Dark Justice Read online

  “I think this is a bad idea,” I said. Even I recognized it as the feeble protest it was.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said in a low, husky voice. “I don’t believe for one second you buy into that sexist double standard. Men can be with younger women, but women can’t be with a younger guy? That’s total crap.”

  He had a point.

  His mouth was working its way up my neck. One of his hands was still firm on my waist. His other hand wrapped around the back of my neck, tangled in my hair. His breath was heavy now and I matched it. The anticipation of another kiss was irresistible. All logic and reason fled my mind. My body took over.

  I could feel the heat coming off of him in waves. He leaned forward, his mouth was on mine, and despite myself I groaned in pleasure. And it just got better from there.

  After, I pulled the hem of my dress back down as he buttoned up his pants.

  “Holy shit,” he said, still breathless.

  I exhaled loudly. “Okay, maybe it actually was a really good idea.”

  He pulled me close and kissed me again. I let him.

  Then he drew back.

  “I gotta go,” he said, looking over his shoulder, but still holding onto my waist. “Do you think maybe one day…”

  He trailed off. He already knew the answer.

  I shook my head.

  Then he was gone, back down the stairs.

  I walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down at the city below me.

  I’d lived around the world, but this city would always be my compass point, my ground zero, my homing beacon.

  Even though I’d grown up in Monterey, I hadn’t felt like myself until I moved to San Francisco after my parent’s murder.

  It would always be home.

  I rummaged around in my bag and found my pack of cigarettes and gunmetal Zippo lighter.

  I pulled the joint the waiter had given me from the pack, lit it, and inhaled deeply, savoring the flavor and instant feeling of mellow gold that suffused my entire body.

  At first, I was more annoyed than anything when I heard voices and the door open up behind me.

  I didn’t turn around. I hoped if I ignored whomever it was, they’d go away.

  Then I heard the squawk of a police radio. I couldn’t make out what it said.

  I froze.

  “Gia Santella?” a deep voice said.

  Cold fear trickled through me. “Yes?”

  “You’re under arrest.”

  At first, it didn’t register. Then I thought about the boy I’d been with only moments before. He’d told me he was twenty-three. And pot was legal now in California...

  It took a second for me to register the rest of what the police officer had said.

  “You’re under arrest for murder.”

  One

  Two weeks before

  * * *

  I’d flown into—and landed in—cities around the world, but something about landing in San Francisco was the most thrilling of all.

  Every once in a while, when it was windy, the pilots would divert the plane and make this crazy landing pattern that brought the plane next to the Golden Gate bridge and then right over the Bay Bridge. It was insane.

  I’m not gonna lie; it was also exhilarating.

  And the thing that made it even more so, was the surge of excitement that coursed through me at coming home.

  It had been years—too many years—since I’d been in San Francisco.

  The sad thing was, I didn’t even realize how much I missed it until the moment I saw the skyline before me and my heart clenched.

  The City by the Bay was my home.

  Even though I’d grown up on the sheltered, white-privileged Monterey Peninsula, I never fit in there. Despite the town really being founded by Italians, the rich white kids I went to school with looked down on me.

  They all assumed my father was in the mafia.

  I really should thank them for my martial arts skills, though.

  After they spat racial slurs at me, I got in a fight at school. After that, my dad had me take private martial arts lessons. But I still was never comfortable at school. I was always an outsider.

  It didn’t help that I was olive skinned and dark-haired, while my asshole brother was blonde. My classmates loved him and hated me. It made sense since he hated me. He was a sociopathic monster. When he was murdered, I never shed a tear. May he rot in hell.

  As the plane bumped to a landing, I sent a text to my driver, Tony.

  Tony was a grandfather now. He had prison tattoos and had done time for murder. I could trust him with my life.

  I grabbed my gunmetal gray carryon bag and got off the plane, heading straight through the airport, eager to see my old driver and friend.

  I walked as fast as I could in those damned high-heeled black suede boots. For some reason, I’d thought it would be a good idea to dress up for the trip home. Maybe because years ago when I left the city, I’d been dressed in worn leather pants and a ripped T-shirt with a skull and crossbones that said, “Fuck Authority.”

  That Gia was gone.

  I was a grown damn woman now.

  I laughed at my own thoughts. Who was I fooling? I still felt nineteen.

  But my style had improved.

  I still loved leather pants, and actually was wearing some, but they were sleek as butter and cost a small fortune. Unless you looked closely, you might not even know they were leather.

  My huge, dark sunglasses, which had been on the entire flight, shielded my face from the few people I caught staring at me. It was a little odd. Did I stand out that much? For most of my life, I’d tried to blend in.

  When people stared at me, it was because I wanted them to and had worn a short skirt or low-cut top for just that reason.

  Now, dressed in expertly tailored leather pants, a fitted black blouse, and my boots, I didn’t see what the big deal was.

  As soon as I stepped outside, I took a deep breath of the salty air I’d always loved.

  San Francisco.

  Tony was there in front of me. He’d hopped out of the massive black SUV and was reaching for my carryon.

