* * *
Saturday Morning
While Emma was at the attorney’s office, acting as representative to Randall Mason’s reading of the will, Greyson opted to hang out at home.
He knew he should have followed, but he just couldn’t.
At that moment, he was feeling hollow.
Finding justice had left his heart broken. In all honesty, he missed his friend. Curtis had wiggled his way into their hearts, and now his absence had left a vicious hole. While Greyson had told Emma it would be okay after time, he was seriously beginning to doubt that.
Texts were ignored.
Calls sent to voicemail.
His partner held a wicked grudge.
When there was a knock to the door, he headed there a little confused. There were only a few people who had access to the building without being announced by security. None of them would knock. Instead, they’d use their keys.
As he opened it, his heart sunk.
There stood Curtis Briggs, and he didn't look happy.
“Yes?” Croft asked.
“I came to get my things,” he stated.
Immediately, he stepped back. “Okay. They’re in your room.”
When the man walked past him, much like he would a stranger on the street, it drove the knife deeper into his heart. They’d been through a lot in two years, and while he knew risking Brynn had been a bad idea, he had no choice.
He just didn't see how to make the boy see that.
When Curtis returned carrying his cardboard box of comic books and dragging a suitcase, it clearly stated the finality of it all. He was flying the coop.
“Here’s your key,” he said, dropping it in his hand.
“Curtis, can we talk?” Greyson asked.
“There’s nothing to say, Director. The other day you thought like an FBI boss, not someone with our best interest in mind. That nearly cost me my wife. While you can live with that, I can’t. I would never risk Emma. I would have protected her to my final breath because she’s yours. When it all came down to it, I assumed that you would do the same.”
The guilt piled on.
“I’m sorry, Curtis. Sometimes we have to make decisions we don’t like,” he offered. Thank God, he didn't let Emma wear this bull’s-eye.
This conversation would have broken her heart. He knew that for a fact, since it was doing just that to his.
Curtis knew the man well enough. He could see the emotion in his eyes, and hear the pain in his voice. Instead of offering him peace, Curtis let the anger lead the way. The last week had made him furious, not only with the director, but with himself.
They’d risked an innocent woman--his woman.
That was just wrong.
“It’s too late, Director. The damage is done. Brynn is broken and may never be the same again. He abused her, and it was all done unnecessarily. You and Emma fucked this up, and all in the name of closing a case. Family should always come first. That was what I loved most about the man I called brother. He’d protect his family at all costs.”
His temper lit inside his gut. He got it. They let Brynn get hurt, but if the man thought they didn't feel horrible enough about it, he was an idiot.
“Curtis, I’m trying very hard to respect you, despite your lack of the same courtesy. We get that you’re mad, and for the time being, I’ll carry that.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Director Croft. I forgot that you have the final say on everything. I nearly lost my heart, and I think you did a piss poor job of leading us. Never in my two years did I think I’d say that to you. Before this, I would have followed you into hell.”
Enough was enough. This man-child didn't know what hell was. Croft had lived it through a war, through years of bleeding for the FBI, and having to watch so much pain around him.
“You should leave, Curtis. I hear you loud and clear. You have a family now. You no longer have use for me. Just as a parting note, you broke the law by killing a man in cold blood. You didn't follow FBI procedure, and I covered for you. Consider that my parting gift to you. The next fuck up, it’s your problem. You hate the way I lead, well, then you best be sure to walk the straight and narrow. I’ve protected you, but since you’re such an honorable, noble man now, you can muddle through without me.”
Curtis didn't think the words would sting, but they did.
He stared down at the box in his hands before dropping them on the counter. “Keep them. I’m moving on. I’ll see you at work, sir. Don’t worry. I won’t ever ask you for anything in my life. That bridge is burned down. Now, I think I’ll go home and heal my wife.”
With that, he pulled his suitcases out of the condo and stared back at him. “Have a good life, Director.”
When he slammed the door, Greyson closed his eyes. What he wanted to do was rage around and break things. There were few people who could get past the barriers he’d built to protect his heart. The man who just left was one of the few.
And he’d be missed.
Instead of losing it, he headed to the liquor cabinet, and then the couch.
He didn't know how long he’d been there, but a good chunk of time must have gone by. Before he knew it, Emma was opening their door and his glass was almost empty.
“Hey, honey. How are you?” he asked, trying to hide the pain he was feeling.
She didn't say a word.
Her silence unnerved him like nothing else.
“Emma?” he asked, sitting up. When he looked over at her, she was pale. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head no.
“What happened?” he asked, as she took a seat beside him. “Did someone try to hurt you?”
Picking up his bourbon, she chugged what was left in the bottom of the glass.
That terrified him.
Emma never drank hard booze. That was his thing. In fact, she hated the stuff. He waited as she got up, went to the cabinet, and poured two more tumblers. When she returned, she handed him one of the glasses.
“You’re freaking me out,” he stated. “Are you sick? Pregnant? Hurt? Please talk to me. I’m really getting scared.”
“Welcome to my world, Grey. I’m already there,” Emma replied.
“Start at the beginning,” he urged.
“I don’t feel well after the reading of the will.”
Greyson’s heart was pounding in his chest. “What happened, honey? We can get through anything.” Apparently, the hits were going to keep coming.
Immediately, he braced for it.
Emma pulled out the paper which the attorney had handed her when she arrived. Where she expected a room full of people, Emma had been shocked to find just herself.
She was the only person invited.
When the executor of the will read it, she was even more shocked at the words that he spoke.
There had to be some mistake.
In fact, the last hour, she’d been driving around in circles, trying to make sense of it all.
Handing him the paper, she waited for him to read it.
