Dark Justice

by Kristi Belcamino

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “When can I come home and start getting ready?” I said, peering out the front of Darling’s house.

  “Tony should be there any minute. I called him earlier.”

  “I better run,” I said.

  After I hung up with Dante and scarfed down my bagel, I wrote Darling a note.

  “Next time I host you at the hotel. Spa day, baby. Love you.”

  By the time I brushed my teeth and threw my things in a bag, Tony was out front.

  We listened to Otis Redding and James Brown all the way back.

  We had the sort of comfortable relationship where we didn’t need to fill the silence with needless chatter, but when he pulled up in front of the hotel, he turned to me.

  “Everything okay, boss lady?”

  I smiled. “I think so. I didn’t kill anybody. At least not the people they’re saying I killed.”

  He nodded solemnly. There were no secrets between me and him.

  We’d both seen the dark side of life and that was part of our bond.

  I smiled at him and patted his grizzled cheek. “You are a prince among men,” I said.

  He cleared his throat and I paused, my hand on the door handle. He usually avoided mushy conversations, but he obviously had something to say.

  “I left my violent life behind a long time ago, as you know. But there are a handful of people in this world I’d kill for. And you should know you’re one of them.”

  I felt tears prick my eyes.

  “I feel the same way, Tony.”

  Twenty-Nine

  When I got up to my room, the black velvet dress was hanging in the front of my closet. I would have to talk to management about coming in my room. I didn’t like it one bit. I quickly looked over at my laptop. I’d placed a hair strategically on the keyboard, so when I closed the lid, it stuck out a bit. The hair was still there. Good thing.

  I wouldn’t abide people snooping through my stuff.

  I wasn’t worried about the regular employees at the hotel. I was worried about someone in management using delivery of my clothes as an excuse to snoop in my room. As far as I knew nobody was wise to the investigation but Dante and I, but you just never knew.

  Since I had a few hours to kill, I decided to look at my top three suspects. It was a way to distract myself from thinking about the cops investigating me.

  Even though Maxwell Carlton was dead, that didn’t mean he was no longer a suspect in the embezzlement. In fact, hearing he’d made a bid to buy the hotel made him even more of a suspect in my book.

  I had to carry on and pretend that there wasn’t a possible murder charge in my future. If I didn’t, I’d go crazy.

  All three of the dead men had access to the hotel books. They all dealt with various aspects of the hotel’s financials. And, based on the background information Danny had sent me, it appeared all three of them had good motives to steal.

  Maxwell Carlton might have been stealing money from the hotel to buy the hotel. Odd but possible. It was enough for him to put a down payment on the property and get a loan for the rest.

  Stuart McBride, the food and beverage director, had recently divorced his wife and had been ordered by the court to pay some hefty alimony. His four kids were all in private school.

  Cynthia Turner, the hotel maintenance engineer, had just bought a house that, frankly, seemed a little out of her paygrade. The bank records showed she’d put down a hefty deposit on the loan. Sure, she could’ve saved that much, but it seemed like a lot. Plus, the new monthly mortgage amount wasn’t anything to sneeze at.

  After pouring over this for two hours, I finally shut my laptop and hopped in the shower.

  I didn’t want to be rushed getting ready for the gala. It started at 9:00 p.m. I wanted to shower and then take a long nap before I had to finish getting ready.

  I crawled into bed naked with my hair wet from the shower. When I woke up, it was sunset. I was horny, but resisted the urge to call Ryder for more phone sex. Maybe tonight I’d take on the mayor. Nah. That was a very bad idea.

  I was a grown-ass woman. I could control my sexual urges, right? Right?

  I hopped up and caught a glance of myself in the mirror.

  My hair had dried into beachy waves, and I decided to keep it that way for the night.

  I’d have a drink, do my makeup, and get dressed right before Dante was supposed to arrive.

