roscoe McKinney?”

  She smiled. “YEAH! He’s a letch. He’s always asking for freebies, and frankly, I’d rather fuck a snake.”

  She got it.

  He skeeved her out too.

  It also intrigued her since he was pretty adamant that he didn’t touch her. Not that she believed him at the time, but still…

  “So, he knew this place intimately?”

  One of the pimps laughed. “Oh yeah. Gerald, and don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he’s gone, has a set up down there.”

  She didn’t want to know.

  Emma could imagine.

  “Name?” she asked.

  “Fast Louie.”

  She stared at him.

  “I don’t have to give you shit, red. You are going to pay them, and they will pay me.”

  “Chris. Greyson?” she said.

  Both men headed his way.

  He looked worried.

  Then he took a fist to the gut, one to the face, and he hit the ground.

  “Not bad for being chubby, right?”

  Emma laughed. “We aren’t the cops. You call them, you turn up in the water treatment plant in the chemical bath. You’re as good as dead. You might want to learn some manners. Red has a temper.”

  Greyson lifted a brow. ‘Really?’ he mouthed.

  Where did his wife get this stuff?

  The chemical bath?

  Red has a temper?

  She almost laughed out loud.

  “Jesus! Okay,” he said, as the girls helped him up. “My name is Casey Fields. I took over Gerald’s corral. I didn’t have to, but I wanted to help the girls out.”

  They didn’t buy his kindness at all. He wanted more pussy to sell. They weren’t stupid, but at least now he was scared and he might talk.

  “Well, Casey, have any of the girls talked about that basement?”

  He shook his head.

  “No, but there was one person who sent her girls there to talk to clients. By ‘talk’ I meant with their bodies.”

  She got it.

  “Who?”

  “Stephanie Phelps.”

  Emma knew that name sounded familiar. “Grey?”

  “She’s the madam who sent Marissa,” he said, keeping his voice low. He was cautious not to use Dimitri’s name. People talked, and he’d protect his friend.

  “She sends girls there?”

  “She has a clientele that likes certain things of an eclectic manner. That place caters to men who like…domination of sort, and other things.”

  They got the picture.

  Goldy agreed. “I tried to work for her. It’s safer on the streets. She sends her regulars the new girls first, and then, if they don’t do their job, they get released. That always means a pimp. In this case, Gerald. She has a high turnover.”

  “Who gets sent there?” she asked, pointing to the building.

  “Anyone Gerald tagged as ‘special’.”

  This basement sounded worse and worse.

  She handed Goldy money.

  “Looks like we’re taking a trip to see a madam,” Emma stated.

  “Kinky, red,” stated Casey.

  “Fast Louie, if you want to be Dead Louie, keep it up,” Greyson stated.

  The man clammed up.

  Emma was lost in thought. She could tie a madam to a pimp, who sent her castaways to Gerald, and they ended up at the playpen. Julie worked for Stephanie, and she’s stripped at ‘The Pink Kitty. Then, she was Gerald’s girl who was sold into the sex trade.

  Why?

  Emma needed to see how they connected, other than that strip club.

  Greyson had a question.

  “Have you ever seen these girls here?” he asked, thinking about the Jane Does they’d connected to the case.

  He showed them the pictures.

  “Yeah, they were here. They hung with Gerald and then they just disappeared,” Goldy offered.

  That told him everything.

  He was the link, his death wasn’t an accident, and he was likely selling the girls off, but how?

  There was a player no one was mentioning, but they believed he played a huge role. Anthony Delmarco must have brought them here.

  He was the mule for Gerald and the sex ring.

  “Thanks for your help,” he said.

  Emma handed Goldy more money and headed toward the apartment building.

  They were going to go in, kick in a door, and raid the place. All illegally, but it was still going to happen.

  “When we leave, we bring Marissa,” she said. “I don’t like it here. This place…it’s the epicenter. Gerald was here, Julie was here, and we need to know how Stephanie, the madam, connects.”

  He agreed.

  “We also have to figure out how Anthony Delmarco fits this, and what got him shanked. Were they over it? How does Louis Mateo fit this?”

  Emma didn’t know.

  YET.

  But she would. She was on the trail of this sex ring.

  “Let’s go see what’s in this creep’s playroom.”

  There was one thing he knew.

  It wasn’t going to be good.

  * * * G r e y s o n C r o f t * * *

  Across Vegas

  Dimitri finally managed to get the doctor to sign out Curtis into his care. All it took was a fistful of cash to persuade him that the man would be in good hands.

  It was just more proof that everyone in Vegas was on the take.

  Cash was king.

  As he was getting them loaded up in an ambulance, his cell rang. It was the house phone and his heart began thumping in his chest.

  “Dad, it’s me,” came the innocent voice.