  I squealed like a little girl and wrapped him in a hug. And then I drew back grinning like a fool.

  “Man, it’s been a long-ass time since I saw your mug,” I said.

  He gave me a shy grin and looked down. “Same.”

  “Thank you for coming to get me. I know you’re big time now, and I appreciate you taking the time,” I said.

  “Gia. You’re my girl. I drop everything for you.”

  For some reason, his words brought a tear to my eye.

  “Thanks, man,” I said in a gruff voice.

  Then I was in the passenger seat, fiddling with the radio. He hopped in.

  “You’re listening to Al Green?” I said in a pseudo-shocked voice. “Have you gone soft?”

  He laughed. I connected my iPhone.

  “I’m gonna blow your mind,” I said and pressed play on some Cardi B.

  I rolled down the window and cranked up the volume and leaned back, closing my eyes during the drive into the city. Once, I peeked over at Tony and saw him tapping his fingernails on the steering wheel. When I realized I wasn’t torturing him with my music, I closed my eyes again.

  After a while, the sounds of the city made me open my eyes. We were downtown now, in the deep shadows created by the skyscrapers around us. My loft and building in the Tenderloin was just north of us, but I’d asked Tony to take me to a hotel near Union Square.

  My friend Danny had been living in my loft and managing my building and its tenants for the past several years. I couldn’t wait to see him and the Tenderloin area again, but I wanted to chill out and explore the city on my own for a few hours first.

  Besides, what was I going to do, kick Danny out of his home now that I was back? No way. I would find a new place to rent in the T.L. The loft was his. I’d make it official as soon as I saw him. He had no idea I was coming home
, anyway. I hadn’t wanted him to worry about me trying to move back in.

  My pal Danny was a world-class hacker and drone expert. He’d become emancipated at seventeen—with my help—because of a fucked-up home life. He’d saved my butt more times than I could count.

  When I left San Francisco, I offered him my loft in exchange for managing the entire building. Meeting with him was on my list of things to do now that I was back in town

  We were almost to the hotel. I realized I was starving. And wanted nothing more than some San Francisco clam chowder in a bread bowl. It was my comfort food.

  “Hey, you hungry?” I said, turning down the music.

  He shrugged. “I’m a dude. I can always eat.”

  “Do you have time to swing by the wharf? I’m buying.”

  “I took the rest of the day off. I didn’t know where we were going or what you needed.”

  I made a note to pay him for the entire day. But meanwhile, my mouth was watering.

  “Let’s go then. I’m ravenous. I haven’t had a bowl of chowder for years.”

  Two

  Mayor Anthony Ferraro hated that he had to be surrounded by bodyguards.

  He was trying to walk through the airport like a goddamn normal person and yet they flanked him as though some maniac was going to scream like a banshee and charge him with a butcher knife. For chrissakes, they’d already gone through security. The only people with weapons were law enforcement or TSA.

  But he knew his irritation was misplaced. And that it was the smart thing to do.

  After that threat on his life last week, everyone in his campaign was rattled.

  It had been a pretty specific threat too.

  At least one other member of the opera gala fundraising committee had received the same threat. But unlike that threat, this one had proved that the person knew where he lived.

  Like the threat that his colleague on the gala fundraising committee had received, he was told that unless he shut down the opera, he would pay with his life.

  It was ridiculous.

  He’d been brought up to speed about the earlier controversy surrounding the opera in New York City as soon as he was asked to be on the committee last year, but recently, the threats had come to his city as the date of the performance grew closer.

  The San Francisco Opera was now in rehearsals for The Death of Engleberg, which had sparked protests during its New York opening by those claiming the performance was anti-Semitic and glorified terrorism.

  The opera was about the 1985 hijacking of an Italian cruise ship by terrorists. During the hijacking, a Jewish man, Leon Engleberg, who used a wheelchair, was murdered by the terrorists. After the New York premiere, Engleberg’s two daughters released a statement condemning the opera saying, “We are outraged at the exploitation of our parents and the coldblooded murder of our father as the centerpiece of a production that appears to us to be anti-Semitic.”

  As soon as the San Francisco opera announced that its season would feature the opera, protests began. Now that the opera had started rehearsals, thinly veiled threats had been sent to the singers, members of the opera’s board of directors, the opera gala fundraising committee, and various members of the San Francisco Opera Association. The FBI and San Francisco Police Department had actually assigned security details to the opera and its members.

  While the mayor would not give in to the demands to cancel or condemn the opera, he did agree to the precautions his campaign staff insisted upon.

  He was no stranger to hostile people. Growing up as a politician’s son had exposed him to all sorts of unhinged whack jobs. The difference was this person knew where he lived.

  “Sir?” One of his bodyguards was herding him. He’d been so lost in thought, he’d not followed their strict orders to stick to the side of the concourse.

  He looked up to do a course correction and froze. He stopped dead in his tracks.

  The woman coming toward him wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen—or been with for that matter—but she seemed the most…he tried to put his finger on the word…most sensual? Maybe that was it. But it was more.