  Wearing underwear and a tank top, I headed to my living room. There, I lounged on the couch and poured some tequila. That’s one thing I loved about the hotel suite—the full bar. The drink hit the spot. I hoped it would tide me over until the gala.

  Despite myself, I was a little excited about the gala. I didn’t want to admit that I was looking forward to seeing James again. If I was smart, I’d try to avoid him at all costs. Damn it.

  Thinking this, I downed my tequila and poured another. It burned my throat and warmed my belly, and I lay back, taking in the view of the Golden Gate as the sun set on it.

  I was lonely.

  I felt like I’d been lonely my entire life. It’s true there was a brief period with Nico when I didn’t feel this way, especially when Rose was young. For that time, I felt like part of a family.

  But here I was alone again.

  Sure, I had my created my own family over the years—Dante, Darling, Danny—but they all had their own full lives now.

  I wonder what Freud would say about my tendency to attract friends with names that started with a “D?” It was fucking strange. Even our dogs: Django and now Rose with Dylan.

  Ryder was an exciting and dangerous lover, but he lived in the South of France. Sure, he could visit, or I could go see him, but we weren’t going to have any real relationship.

  Me and James? It’s complicated. We both knew we could never be together again. Even if Madame Butterfly wasn’t in the picture. Then why did I feel such a pull toward him? It sucked.

  I needed a distraction so I’d quit obsessing over getting James into bed. It was starting to be annoying. I thought about the mayor again. Hot. But also, way too dangerous.

  As the alcohol warmed me from the inside out, I realized that if I didn’t stop thinking about getting laid right then, I was going to do something crazy.

  I reached for my phone and found a playlist I’d made on the airplane. It connected to the Bluetooth speakers in the hotel suite, and I cranked it up and danced around to some old-school rap.

  After a while, I realized it was dark outside and time to start getting ready.

  I did my makeup first.

  Despite my childish urges to ignore Dante, I took his advice and kept my makeup simple—black mascara on my eyelashes, just a little black eyeliner, and then full-on blood red lipstick. I pouted at myself in the mirror. It would work.

  I pulled the dress on. It glided across my body like silk. The neckline was straight across but draped slightly revealing a large swath of my chest and collarbone without showing any cleavage. It followed the contours of my waist and hips and then fell straight to the floor in a pool of black softness. The back was the showstopper. It was bare all the way down to where the fabric hugged my ass. It almost, but not quite, dipped too low, stopping just in time. The dress was the softest, silkiest velvet I’d ever touched. It felt delicious against my bare skin.

  Dante had been right. No jewelry except Nico’s ring.

  I slipped it on and closed my eyes for a second, allowing myself to think of Nico the first time we made love.

  We were enemies at the time. I’d been stalking him at a deserted beach on the Mexican coast, intent on assassinating him. He was trying to take away Rose, who, although she was his biological daughter, was more my child than his at the time.

  Alone in his beach house with his bodyguards dismissed, we had wild sex in his kitchen. It was the first time I’d experienced the prowess of an older man, and it had rocked my world. I’d known in that moment that for the first time in my life, I’d met my match
in the drug cartel leader. With hindsight, I think I fell in love with him that first night even though it took us both a while to figure out we were meant to be together—until death parted us.

  I realized I was staring in the mirror at myself in the dress imagining him coming up behind me and kissing my bare back. I shivered. It had felt like he was there with me. Impossible.

  I scooped up a small bag with a chain strap and my stilettos and headed into the living room. I turned off all the lights and poured another tequila. I found a crumpled pack of cigarettes and headed out to the deck. There, leaning over the railing looking at San Francisco, I drank my tequila and smoked a cigarette.

  I was an on-and-off smoker over the years. After Nico died, I was no longer as concerned about my health and began smoking more again. It was sad but true. I had less to live for nowadays. Even Rose no longer needed me.

  I was lost in thought when I heard a knock on the door.

  Dante.

  I stubbed out my cigarette and downed my drink.

  Time to play good girl.

