Dante dropped his fork and began dialing his fiancé. He was scared shitless.
Was he a runaway groom?
Could he be so close yet so far from getting his partner to the altar?
He didn’t answer.
Then he dialed Dimitri.
He didn’t answer.
“I don’t like this,” he said.
None of them did.
Emma got up, and she headed to the control center on the kitchen wall. She entered a few passwords, and she had the cars pulled up.
“Uh, how did you get Dimitri’s passwords?” Greyson asked.
“I figured them out.”
“What are they?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows. “He won’t tell me. He does everything in Russian, and I don’t know what the hell he’s saying.”
“Learn Russian,” she offered. Little did her husband know that his passwords were in English.
“Uh, America. I’m not in Mother Russia,” he said with a cheesy accent.
It made Natasha giggle. “Thank God. That was bad.”
Emma winked at her.
“I did the footwork. Besides, I was only a detective. Do you mean that MR. FBI doesn’t know?” she teased.
He ignored that.
Instead, he turned on the camera in Dimitri’s vehicle. There was the man, driving along. He was on the phone with someone, talking in Russian.
Both Kat and Natasha stopped eating.
“What did he just say?” Greyson offered.
Emma picked up a few words.
“He’s tracking that killer, isn’t he?” she asked. While she was learning, he was speaking so fast.
They all waited for Natasha and Kat to answer. Slowly, Natasha glanced at her sister, they shared a look, and then she nodded.
“What did he say?”
Neither girl wanted to rat their brother out. Only, they didn’t have a choice.
“Girls!”
They caved.
“He’s dumping a lot of money into the seedier side of Vegas to find Viktor.”
She wasn’t surprised.
“What about Babylon?”
They were shocked she’d caught it.
“Listen, I’m smart. I can tell when someone in our family is hiding shit and going rogue. What is going on?”
“He’s trying to buy back his debt, or…”
Emma didn’t need to know what the ‘OR’ was going to be. Someone was going to be dying.
Well, she knew enough.
Emma pushed the button, alerting him.
He stopped his conversation. “Yes, Emma?” he asked, as he continued to drive.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Steele wanted to see someone this morning. I couldn’t let him go out alone, and everyone else was asleep.”
“Dimitri, are you safe?” she asked.
He laughed. “Are you worried about me?” he inquired, pulling over to park.
“Yes, we are.”
“Steele is in the rich part of town. I think I’m good. He said something about seeing a woman named Camille.”
Dante started choking.
Chris pounded on his back to stop the man from choking to death.
“That’s his mother,” Greyson told their head of security. “She’s a pain in the ass.”
“What the hell is he thinking?” Emma asked.
“Do you want me to pull him and get him back to the house?” Dimitri asked. “I can shoot him in the leg,” he teased.
Dante stared at his brother, hoping the man would say something.
“He’s kidding, right?”
Kat laughed. “You can’t tell from the humor in his voice?” she asked.
“That’s Dimitri Gideon. There’s NEVER humor in his voice!”
He may have had a point.
“No, but just make sure he’s back here in time to get ready for the wedding. If he does try to be a runaway groom, then shoot him,” Emma teased, winking at Dimitri through the camera.
“On it.”
Dante closed his eyes. “Why can’t my wedding day be filled with debauchery and food like everyone else’s?” he asked. “Is it too much for me to want people making out in closets, or flashing their man bits at each other?”
That made Emma laugh. “What the hell kind of wedding did you think I was planning?” she teased.
“I just want to get married,” Dante stated. “How freaking hard is it to have a normal wedding?”
“My wedding was normal,” Curtis said.
“Mine too,” Greyson offered. “Emma is easy though. I just had to flash her my smile and…”
She gave him a smack.
Curtis was grinning.
“Shut up, Curtis.”
“I didn’t say anything,” he offered, holding his bad arm. “Don’t be mean.”
“Your smile said plenty,” Dante offered. “I just need to get him to say ‘I do’. This should not be this damn hard!”
Emma gave him a kiss.
“Trust Dimitri. He’ll handle it.”
Dante wasn’t so sure. As of late, the man seemed distracted, and they did have some other Russian gunning for them.
That couldn’t be good.
At all.
* * * G r e y s o n C r o f t * * *
Across Town
Spanish Heights
Steele couldn’t believe he was back at his mother’s house in the neighborhood he grew up. He’d fled from this rich, obnoxious lifestyle to be a normal person.
Then he fell in with the Crofts.
Only, they weren’t in your face wealthy. They would watch a game, drink beer, and wear jeans. Here, in this neighborhood, he was always the outsider.
And it had sucked.
He hated coming back.
After the last time they met, he wanted to never see her again. Well, that was his plan, but he was compelled to put this last remaining issue away from his past. Then he could move on and be the husband he was meant to be.
It was time to close the book on this horrible part of his life. He wanted to let it go, and be free.
He had no respect for the woman who lived here.
