His need for justice was getting under Dominic’s skin. Something had to be done, and he was the man for the job.
He was going to stop the Crofts if it was the last thing he did!
Ever since Randall Mason had died, leaving the man his fortune, life in Vegas sucked.
Yes, he could easily pick up his empire and move, but why should he? That would be like handing Croft a victory and running with his tail between his legs.
It wasn’t happening.
Dominic Marianna didn't run from anyone, let alone the law. Greyson Croft wouldn’t break him.
It wouldn’t happen.
As of late, he’d poked, prodded, and provoked the Fed, and it was working. He could see the man losing his cool, and that was going to be the way to break him.
That icy exterior was going to melt under the heat of what was coming. Before it was over, Greyson Croft would bleed just like the mere mortal he was. The man wasn’t special or above the law. He couldn’t hide beneath the money and power for long.
Eventually, his true colors would come out.
All it would take was a well-timed hit. If it landed on the right sore spot, he’d lose it.
Dominic knew it.
How?
Greyson Croft was just like him. He wanted to pretend he was better than the likes of the Vegas mob, but it was bullshit. Croft was mob material to the core.
He was the same.
Only he wore a badge.
He’d have to strike the man where it hurt the most, and everyone knew who that was.
Emma Croft.
She was his ‘kitten’, and he fawned over her whenever they were out. It was nauseating.
Women were good for one thing, and that’s all. Because Greyson loved his wife, he was giving everyone a clear shot at the only weakness in his armor. He was setting himself up to be destroyed.
A woman would be his downfall.
How perfect was that?
Like so many of the gangsters that came before their time, women were often the end of their careers, and lives.
It would be poetic justice.
Only, the strike at Greyson would have to be foolproof and well timed.
So many had failed.
Dominic had watched Trudy Booker throw just about everything she had at the Crofts, and she failed each and every time.
It was a good thing he scrutinized all of it from the shadows. Studying his competition gave him an edge. A part of him had hoped that Trudy would succeed, and then he could just swoop in and wipe her off the face of the map. Once they were both gone, he’d be king.
It was a short-lived dream.
Unfortunately, Croft and his Russian hired gun had taken care of her…before Emma was dead.
Shit!
Shit!
Shit!
Were they unstoppable?
Was that possible?
How could two do-gooders get so damn lucky?
He had to believe there was a way to take him down. In fact, he was willing to make Vegas look like a warzone in the process.
Yes, they had bodyguards, but there had to be a few places where Dimitri Gideon didn't go. It wasn’t as if he was living with them. He had to go home sometime, right?
Oh, he’d studied him, but the man was an enigma. There was only one thing he was sure of, and that was from working with him.
He was a killer.
The man was Russian and trained to take lives for his government. He’d defected, gone under, and changed his name, but they had crossed paths years ago.
He knew the truth.
Dimitri was the power behind the Crofts.
It made him angry.
The part that pissed him off most was that Croft got him first. With a man like Dimitri in his corner, he’d be unstoppable. Look at the proof. He’d worked for Randall Mason, and he was king.
Now he worked for the Crofts, and they were the upper Vegas echelon.
Damn Randall Mason in Hell!
This was all his fault.
There was no doubt in Dominic’s mind that he could rule the kingdom if he could get Dimitri to his side. Maybe he’d add that to the list. Word in town was that he was buyable to the highest bidder.
Croft had money, but he made the man operate above the law. If Dimitri worked for him, he’d let him be the dirty criminal he knew he was.
What would it matter?
Getting it done was the priority in his world. With Dimitri Gideon, he could rule with an iron fist. To have a hired killer as your right hand man…
It would be sweet.
Then maybe they could make a deal. He’d give Dimitri money and power, and he could rule the kingdom. After the Crofts were gone, he’d possibly get to focus on that sweet piece of ass who worked for Dimitri.
She was his sister, but still…every man had his price.
Well, he’d have to make sure that when the Crofts were done, he picked him up as part of his team. As of late, good help had been hard to find.
Speaking of which…
“Kenneth!” he wailed from behind his desk in the penthouse of the casino.
The attorney came rushing in.
“Yes, boss?” he asked nervously.
“The Crofts are sticking their noses where they don’t belong. Cut them off.”
“Sir…”
He slammed his fists on the desk.
Everything fell over.
“I don’t care what it costs, what the media figures out, or what the Crofts do to try and stop it. This is war! They brought this on themselves, and when it’s done, I’ll make sure they can’t show their faces in this town again!”
Kenneth James wanted off this rollercoaster, but no one said no to Dominic and got away with it.
If you tried, you died.
It was the unspoken law in Vegas. The man was notorious for his temper. If you wanted to screw Dominic over, it had better be done quietly.
If he caught you…you disappeared.
“What exactly do you want me to do?”
“I want to watch them bleed in the streets. First, I want you to make sure that police captain who did the interview dies a horrible death. In fact, I want him and Emma Croft to go down together. Start there.”