  Thirty

  The Gala

  * * *

  I was dying for a cigarette.

  But the senator standing before me in his tuxedo droned on about his pancreatitis and how he could only drink top shelf bourbon or he’d end up in the hospital or something.

  Yawn.

  I tried not be obvious as I glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the chandelier-lit room. The backdrop on four sides was the San Francisco skyline at night—one of my favorite views in the world.

  Although the music at the gala was low and sultry, the clink of Champagne glasses and rustle of silk and taffeta and the murmur of drunken voices made it difficult for me to hear what the senator was saying.

  And that was just fine by me.

  I was sort of zoning out, thinking that maybe instead of a cigarette I could rustle up a joint from one of the cute waiters. I tried to make eye contact with one who looked like he might have some weed on him. He was dressed in the required black button-down shirt and black slacks, but something about him was laissez faire. Maybe it was his hair, longer than the other waiters, or the slight scruff under his lower lip, or the tattoo that snaked around his wrist that gave him such a bad-boy air.

  I caught his eye as he headed to the kitchen with a tray full of empty glasses. He did a double take and then slowly looked me up and down before smiling.

  It made me feel like a pervert.

  Was he even eighteen?

  I knew I didn’t look my age in my black dress and stilettos, but even if I knocked off a few years, I could be his mother.

  I silently sent him a message: I’m not trying to fuck you, I just want your drugs.

  At that point, I became obsessed with getting high to make it through the evening, so I wasn’t really very focused when the senator leaned in and repeated a question I apparently hadn’t heard.

  I backed up. His breath was atrocious.

  Over his shoulder, I saw another VIP making a beeline for me.

  Everyone wanted to talk to me tonight.

  The senator was the fourth dignitary to waylay me.

  For the millionth time, I tried to catch Dante’s eye, but he was deep in conversation with the head of the Chamber of Commerce. Shit. It was all Dante’s fault I was here. He owed me big time.

  My scalp tingled a little bit, and I turned to see Nicoletta Marchese looking at me. She tossed her strawberry blonde hair and gave me a smile before turning away, leaning down toward James’s wheelchair to whisper something in his ear.

  My face burned.

  Obviously, she’d wanted me to see.

  I swallowed back the lump of jealousy. That ship had sailed years ago. He was no longer mine and never would be again. Despite what had happened.

  But he was too good for her.

  There was something about the willowy opera singer that made me wary.

  It wasn’t her fake-as-fuckness. It was something else. Something darker and more sinister.

  Oliver Kingsley Hollingsworth, one of the richest men in San Francisco—and frankly one of the oldest—sidled up to her with his boy toy. Both men were gay, but that didn’t stop the old geezer from caressing Nicoletta’s shiny taffeta-clad ass as he went in for hugs and cheek kisses. Who knew the old boy was AC/DC?

  Then the boy toy, Charles Wellington, whispered something in Nicoletta’s ear. She laughed and then leaned over and kissed Old Oliver smack dab on the mouth. He gave a gruff laugh but reached out and groped her waist, pressing her up against him. What the fuck?

  Were they propositioning her? Come to think of it, Dante had mentioned Hollingsworth was into some kinky shit. Dude was rich enough to pay for any depraved sex act he wanted. There were some crazy stories about the things he liked to stick his dick into. Whatever. To each their own. I just wondered if James knew what his girlfriend was up to.

  I shook my head. Poor James. His wheelchair had been turned away during the whole encounter. He didn’t have a clue. If that dumb bitch broke his heart, I’d kill her.

  But right now, he wasn’t my problem. And she wasn’t worth my time or energy.

  After tonight, I hoped to never see her again.

  In fact, I hoped to never see 99 percent of the people in the room again. But that was just a pipe dream.

  As a waiter passed, I scooped another glass of champagne off his tray and downed it.

  “Miss Santangelo?”

  Beatrice Stanford, a retired opera singer who liked to regale everyone with stories of her glory days, was at my side.