  She was sensual and exuded something that he could only describe as unbridled power.

  And he loved power. Power was his drug. It was what he lived for.

  He could identify it in another person instantly.

  And this woman had it.

  It was intoxicating.

  He watched her pass and then turned his head, mesmerized.

  “Sir?”

  “What?” he said, unintentionally snapping at the man at his shoulder. “Sorry. I…I…” he trailed off. What was he going to say? He was in love? He was struck dumb at seeing a beautiful woman?

  Finally, he formed some words.

  “Who was that?”

  “Who, sir?” the man said, glancing behind them. He looked too. She was gone.

  “Never mind.”

  As he strode through the airport, heads turned.

  He was used to it.

  As the youngest mayor of one of the country’s biggest cities, he had been on the cover of magazines and on the front page of newspapers around the world.

  His face was a little too recognizable, he thought.

  But it was all part of the job.

  His father had been a rock star. Politicians across the country still talked about him.

  He needed to carve out his own identity.

  While his father would consider it beneath him to stop and talk to plebeians on the street, Mayor Ferraro made a point to do that.

  That’s why, when a woman came up to him at the airport, he lifted a hand for his bodyguards to let her approach.

  “Mayor Ferraro,” the woman said. “I just want you to know that you have changed my life.”

  He smiled and tilted his head, waiting.

  She blurted the rest of the story out.

  Apparently, she’d been down in the dumps and homeless, and when he had approved the permanent homeless camp on Van Ness Street and ordered job training workshops held there every Friday, she had taken the workshop and turned her life around.

  Now, she was working full time as an office manager and had her own apartment.

  “I owe all of it to you,” she said. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”

  Then she licked her lips and looked at him, and he knew exactly how she wanted to thank him.

  Fuck.

  At first, having willing women throw themselves at him had been exciting. But now he craved more of a challenge. Not that the woman wasn’t delectable. She would probably be sensational in bed, but he was over sensational. He wanted someone who would challenge him intellectually as well. He sighed. That was tougher to find.

  For the past year, he’d found just that with Merilee Conley.

  A beautiful black woman with as much power, if not more, than he had. And to make it even more enticing, she was kind and just and fun to be around.

  But best of all, she was his equal. A powerful state Attorney General whose brain turned him on as much as the playboy body she hid under tailored suits. But her career was more important than their relationship, and they’d broken it off when she relocated to Sacramento.

  As he thought about her, he realized this woman in front of him was still talking. He focused back on the conversation. “Thank you for letting me know. But I fear you give me more credit that I deserve,” he said, smoothly. “It’s stories like this that motivate me to keep up the fight. I’m sorry but I have a pressing engagement, so I really must go.”

  On cue by his words, the bodyguards took over, moving her away and clearing a path for him to continue his getting-longer-by-the-minute walk to the car. He heard the woman saying in a last-ditch effort. “I work for the county if you ever want to talk more or need a volunteer on your campaign.”

  He tried to ignore it. She was tempting, but she’d end up hurt. He could never see her as more than a brief night of pleasure. He was tired of letting women
down gently. He was always honest with them—telling them up front in his very diplomatic way that essentially he was only there for the one-time sex, but still they held out hopes that they would be the one to change him.”

  He sighed. If only, he could meet someone who was his equal. A woman who didn’t need a man. A woman who simply wanted a man and took one when she wanted.

  Despite himself, he couldn’t stop thinking about the woman who had walked by. He bet she didn’t need a man.

  “Sir, we’re running late.”

  “Clear the way.”

  On his words, the bodyguards spoke into their cell phones, and within seconds, TSA agents and police officers had cleared a path for him to sweep through the crowded airport.

  If that wasn’t power, he didn’t know what was. He tried not to let it go to his head as he walked straight past the luggage carousels and stepped out onto the sidewalk, where his driver opened his car door.

  Another bodyguard would gather the luggage and follow in another car.

  He leaned his head on the headrest and closed his eyes.

  He had to find out who that woman was.

  He wanted her.

  And whatever he wanted, he got.

  Three

  Charles Wellington winked as he jogged by the older woman walking her dog. She giggled like a schoolgirl. He had that effect on people.

  Men, women, boys, girls, small dogs. They all loved him.

  Even now, in Lululemon jogging shorts with sweat pouring down his face.

  Only four more blocks until he reached his Pacific Heights home and then he could take a long, hot shower.

  Sweating disgusted him. But having the body he did was worth the disgusting smell and slickness that came with keeping in top form.

  So, each day he ran, morning and night. And each day he worked out, lifting the barbell until his muscles strained and popped. He’d stare at himself in the mirror sometimes, admiring his muscle tone. No wonder everyone wanted to fuck him.

  He had never been the smartest guy around, but he knew how to make the most of what he was given. And from a young age, he knew his biggest asset was his body and good looks. He had thick dirty blonde hair and big puppy-brown eyes that made him look innocent, especially when he was between someone’s legs and looked up, fluttering his long black eyelashes. Instant orgasm.