Why?
She was a horrible mother.
When he’d been hurt, and in the hospital, she never came to see him. Her own child, and she never cared enough to see if he was alive.
After that, he swore he’d see her at her funeral first, but then he had an epiphany.
If he wanted to start this new part of his life, he had to let the old part go.
So, he was standing on her doorstep early on a Saturday morning. He knew she’d be up. She always went to church on Saturday to meet with her women’s group, so they could worship the god that she swore called him an abomination and sin.
This was apropos.
She was the abomination, judging others and being a horrible mother.
Climbing up the stairs, he knocked on the door.
He really hated this hellhole. It was the worst place for a child growing up, and he still loathed it. While it was a huge house, bought with ill-gotten gains, that wasn’t the ugliest part of its past. The person who lived there was.
She was fake.
It was pseudo love covered under dirty money from his father’s ties to Dominic Marianna.
Well, fuck it.
He was facing her down.
As he heard footsteps, he waited.
The woman who opened the door stared at him. “She doesn’t want to see you. After your last visit…”
“That’s okay. I’ll just shout it from here, so the neighbors will know my mother’s dirty laundry. Doesn’t her friend live across the street?” he asked, craning his neck to see the house.
It worked.
“I’ll tell her you’re here. You can wait.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t come in. My father slept around. Who knows what I’ll catch in there? We GAY men have to be careful…”
She slammed the door in his face, and it made him smile. It
was a petty victory, but he was going to take it. Any win over Camille was one to be celebrated.
Then, he could hear his mother. There were the angry footsteps heading his way. There was the clipping of her temper measured out in each step.
Oh, she was pissed.
Good.
It was time they had this final face-off. It was time he stood up for himself to set his past free.
She whipped open the door and stared at him.
“What do you want?”
“I was going to be an asshole, and mention you in the social papers about you not attending my wedding today, when I realized I hadn’t invited you.”
She stared at him.
“I was invited. That vile gangster’s brother came here to invite me. I told him no.”
He loved his fiancé.
Of course he’d remember and do this. Well, he was going to follow up.
“Well, that’s good to know. I was here to officially ask you to come. My half-brother, Bentley Herron will be there, and I figured you could have a conversation with him. Since he’s not gay, and is father’s other child.”
Her face pursed up.
“I wonder where the gay gene came from then?” Steele asked. “Wait, doesn’t your sister, Aunt Bunny, have that female friend of hers? You know…her ‘special’ sleep over buddy?”
Camille went red.
“I bet you think this is funny. You had to embarrass me more, didn’t you?”
He laughed. “It’s not about you, Camille. I learned that last night watching someone I love putting someone in their place. It’s about your child—the one you neglected, verbally abused, and made miserable for his whole life so you could look like the ideal person.”
She went to close the door.
“No, you’re going to listen and listen well. I forgive you, Camille. I forgive you for the path you put all of us on by being a bitter, cold woman. Had you not been so vicious, angry, and mean, father might not have turned to someone else. This isn’t about him, or about me. It’s about YOU.”
She looked horrified.
“This was the world you created, and I don’t want to play into it. So, you’re invited to my wedding—my gay wedding—at the house of a notorious Vegas gangster, who will be my brother-in-law.”
“I would rather drop dead than go there. I hear what everyone says goes on there.”
“You did? Oh my God! Did someone find out that we have big family dinners on Sundays, and that everyone eats breakfast together as a unit? Shit! I really hope they don’t look down on us!”
“You’re a horrible son.”
“Well, you were a horrible mother, and a horrible human being, so what did you think I’d end up like? A Nobel Prize winner?”
“Go away. We are done.”
Well, he wasn’t.
“I forgive you because one day, you’ll be close to death, like I was, and it won’t matter. I fought to have one more moment with the people I love. You will too.”
“Don’t count on it.”
He lifted his eye patch to show her his destroyed face. “Trust me. Death is ugly, mother, but not as ugly as your heart. I’m sorry you couldn’t love me, but I found my family, and my brother. I’m going to be a Croft in…Five hours.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“No, Camille, I’m not. I’m loved, and that’s more than you’ll ever have. Father cheated on you, and he actually loved her. Did you know that? He found his soulmate in that woman, and would have left you for them if you weren’t vicious. He stayed with you because you have a cancer in you that spreads. You’re ugly inside, and really, mother, that tweed is so nineteen ninety. Update your wardrobe. People are talking about you.”
She stared down.
“Oh, and he died loving her—not you.”
The woman glared at him.
“You could have had my love. A child is innocent. They love their parents without questioning their motives. You don’t have that either. You have nothing. So, as you sit up here in this big house, you can stay alone. That’s your choice, but it won’t be because of me. You had the opportunity to come to me and say you were sorry.”
“Never.”
He didn’t think so. “I still forgive you for being a cold, evil person.”