Greyson scanned it, and then had to read it again. “Emma, why does this have your name at the top of the account?” he asked.
She couldn’t speak.
It was too mind numbing.
“Is that nine zeroes after that number?” he asked, staring at her. Now his eyes went big as the realization dawned on him.
Emma nodded.
“Oh, holy mother of God,” muttered Croft. “This can’t be right.”
Oh, she’d thought the same thing.
Only, it was right.
It was exactly what he was thinking.
“Randall managed to flip Dominic Marianna off from the great beyond,” she said, taking a sip of the amber liquid. “He just handed me the keys to the city. You and I are now richer than God.”
With that, Croft chugged his drink before he could think straight. “Emma, do you know what this means?”
She nodded. “We just inherited everything Randall Mason owned--all the money, the
business ventures, and all the insanity that went along with it.”
Croft wanted to be sick.
“Oh holy mother of God! We own most of Vegas,” he stated, closing his eyes. Here he was, a fucking Fed, and his wife a cop, and they just had corrupt money dropped in their laps.
Emma knew why he looked freaked out.
It was the same reason that she had been in a panic.
They were the law, trying to keep on the straight and narrow, and now they were just handed all the unethical power Vegas had to offer. Who knew the depths of crime that Randall was into?
“We are so screwed,” he muttered. It wasn’t lost on him that they no longer had to pretend to have their hands in the corrupt coffers. They were rolling in them.
Emma knew he was right. Now, there wasn’t a soul alive who would believe they weren’t unethical.
While Dominic couldn’t touch them to make them bleed, their professional lives were about to go to hell in a hand basket.
All they worked for.
Everything they strived to achieve.
It was all tossed into the wind.
They would no longer be seen as the law to the seedier side of Vegas. They were just like the rest. From here on out, they weren’t going to have to prove they were dirty, they were going to have to prove they were clean.
Randall Mason flipped the game right under them.
“This sucks,” stated Greyson. “So much for ever going back to being sterling.”
“You could say that again. This is now a whole new game, and we have no choice but to play it.”
“Randall Mason gave us the finger too. This is the biggest ‘fuck you’ he could possibly come up with.”
Emma agreed. “He’s in hell right now, laughing his ass off,” she stated.
Damn him!
Croft agreed. “Hell is Burning, that’s for damn sure.”
He pulled his wife against his body, closing his eyes to think it all out.
Just when they thought Vegas couldn’t get any messier, it did. Oh, they were the king and queen, all right.
The monarchy of money.
The leaders of the insanity.
The kingpins of dirty.
They were now the ones with the biggest bull’s-eyes painted on their backs, not only from the criminals, but now the law too.
This was a really bad time for them to lose their partners and backup. Croft thought about the man who gave him his business card. It looked like Dimitri Gideon was going to be an asset.
Their only one…
“If Randall were alive, I’d kill him,” Greyson muttered.
Emma thought about the letter that the man had left her. It still sat in her dresser, unopened.
Now, she really couldn’t bear to read it.
They’d both been damned to hell on this one.
At least they had each other.
Yeah, there was no doubt that she’d kick the hell out of the old man, too, for pulling this stunt. “To getting out of this one alive,” she said, holding up her glass to her husband.
He banged it off hers. “Get ready for the mayhem, honey. It’s about to begin.”
And it was…
To Be Continued...
Coming Next:
Unthinkable Games (book 3)
Littlemoon Investigations
&
Dead Shall Speak (book 10)
FBI/Romance Adventures
Other books by Morgan Kelley:
Stand Alone Romance/FBI thrillers
The Junction
Serial Sins
The Blood Betrayal
Romance/FBI Thriller Series
Elizabeth, Ethan, and Callen
The Killing Times (book 1)
Sacred Burial Grounds (book 2)
True Love Lost (book 3)
Deep Dark Mire (book 4)
Fire Burns Hot (book 5)
Darkness of Truth (book 6)
Devil Hath Come (book 7)
Consumed by Wrath (book 8)
Redemption is Here (book 9)
Dead Shall Speak (book 10) Spring 2015
Croft & Croft Romance Adventure Series
Greyson and Emma Croft
Celestia is Falling (book 1)
Vegas is Dying (book 2)
Christmas is Killing (book 3)
Love is Bleeding (book 4)
Heaven is Weeping (book 5)
Hell is Burning (book 6) Fall/Winter 2015
The Littlemoon Investigations Series
Julian and Tori Littlemoon
Blood Red Rage (book 1)
Lost & Broken (book 2)
Unthinkable Games (book 3) Feb 2015
Truth is Found (book 4) Fall/Winter 2015
The Carter Chronicles Trilogy
Callista, Nathaniel, and Lucas
Sinner Repent (book 1)
Sinner Realized (book 2)
Sinner Reborn (book 3) Summer 2015
The Oracle Chronicles Series
Nathaniel Carter and Avalon Miller
Oracle Rising (book 1) Christmas 2015
Harcourte Vampyre Society
Jolie, Jacques and Flynn
Dangerous Revelations (book 1)
Dangerous Choices (book 2)
Dangerous Misery (book 3) Spring/Summer 2015
Dangerous Retaliation (book 4) Spring/Summer 2015
Anthologies
All the couples in one book
Illegal Fantasies-
Behind Closed Doors(1)
Romance Under Arrest-
Behind Closed Doors(2)
Holiday Reinforcements-
Behind Closed Doors (3) 2015
* * *
Please feel free to visit her at her website
www.morgankelley.com, or visit her blog at
www.morgankelley.blogspot.com
X~ MK ~ X
Heaven is Weeping (A Croft & Croft Romance Adventure Book 5) Page 46