  “It’s Santella.”

  “Isabella?”

  I gave up.

  “Just call me Gia.”

  She cleared her throat and started over.

  “Miss Gia, where is your partner, Dante?” She was looking over my shoulder. “I thought we had agreed that the salmon canapes wouldn’t contain capers. They keep rolling off onto the floor.”

  She’d been on the board for the gala, but as far as I knew hadn’t done a damn thing except give her opinion about everything and anything.

  I shifted to look past her. Sure enough, there were little green balls on the carpet. Oops.

  “Not sure,” I said. “But I don’t think Dante was in charge of the food, was he?”

  I plastered a smile on my face.

  As I looked over her shoulder, I made eye contact with the mayor. He was heading my way, trying to make his way through the crowd.

  Shit.

  The mayor had a hot nut for me since we met. We’d been on one date. It was fine. Not even a kiss goodnight. It was for the best.

  In the old days, I would’ve fucked him in a heartbeat. But now, he made me want to run far and fast away. He was good looking, intelligent, powerful, compassionate, and funny.

  In other words, dangerous as fuck.

  “Excuse me!” I said to Beatrice Stanford and fled toward the kitchen.

  I rushed through the swinging double doors and let out a huge over-the-top sigh.

  The staff, a cook, and a few waiters looked startled.

  “Sorry,” I said, looking for the dark-haired waiter.

  He was in the back, slouched against the wall near two other waiters. They were smoking vapes. I knew what was inside the cartridges. My instincts had been right.

  I pointed my finger at him and crooked it.

  He pushed himself off the wall, and his friends shoved him and made snide comments.

  When he got in front of me, he gave me a cocky grin.

  To my surprise, he was taller than me. And even better looking close up. He exuded an animalistic sensuality. His eyes bored through me.

  “At your service, Ms. Santella.”

  I was a little surprised he knew who I was, but didn’t say anything.

  Instead, I met his eyes. He licked his lips. I stared at his lips. Fuck. He was a baby. How could I look at him that way? I quickly looked away.

  “I need your vape.”

  H
e grinned. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I only brought enough to get me and my boys through this night. It’s all gone.”

  Oh, he was a cocky one, wasn’t he?

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” I said, my eyes narrowing.

  “How you gonna do that?” he said, and his eyes roamed my body. “I don’t need your money.”

  “You like your job here?” I cocked my head.

  He frowned.

  Shit. I’d pissed him off.

  “Listen. I’m just asking for a favor here. If you could hook me up with something to get me through this god-awful night, I’d appreciate it. I’d owe you. I’d owe you a favor. I don’t give favors lightly.”

  “Is it that bad out there?” he said, jutting his chin toward the ball room.

  I sighed. “What do you think? I’ve got a bunch of rich fucks who think because they paid a small fortune to be here they get to tell me about their fucking bunions and stomach ulcers. Normally I would tell them to fuck off, but since I’m on the board…and it’s for a good cause.” I paused. “I have to at least be polite. It’s killing me.”

  He nodded.

  “I need to go get my stash. It’s in the car. Meet me on the roof in fifteen minutes.”

  The last time I’d arranged to meet someone on the roof, I’d arrived to find him dead.

  “Fine,” I said reluctantly.

  I watched him go and, despite myself, admired his long, lean body and his muscled forearms. At the last minute, he turned and caught me checking him out. My cheeks grew hot. I felt like a fucking pervert. Ugh.

  As soon as I stepped out of the kitchen, I saw Dante across the room.

  He was talking to James.

  That’s when I had to admit to myself the real reason I wanted to be drunk and high. I didn’t want to face James.

  Not after what had happened.

  On the plane back to San Francisco from Indonesia two weeks ago, I had thought about all the people I loved who I might see again. When I thought of James, I felt a warm, nostalgic bond. I had thought my feelings for him were gone. After all, we had broken up so very long ago. He had a new life with a wife and kids.