He turned. “Oh, and your eyes are yellowing. That’s a sign of bilirubin buildup. Your liver is failing, and likely from all the booze you drank while you mourned your perfect family. When you see father, because you will, and soon, send my regards.”
Steele began walking away.
“You’ll burn in hell.”
He laughed. “I lived through hell. I’m free. Oh, and the house next door that’s for sale? I’m going to have my GAY husband buy it, since he’s loaded, and we’re going to paint it rainbow colors to make you miserable. Then we’re going to have GAY sex all over the lawn. Don’t watch, Camille. It might get your pulse racing. He’s sexy as fuck, and he knows how to use his dick!”
She gasped.
With that, Steele headed toward his ride. When he got there, Dimitri was leaning against it.
“Sexy as fuck, huh? All over the lawn? Knows how to use his dick?” he asked, trying not to laugh.
“Yes, he is, and I’d be stupid not to ride that soldier all night long.”
Dimitri patted him on the back. “Are you ready to head home? It’s really not safe out here, and your sexy soldier wants to get you to the altar—today.”
He felt liberated.
“I could kiss every man on this street. For the first time, I’m truly free. She can’t break me. No one can break me but me!”
Dimitri pointed at him. “Uh…awkward.”
“Figuratively.”
Dimitri sighed.
He didn’t want to ruin the man’s fun. What was one kiss? He’d done far worse things than share affection with someone of the same sex.
“She’s watching. Kiss the Russian killer. You’ll really kill her.”
“Really?”
“Go for it. I won’t tell your husband-to-be, if you don’t tell him. Dante will try to kick my ass, and I like him.”
Steele took that opportunity. He planted one right on the Russian’s mouth.
It was hot.
It was steamy.
And it was the perfect picture to leave his mother.
When he set him free, Steele was smiling.
“Let’s go. I have to marry my man.”
“Tossed over by a gay man too. This is not my week to find love,” he teased, heading to his ride.
“Dimitri?”
“Yeah,” he asked, stopping at his SUV door.
“Thank you. That was like my bachelor party. I appreciate it.”
He laughed.
“I feel really cheap, but anything for family.”
Yeah, those were words to live by for everyone.
* * * G r e y s o n C r o f t * * *
Terrace Glen
Pool House
Chris was stalling.
He wanted to spend as much time with Natasha before the wedding. It was hard to not spend all his day staring at her, or touching her. Chris knew that Dimitri was always watching, so he was trying to be a gentleman in his presence, but it wasn’t easy. Natasha was always sitting in his lap.
That made him damn hard.
Literally.
Truth be told, he wanted to pounce as much as possible.
When she exited the bathroom, there was a towel wrapped around her body.
“Are we getting ready?” Natasha asked, checking him out. Chris was wearing his boxers, and nothing else. Behind his head, his hands remained clasped. It appeared he had no intention of getting ready for the festivities.
“Soon.”
He tracked her around the room with his blue eyes. Natasha loved when he watched her.
“You look gorgeous as always,” he added.
“I’m wearing nothing but a towel.”
Oh, he was aware.
“Yeah
, and no man is going to prefer clothes over that—well, no straight man.”
She smiled at him, trying to flirt. Her sister had told her that men liked it, so she was trying to learn how to be more like Emma and Kat.
It had to be working. His boxers began tenting, and she knew what that meant.
Sex.
Chris watched as she dropped all that red hair from the messy bun that had been holding it up.
Towel.
Hair.
Long legs.
Yeah, he wanted her.
Plus, that one look turned him on, and he couldn’t help but have totally dirty thoughts about what he wanted to do to her.
“You’re making me nervous,” she admitted, as she dabbed some perfume behind her ears.
“Am I?” he asked.
“Yes. You look like you want to pounce.”
He laughed. “You can say that.”
Natasha approached him, and she figured she needed to get him to focus. “What do you want to do?” she asked. “You know, before the ceremony.”
“You. I want to do you.”
Her heart skipped.
“Chris,” she said, enjoying him watching her. There was something about knowing an older man wanted her. The way he always wrapped himself around her, protecting her.
It was amazing.
She had always wanted to feel this need, and it was happening. Natasha still couldn’t believe it. Fate had given her a wonderful man to make her whole.
It made the butterflies flutter in her stomach.
“Come to bed, Natasha,” he said, his voice already thick with need.
She moved toward him.
“Lose the towel. I want to see my girlfriend.”
Natasha did as he asked because the heated look in his eyes made her wet. It made her body react with just the sound of his voice.
As she dropped the towel, he was staring at her. His eyes tracked up and down her body, settling on her breasts. Natasha knew they were his favorite part.
He spent a lot of time focused on them.
“I want you here with me now.”
Her breath hitched.
She was perfectly fine with that.
Chris had a way of driving her wild with just a look. He was a man of very few words. His face said it all.
Wedding of Our Dreams: Dante & Steele (Croft Family Mob Series Book 0) Page 12