Mob Justice

by Morgan Kelley

  Whether you were doing it or not, it didn’t matter. You were screwing with the relationship wasp nest. A woman could get angrier than a hive full of wasps the second the word ‘hooker’ was even mentioned.

  Yeah, this was a new thing for him.

  “I take back all the times I laughed at you for being uncomfortable about doing this,” Dimitri stated. “Now I get it. Hookers and wife/significant other are not synonymous.”

  He laughed.

  Oh, he was aware.

  “Yeah, it blows.”

  They were driving, and this time, it was good to be back to just the two of them. They were partners in this, and honestly, Greyson liked working with him.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Greyson asked.

  “Sure, what?” Dimitri replied as he drove them through the desert to their one destination.

  “Are we done working together?” Greyson asked. “Is this our last case being partners?”

  That caught him off guard.

  “Uh, why?”

  Honestly, that didn’t sit well with him. Dimitri had come to rely on Greyson being his partner in this whole thing. They’d fight a little crime, grab some cigars, and have a bourbon to celebrate. He didn’t see himself doing that with anyone else.

  “Poppy,” he stated.

  “I didn’t think about that,” Dimitri admitted.

  “Well, you have a sexy new partner. I’m the odd man out. I can bump Chris and work with my wife…”

  “Don’t do it.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “No, you’re my partner. We’ve been doing this as a team. I love having Poppy work for me, but I don’t want to work with her every day.”

  He stared at him.

  What?

  “Pardon?”

  “We do illegal things, and I’m not there yet in the relationship. I was thinking we can team her up with Riley or even Tessa until she can’t work.”

  He thought about it.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m not there yet,” he said honestly. “I love Poppy, but—and don’t you dare repeat this—but I like being focused on work at work. The entire time she was on that operation, I was a mess. I can’t be a mess. I have to be focused for the team. This is my job. I love my job, and I loved it before Poppy came into my life.”

  He understood that.

  “I couldn’t work with Emma. I’d be hovering. Chris acts as that intermediary for me.”

  “I think for a while, I’ll have her work in the condo, and get her up to speed. Curtis can teach her some tech, and then Kat can teach her some breaking and entering skills.”

  He paused.

  “What?” Greyson asked.

  “If I had to go to a whore house with my girl, do you know how bad that would be?”

  Greyson laughed and offered him his fist.

  “Preaching to the choir, my brother. I would rather get shot than have a hooker plop down into my lap while Emma watched. In fact, she’d be the one shooting me.”

  “I don’t want a new partner,” Dimitri stated. “You’re my best friend, and you and I have something good together. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  They pulled into the lot.

  “Me too,” Greyson stated.

  “We should kiss or something,” Dimitri teased.

  “WHAT?” Greyson asked. “Where the hell did that come from? And what kind of partnership were you talking about?”

  Dimitri laughed.

  “We’re here and so is the media. I saw the news this morning with Emma making out with Chris. I just…”

  He hit him.

  “Smart ass,” he said, laughing. This was exactly why he liked working with Dimitri.

  The man knew him.

  “Let’s get this hooker interview over with,” Greyson stated. “I have to buy my wife a present.”

  Dimitri laughed.

  “Uh, you need to buy Poppy flowers after this. You’re about to get hooker all over you.”

  He stared at him.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  Greyson grinned.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  Together, they hopped out of the ride, as did the media that was tailing them.

  Greyson ignored their questions, especially the ones asking who the baby daddy was. Dimitri could see him getting agitated.

  He gave a few of them an extra hard shot when they moved past them—in the spirit of friendship.

  At the door, they knocked, and immediately, it opened for them. The woman standing there looked shocked.

  “It’s like sexy mob Christmas,” she stated. “I wanted you both in my whore house for the longest time.”

  Greyson wanted to puke.

  That….

  It was never happening.

  “I’m looking for Elaine Beasley.”

  She held out her hand and grinned wickedly at him.

  “You found her. What can I do for you? I’m available personally if you need some fun.”

  She opened her robe and she was naked.

  This was going exactly how he thought it would. The media was taking pictures, he was at a whore house, and the woman was wearing nothing but garters, an open robe, and a smile.

  Great.

  “Uh, married. Please cover up.”

  She laughed.

  “Then you’re in a bad place, my friend. This is a bunny ranch. We have naked women here. You can bring your wife. We love families.”

  He.

  Was.

  Horrified.

  There was no way that was ever happening. His wife had his son onboard. He didn’t want to even think about him bringing his son to a bunny ranch—especially in utero.

  No way.

  “We were given your name, and we need to ask why,” he said. “Can you please just help us?”

  “Can I sit on your lap?”

  “You can sit in his,” Greyson said, pointing at Dimitri.

  “Really?” he asked.

  Greyson smiled.

  “If Heath was here, he’d take one for the team. My wife is pregnant. That trumps girlfriend. I’ll owe you one.”

  He sighed.

  They headed to a couch.

  He sat.

  She joined him.

  “This is nice, now what can I do for you?”