Kenneth made notes. “How big do you want to go?” he asked, fearful for the answer. “How much money do you want to spend?”
“I want it to be a blaze of glory, so take out whatever you need to pay the men who do it. I trust you to handle this.”
Kenneth swallowed.
Shit!
This was bad. He was getting dragged further and further into the insanity.
God!
He wanted off this ride.
Look at Levi Hammond. One day, he was working for Dominic, and the next he was gone. Kenneth didn’t believe for a moment that Dom didn’t have him offed. He may have denied it, but this was right up his alley.
He had to keep Dom happy.
His life depended on it.
“This is the wild, Wild West, and we need to show Croft what it’s like to not have his posse to ride to his rescue. Start cutting him off! Box him in! Make him bleed! When you cut off all his arms, he won’t be able to swing back!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you’re going to go after that doctor in the wheelchair. You know…the one now living in Croft’s old condominium. He’s helping him stay ahead of me…I just know it!”
Kenneth made more notes.
“This is going to be costly, Dom. Are you sure you want to go this route?”
“Yes! Do it! Take the money and put it to good use! You have my permission to spend it all to take out the Crofts!”
Kenneth knew the man was losing it.
Here was the proof.
“Then you’re going to take out anyone else who is in my way. Anyone who sides with him is going down. That’s it. I don’t care what the price. It’s time for this to end. It’s time for him to end!” he wailed.
He slid his arm acr
oss his desk, removing everything from the top and into a heap on the floor.
It was time to leave.
Kenneth James rushed out, preparing to take care of business for his boss.
He saw the writing on the wall.
It was coming.
Before long, Vegas was going to have bloodshed. It was time to set this up for Dominic, and then get the hell out of Dodge.
Before it was too late.
Chapter One
One Week Later
Wednesday
It wasn’t exactly a desolate stretch of highway. Route ninety-five ran right through Las Vegas and was the main road for traffic coming and going out of the city. When Dimitri had given her the coordinates, she really thought he was yanking her chain.
It was the last place she would have looked. In Vegas, if you wanted to get rid of a body, you took the victim to the desert. Out there, the vultures would pick the remains clean of any evidence in hours.
Someone was trying to be creative.
Hopefully, that would be their downfall. If they were lucky, there would be some killer’s calling card.
No sane person ditched a body this close to the city limits. How it didn’t get spotted years ago was beyond her. Whoever did it had to be a few marbles short of a game. If this was Dominic Marianna’s kill, he wasn’t thinking this one out at all.
Instead of saying anything to her partner, Emma simply let him drive. Emma knew that this was going to be a very thin line between lying to him and sharing everything she knew. He was a cop and her partner, and she couldn’t risk what was coming.
Or could she?
Mace Bristol was a damn good cop and friend. Emma hoped that if this got ugly, he’d have her back.
And Greyson’s.
As they headed down the road, her partner was talking about normal things. She loved working with him because he was easy going and always willing to go that extra mile.
It was hard to find reliable people in this line of work.
A detective’s life was brutal.
Mace was sturdy, and she appreciated that.
For what was coming, he was going to have to be. They had a shit mess heading their way, and Emma knew what was on the line.
They were about to poke a mob boss.
Who the hell knew what he’d do in response?
If they were all lucky, they’d make it out of this shit-storm alive.
“Emma?” Mace asked, glancing over the top of his mirrored sunglasses. “You’re awful quiet today. What’s bugging you?”
He could see the lines of tension and stress on her face. His partner was carrying one hell of a weight on her shoulders, and in this line of work, that was never a good thing.
“I was thinking about the tip that came in, that’s all.”
Yeah, that was a total lie on so many levels.
There hadn’t been a tip, but as far as anyone needed to know, they definitely had an anonymous call about a body. As long as that held up, they were good.
Now Emma had to cross her fingers and hope for the best.
Mace was incredibly astute.
If there was one detective who could smell bullshit a mile away, it was him. After all, he worked with quite a few shit slingers in the past.
“Someone just called it in?” he asked. “Really?”
She hated creatively bending the truth. When you started lying, it was hard to keep them straight. More often than not, you tripped yourself up.
“Yep. It came in on my line.”
Okay, that part was true.
Emma had made sure to cover all her bases. After talking with Dimitri Gideon and making their plans, she had him call on an unregistered phone. When he immediately pulled one from his pants, Emma didn't ask any questions about it.
She really didn't want to know.
In fact, the less she knew, the better.
Emma already knew plenty about the Gideons. In fact, they had run both Dimitri and his sister Katerina using the woman’s DNA. When Curtis obtained some, they couldn’t help themselves.
Greyson wanted to know who he had let into the hen house. Well, now they did, and it was pretty much what they thought.
Dimitri and Katerina had a bad past.
Still, they gave them the benefit of the doubt. After digging into their lives, they tucked the information away until they needed it.
It was for the best.