  “Are you okay, Sam?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Natasha is here, and I wanted to order a pizza, but she said I had to ask you first if it was okay. I didn’t want to make you mad.”

  “First off, you can’t make me angry for wanting food, Sam, so stop worrying about it. Secondly, order a few pizzas for everyone. I’m on my way home with Curtis.”

  It got quiet.

  “Is he okay? He’s not going to die, right? I like Curtis a lot.”

  Dimitri was touched by the affection in his voice for the young man. It proved he was assimilating into the family like he should be.

  How could he run?

  It would mean taking Sam, too, and that wouldn’t be fair to him.

  “No, he’s not going to die. He’s actually doing good. Do you want to talk to him?” Dimitri knew the boy worried about losing any of them. He’d finally found a home, and he was scared.

  “Okay.”

  He handed his phone to Curtis, who was clearly in pain. “Sam wants to talk.”

  He put on a strong face and tried to keep his voice neutral so the child didn’t worry.

  “Hey! How’s it going, little buddy? Are you okay?” Curtis asked.

  “Are you going to die?”

  Curtis laughed. “I’m not dying. In fact, once I’m better, you’re dying in that new game.”

  “No way.”

  “Yeah, way. Make sure you order a pizza with pepperoni. I need my grease. They wanted to feed me green Jell-O. Who does that to a person?”

  The kid laughed. “Total torture. It’s like Emma feeding me yogurt.”

  Curtis flinched when the ambulance hit a bump. “Yeah, it is. She’s totally a
mom.”

  That had Sam relaxing.

  “Can I talk to my dad?” he asked.

  Dimitri took the phone.

  “Yes?”

  “Cash or charge?” he asked.

  “Tell the housekeeper to use the credit card. I want you and Natasha to stay inside. You’re in charge of protecting her, okay? We have someone coming after us, and I need you to follow her around.”

  Dimitri knew it would help Sam to have a job. When he was trying to get Natasha and Katerina to heal, he had to give them something to keep them focused.”

  “I’ll keep her safe. You can count on me, Dad!”

  “There was never a doubt in my mind, Sam. I’ll be home within the hour. No pizza until we get there.”

  “Aww!”

  “It’s polite to wait, Sam.”

  He sighed. “Okay, Dad. I love you.”

  His heart skipped.

  “I love you, too, Sam. Be good to your sister and be the man of the house until I get there.”

  He hung up.

  His heart actually hurt.

  Curtis was watching him. “You look upset. What’s going on?”

  “I need a favor.”

  Curtis lifted a brow and so did Katerina. It wasn’t like this man to ever ask anything from anyone.

  He could see it was serious.

  “Okay. What?”

  “If anything happens to me, I need you both to adopt him and make sure he’s okay. No matter what, you give him love. Please.”

  “Dimitri.”

  Tears filled Katerina’s eyes. “You can’t say stuff like that, Dimitri. Nothing can happen to you. If you die…”

  She couldn’t finish.

  Dimitri wrapped his arms around her and whispered in her ear in Russian.

  She nodded.

  Curtis didn’t want to hear any of this. “You’re going to be fine. Emma and Greyson…”

  Dimitri stopped him.

  “My blood put that hole in you to get to my sister. He’s not done. He’s going to risk everything. I’m going to be next, after he takes her and Natasha out. He’s going to make me want to suffer. The only way to do that is to hurt my sisters.”

  It was true. He’d been tortured, abused, betrayed, and broken, and his soul didn’t matter. He could handle anything the man threw at him.

  He couldn’t handle them being hurt.

  “Dimitri.”

  “Promise me. You’re my favorite.”

  Curtis got it.

  Greyson had once asked him to take care of Emma if he went down.

  “If something happens, I’ll do it. He’ll have me.”

  Dimitri did something Curtis didn’t expect. He gave him a kiss on the forehead before leaning into the opening between the driver and the passenger seat of the ambulance.

  “Let me out. Take them to the house,” he said, as the Ambulance slowed down.

  “Where are you going?” Curtis asked.

  “I have something to handle,” he said, as he opened the back doors. When he jumped down, he stared at his sister.

  “Get your husband home and stay inside. I’ll be back later.”

  He slammed the door, and there was a tap on the ambulance.

  Katerina slid to the window to stare out.

  He was gone.

  “What the hell is he thinking?” Curtis said, seeing the panic in his wife’s eyes.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think he is thinking.”

  And that worried them.

  A lot.

  * * * G r e y s o n C r o f t * * *

  Vine Street

  Apartment

  Building

  There was only one door with a number on it in the basement, so they figured that had to be it. Taking precautions, they knocked.

  Nothing.

  “This has to be it. Kick it in,” Emma stated.

  Greyson stepped back and let Chris have the door. He pulled a gun, and so did Emma.

  That was new.

  Emma hadn’t carried a sidearm in a while. Clearly, she felt the need to have one. That spoke volumes of the atmosphere in Vegas.