  “Why was your name brought up by Commissioner Jeffrey Raye?”

  She went to get up.

  Dimitri pulled her down and held a gun to her side to make sure she understood they were NOT messing around.

  “Maybe you might not want to cop a squat in a gangster’s lap. Just sayin’,” Greyson said. “You know…for future reference. We aren’t nice.”

  “I’m not hurting anyone.”

  “Spill it.”

  She hesitated.

  “Listen, if he’s putting pressure on you, we can help.”

  “He said If I kept my mouth shut, he’d keep quiet about one of the things that went on here,” she said.

  “Like?”

  She shook her head.

  “Elaine, help yourself,” Dimitri stated. “You don’t want to die because of him.”

  That seemed to loosen her tongue.

  “He is a client. His favorite girl is here,” she admitted. “He frequented her weekly.”

  “Okay, and?”

  “She got an illegal abortion—past term. I can lose my license if they find out. It was done on the premises.”

  He wanted to smack the stupid out of her.

  “That’s dangerous.”

  “I don’t tell anyone he’s been here, and I keep my license to operate a bunny ranch.”

  “Where’s his girl? I need to talk to her. When was the last time he was here?”

  “I keep records. I can look that up, and her name is Cindy. You can talk to her.”

  “Get her and get the records.”

  They sat there.

  “So he was cheating on his wife, and she was cheating on him. That’s a great reason to kill som
eone.”

  Greyson agreed.

  “What is good for the goose is NOT good for the gander,” he admitted. That totally sounded like something the commissioner would believe.

  She came back with a printout of all the dates. “Here you go.”

  They scanned it.

  “He was here the day she disappeared. It was a Sunday,” Greyson stated.

  Well, that sucked.

  “Yeah, that was normally his big day. He would spend hours with Cindy. He brings Viagra.”

  “Please, that detail, I do not need to know.”

  “Get the girl.”

  She did.

  “This isn’t good,” Greyson whispered. “He’s alibied by the bunny ranch.”

  Dimitri was aware.

  “Maybe he slipped out. How much sex could he possibly handle? It’s a hooker.”

  Dimitri lifted a brow.

  “Are you asking my professional opinion? I had sex once with each hooker. I wasn’t into longevity. I was there to get off. I’m talking thirty minutes max.”

  “Okay, I have to ask,” Greyson began.

  “What?”

  “You just let them ride the junk, correct? You didn’t go down on a hooker, right? If you say yes, I’ll vomit.”

  He laughed.

  “No. I didn’t have oral sex with a hooker. I was horny, not insane.”

  Well, there was that.

  “I hear them,” Dimitri whispered.

  When Cindy came in, she curled up on the couch by Dimitri. “Hey, Sexy.”

  “I already had Elaine. You can flirt with him. One hooker a day is good for me. His lap is free.”

  Greyson glared at him.

  “Seriously?”

  “What are best friends for? Besides, turnabout is fair play.”

  She headed toward Greyson.

  “What do you need, sexy man?” she asked, dropping into his lap.

  Well, to start, a tetanus shot. To follow up, a good divorce attorney.

  “You serviced Jeffrey Raye?”

  She looked over at Elaine to see if it was okay to discuss it with them.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Yes. I was his weekend trick.”

  “How often did he come in?”

  “Every Sunday. He used to joke about how he liked sex three times a week, but he didn’t have time, so he did it in one day.”

  “I bet that was fun.”

  “It pays the bills,” Cindy said with a shrug.

  “How long did he usually stay?”

  She thought about it.

  “Well, he rolled in around eleven, and he wrapped it up around two in the afternoon. The first two orgasms are easy. That last one I have to milk him like a…”

  He stopped her.

  “I will puke.”

  She laughed.

  “Sorry.”

  Well, this was a bust.

  The man was alibied for his wife’s disappearance. Unless he hired someone to handle it, they couldn't just dump this one on him.

  It was time to get out of there.

  “Cindy, if you ever need to get out,” Greyson said, handing her a card with Aquarius’s name on it. “Come see us.”

  “HEY! She’s my best girl!” Elaine protested. “You can’t come in here and do that.”

  Yeah, let her try and stop them.

  As she bitched, they ignored her and headed toward the door.

  “Oh, and if you call and tell him I was here, I’ll shoot you in your sleep.”

  That shut her up—temporarily.

  “Just go!”

  They headed out.

  In their ride, he looked over at Dimitri.

  “We just sat in a whore house for no reason,” Greyson stated. “He’s alibied.”

  “Yeah, and know what sucks more?” Dimitri asked.

  “What?”

  “You have whore on your pants.”

  Croft actually looked down. Then he laughed.

  “You’re a funny one. You have whore on you too. How about we lose these reporters because we do NOT need them seeing us at the next stop.”

  “I can do it. Hold on.”

  Dimitri whipped around in the sand, doing one hell of a donut. He sprayed dust everywhere, and then made his escape. They got a mile away, and there were no media cars behind them.

  “Next stop. Let’s go see a cop. Back to Poppy’s case.”