So, when Dimitri made the call, the lies began. He left a garbled message on her work line, and she played along. With this, she was going to have to be careful.
They were going to keep the body under wraps.
When dealing with the mob, you had to tread lightly. It meant not knowing who was in Dominic Marianna’s pocket. For all she knew, he could have bought all the techs in the LVPD.
“And the caller only said there was a body?”
She couldn’t look at him.
“Yeah, it was probably some crack head reporting his drug buddy,” she said, brushing it off. “You know how it is. They get high, one dies of an OD, and they dump the body. A few days later, one sobers up and feels guilty about it.”
He laughed. “Ahhhh, Las Vegas—home of the morally screwed up.”
“Tell me about it. This city is a hot mess.”
Mace grinned at her. “We’ll check it out, but if it’s what you just described, I want the name of the psychic you’re using. I need to find a woman.”
She punched him. “I’ve offered to set you up with some showgirls. God knows they’re always shaking their feathers at Dante.”
He snorted. “How’s that working for them? Did they bag themselves a rich Croft?”
Emma was amused.
She’d walked into her brother-in-law’s office at the casino to find the place full of women. They were topless, wearing nothing but thongs and heels, and he was checking out the bouncer.
Oh, the irony.
“Hardly. Dante didn't even bat an eyelash. They were aiming their breasts at the wrong Croft brother.”
“I’ll be one if Dante needs backup,” he teased.
“It was insane, Mace. There were boobs everywhere. I was beginning to get a complex.”
“You had better keep the boss man away.”
Emma wasn’t worried.
She trusted her husband.
When he looked at her, it was in his eyes. There was such love and devotion, that she didn't need to worry about him ever straying. Besides, since he’d created their secret love room, the place had been rocking.
Greyson was getting his sex on, and Emma was enjoying the ride.
Literally.
“I trust Grey. He’s a good man. Besides, he was there one day, and Dimitri told me he never once peeked.”
“He’s a saint. I would have looked.”
She snorted. “You’re single.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Greyson is happy and so am I. I wouldn’t check out the scenery either. When you find that one, you fall into the bliss. I got me a good man.”
Mace patted her on the arm. “Yeah, you really do. You can tell. Your desk is a freaking florist. Thank God, I’m not allergic.”
Emma grinned. “I can get him to send chocolates if you’d like…”
Mace was good with that.
Before Mace could make a comment, they heard the GPS begin chirping their destination.
“I think we’re here,” she said.
Mace looked around. “Shit, Sherlock, where the hell is here?”
She laughed.
As of late, the detectives in their precinct had begun calling her Sherlock. It seemed she was picking up the best cases and closing them with ease.
They thought she’d sold her soul to the devil, when that wasn’t even close.
She was simply in the groove. Her mojo was back, and Emma was being a cop and excelling at it.
“Well, the message gave these coordinates.”
“Did you hear them wrong?”
“You’r
e older than I am, Mace,” she said, pulling her hair back in to a ponytail before yanking on a pair of latex gloves. “If one of us is losing our hearing, it’s likely you.”
“Thanks,” he said, watching her. “Uh, we don’t know there’s a body,” he said, motioning toward her hands as she gloved up.
“Call me crazy, but if someone’s calling my line and leaving coordinates, it’s not to have tea.”
He agreed.
She was probably right, so Mace followed suit.
As they hopped out of her Navigator, they scanned the trees ahead.
“Which way?” Mace asked, glancing down at her phone and the directions.
“It looks like that way,” she said, already knowing where she was going. Before she left the house, Dimitri pulled it up on his computer and plotted it for her. He didn't want her walking into anything that would get her hurt.
After all, he was her bodyguard. Emma didn’t doubt that he was somewhere nearby. More often than not, she had a Russian tail.
Emma faked reading the directions, and instead, she went by what Dimitri had told her.
She trusted him.
Implicitly.
As they headed toward the trees, Mace had that gut feeling. Emma wasn’t acting like herself. In fact, she was chewing on her bottom lip.
That was a sign.
For Mace, that alone made him nervous as hell. He wanted to know what he was walking into, and he expected his partner to be open and honest.
He was going to give her one last shot. Something about this smelled off, and hopefully, Emma would trust him enough to share.
“You know, if there’s something you need to tell me, Emma, I have your back,” he said, as they began walking toward the trees. “I’ve worked with you for a while, and I’m your partner. If you need to talk…”
She had tucked the GPS into her pocket and was navigating without it.
That screamed off to him.
“I’m good.”
“You’re lying.”
She stopped in the middle of the forest and glanced over at her partner. “What? What are you talking about, Mace?”
“I can feel the lie. If you’re going to bullshit me, I’m out of here.”
She needed his help.
Emma couldn’t work this case alone because then Captain Ford would be on her ass. That’s the last thing she needed. While she loved her boss like a brother, the man and her husband had begun building a relationship.
Justice is Dead (Croft & Croft Romance Adventure Book 7) Page 2