  Emma held up her fingers.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Chris kicked the door in, and the place was dark, dank, and miserable. Emma hit the light switch and the place flooded with shitty UV light.

  That’s when she saw it.

  God!

  She wished she hadn’t.

  There were cages lining the wall.

  “I need to think those were for dogs,” Emma said, before anyone could say anything. “Let me pretend and no one destroy that illusion.”

  The men knew the truth.

  Gerald was a sick fuck. There was a word for what happened there, and it wasn’t training.

  It was abuse.

  He’d locked girls in them, likely for the enjoyment of buyers. It was a good thing he was dead.

  If not, Greyson would have killed him.

  Chris picked up a box.

  “We have about one hundred discs in here. Anyone want to bet what’s on them?”

  Greyson knew the answer to that, too, and it turned his stomach at the mere thought of it.

  “He filmed them.”

  “Looks like we’re watching garbage later,” Emma stated, digging through the things that were in there. The décor was sparse, but there was pile of personal effects. She hoped they’d find something that would help.

  In the pile, she found a purse.

  Immediately, she dug through it to find some kind of identification.

  It was Julie’s.

  “She was here. I found a receipt inside. She was going to a clinic.”

  “Health or Methadone?” Croft asked.

  “We’ll have to check later.”

  “Okay, we’ll take that too,” Greyson said to Chris who was holding the box with all the DVDs. “We can’t be here long. It is breaking and entering with weapons.”

  She laughed.

  Until she saw the big bed with chains on it.

  It stole her breath, and she actually had to wipe her eyes from the horrors that flooded her mind.

  Those poor girls.

  Someone should have saved them, but no one did, and that was the issue.

  “Are you okay?” Chris asked, touching her arm.

  Was she?

  No.

  Would she be?

  Maybe.

  “Yeah, let’s go get Marissa. I want to be a bitch, and you two don’t deserve it. This place is making me angry.”

  Well, they got that.

  They followed her out, pulling the door closed behind them. Hopefully, no one would use the place again. That was more of a reason they needed to find the people heading the sex ring.

  Playpen, their asses.

  It was a room of torture and nothing else.

  Upstairs, Greyson knocked on the door to Julie’s old apartment. When no one answered, he banged a little harder, in hopes that Marissa was simply asleep or in the shower.

  Still, nothing.

  Greyson really hoped and prayed the woman wasn’t out trying to find her sister’s killer by herself. After what they found downstairs, it was dangerous.

  The last thing they needed was to lose Marissa and have her turn up in the morgue. Dimitri specifically asked that she be brought to Terrace Glen for a reason.

  He had to be worried.

  He kicked the door, once more hoping the woman would head their way, and they could head home to where it was a little bit safer.

  “She’s not answering,” Chris said.

  Before he could comment, the apartment beside Julie’s had a head peeking around the door.

  “Are you looking for Julie’s sister?” the girl asked, keeping her voice low.

  “Yeah, do you know where she went?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, but I do know she was dressed up in some of her sister’s clothes as she was heading out.”

  Chri
s’s eyes went big.

  Emma, was at her breaking point. “I will kick her ass myself.”

  Greyson knew why.

  This was going to be bad.

  Really, really bad.

  Dimitri was going to go nuts.

  * * * G r e y s o n C r o f t * * *

  Marissa had seen them talking to the people on the corner from the one window in her sister’s apartment. It pissed her off that they were giving her menial tasks at ‘Aquarius’ and sending her to the apartment like a child.

  She could help.

  Whether they liked it or not, she was part of the whole thing. While the family seemed to be hellbent on keeping her out, Marissa was done with it.

  She figured if they weren’t going to include her in the investigation, she was going to do it on her own. It’s not like she hadn’t done it before.

  She was taking matters into her own hands.

  She could ask about Julie, and maybe they’d help her out since her sister had been part of that group. So, with her mind made up, she donned stripper gear, and she hit the street the second she’d seen them disappear into the building.

  Marissa figured she’d be fine. After all, the killer wasn’t after her.

  She’d get to the bottom of this.

  Marissa tried to play nice. She’d called Dimitri but he wasn’t answering his phone, and the Crofts were keeping it quiet by not including her.

  It pissed her off.

  They weren’t working for her.

  They were working for themselves. It was probably some glorified cause of theirs, and she wasn’t going to let them ride her sister’s death to more power and fame.

  She was going to solve this on her own.

  So, she began her questioning. The hookers on the corner didn’t take her seriously. In fact, they mocked her, and one threatened to cut out her reproductive organs to make earrings.

  That’s when she heard someone coming up behind her, and the hookers looked scared.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  Marissa turned.

  It was Greyson Croft, and he wasn’t alone.

  “I was…”

  He stopped her. “You’re coming with us. We need to get you to our house.”