  They switched gears and began the hunt.

  What could go wrong?

  * * * G R E Y S O N C R O F T * * *

  Tristan Bauer’s

  Home

  Someone had some explaining to do.

  As they pulled up, the man was getting into his vehicle, and that’s when they decided to make their move. As Emma drove, Chris was in the back seat, ready to make his move. Poppy had shotgun, and she was playing lookout.

  This was the best way to handle it.

  They needed to move fast.

  As Emma pulled up—behind his ride, he didn’t see her there. Chris was out, he grabbed him, and shoved him into the vehicle.

  The motivating factor was the gun he’d stuck under his chin.

  Immediately, the man began begging for his life. What a freaking putz.

  “Well, Tristan, nice to see you again,” Emma stated as she drove.

  He swallowed.

  “What did I do?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” he swore.

  Emma, Chris, and Poppy laughed as they drove him away from the safety of his wife, and house.

  “Yeah, everyone says that,” she admitted.

  Emma glanced up in the rearview mirror, and no one was coming up behind them, so it went without a hitch. She headed to an abandoned warehouse where they’d ‘talk’ to the man.

  She didn’t own it, but he didn’t know that. At this point, they could let him worry. It might shake the truth loose.

  When she parked and turned around in her seat, she pointed at Chris.

  “If you shoot him in here, Greyson will be mad. He just bought me this one to replace my blown-up ride.”

  Chris appeared to ponder it.

  “If he talks to us, he lives. If not, we can take him inside and shoot him there.”

  “Works for me,” Poppy said, playing along. This was all kinds of fun.

  “Stop! What did I do?” Tristan asked.

  “You can start by telling us about your relationship with Libby. It’s been brought to our attention that you invested a lot of money, and you may have invested some sweat equity too. I don’t mean home renovation.”

  He swallowed.

  Emma didn’t have proof, but where there was smoke, there was fire. Since Libby slept around, or appeared to, there was a good chance she was rolling around with him too.

  He went to make up some BS, but the click of Chris’s safety shut him down pretty damn fast.

  “Spill it,” Emma stated.

  When he still didn’t tell them what they wanted, she knew what to do.

  It was time to really up the game.

  “Poppy, get the hood and zip ties,” she stated.

  She went to get out.

  “Wait!” Tristan begged.

  “What?” Emma asked, pulling a silencer out of her pocket to hand it to Chris. She’d never use it, but this man didn’t know that. In this case, the rumors and their reputation in Vegas were doing all the heavy lifting.

  “We had a sexual relationship. It started as flirting, and we got hot and heavy.”

  Emma waited.

  “We’d meet before her bruncheon with the girls. We’d hook up at a hotel, we’d go our separate ways, and then wait until the next week to communicate again. Her husband didn’t suspect anything, since she always did a girl’s day, and my wife thought I was finding something to occupy my time.”

  “Nice. You were her husband’s friend.”

  Tristan became that faucet, and the information began pouring out of him.

  “He was abus
ive. I saw the marks. She wanted someone to protect her. I cared about her. I loved her.”

  And that was a good motivator.

  Just not his.

  “Where did the money come from?”

  “My wife got an inheritance. She was busy at work, so I would handle the meetings with Libby. My schedule was less hectic. I could leave school on my lunch break—or so I told her. Libby and I handled that too in our ‘meetings’. It went from there.”

  “Oh, Tristan.”

  “Don’t tell my wife! She doesn’t know. I’ve been good the last four years. I’ve tried to be better. I’ve stopped cheating. Libby was different.”

  “Was she going to leave her husband?”

  When he didn’t answer, Chris nudged him with the gun to get him to spill it.

  “Yes. We were both leaving.”

  He began crying.

  “Please don’t tell my wife. I don’t want to lose my family.”

  “Really?” she asked. “You didn’t care if you lost Emily before, but now that your mistress is missing, and presumed dead, it’s all fine and dandy to stick around?”

  “The last four years have been better. Emily quit her job, she’s been more involved in our marriage. That place she worked sucked them both in!”

  Emma didn’t care.

  She jerked her head.

  Chris opened the door and shoved him out. He cowered on the ground.

  “Don’t kill me!”

  Chris closed the door and Emma pulled away.

  “He can walk. I don’t like cheaters.”

  Poppy laughed.

  “What?”

  “You have the best job. Here, I was playing by the rules, but they talk so much more when you threaten them. Who needs that pesky law thing?”

  Yeah, she was aware.

  “Where to now?” Poppy asked.

  “We have two suspects from this lead. Tristan, the wandering dick gave us Emily Bauer and Jeffrey Raye. Both were the people being cheated on, and that might be enough to make them snap.”

  Chris saw the look.

  “You are thinking something.”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Care to let us in?”

  Maybe it was premature, but Emma had that nagging feeling in the pit of her gut.

  It was the one that pointed her at the least likely person. It was making her wonder…

  “What would a woman do to keep her man?” Emma asked. “I know what I would do.”

  Yeah, and it would mean someone’s death.