Dark Justice by Kristi Belcamino (smallest ebook reader .txt) 📗

and enticing woman he’d ever met. He felt guilty even fantasizing about Gia Santella.

Nobody could compare to Nicoletta. She was all woman—soft and feminine and so perfect for him.

They got to the roof early, and not long after they arrived, the fog lifted and the city appeared before them. The Golden Gate was lit up, and soft, white, puffy clouds seemed to float right above it.

“We are so close,” Nicoletta said in a whisper.

“Yes. Hang in there, baby,” he said. “Just think, in another month, we’ll be on an island somewhere drinking margaritas and working on our tans.”

“Can I have a pina colada instead?” she said in her baby voice.

“You can have anything you want. You can have everything you want.”

She giggled.

“We’re going to have a little house, and maybe…we can have a baby?”

She wrapped her arms around her belly. “Please.”

“We can do whatever you want. You won’t miss the opera, will you?”

“No, honey. I just want to be with you. And have a family.”

There was still a slight chill in the air, so he held Nicoletta in his arms in front of him as they looked out over the rooftop.

“I love you so much,” she’d said. “You are the love of my life. You are truly my soul mate.”

He choked up a little. He glanced at the time. They had thirty minutes.

He kissed her neck roughly and then yanked down her leather pants. He took her right there on the roof with the entire city splayed out before them. She moaned and it turned him on so much.

She was always ready for him.

Afterward, she pulled up her pants, adjusted the black wig, and kissed him.

“You sure you can handle this, baby?” he asked, feeling suddenly protective of her. He loved her so much. He would do anything for her. He had done anything for her. Murder was nothing. But he didn’t know if he wanted her to go down that dark road. “Are you 100 percent sure, baby?”

He glanced up at the surveillance camera near the door.

Marshall had hacked into hotel security and froze the camera, so it wouldn’t show Nicoletta and him arriving. Five minutes before the meeting, the camera would activate again. He would hide in the shadows until after the murder. Then Nicoletta would run to the door and leave. Marshall would freeze the camera again while he snuck out and then start it up five minutes later.

His job was to just make sure he was off the roof within five minutes of the shooting. Easy peasy.

Marshall would do the rest. Instead of Nicoletta murdering Maxwell Carlton, the video footage would show Gia Santella shooting him dead in cold blood.

They’d discarded the idea of killing Jackie Fong when Oliver mentioned Carlton had gotten wind that Santella wanted to buy the hotel. He’d contacted the owner in Berlin and offered to pay double what Santella had offered.

It was the perfect motive for murder, so Charles had quickly adjusted his plans.

Nicoletta was excited about the chance to play Gia again.

“I just call his name and then walk up to him and shoot him?”

He cringed and closed his eyes. “Are you sure, baby?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure. I’ll pretend it’s my stepdaddy. They sort of look alike anyway.”

Thinking of her stepfather and all the terrible things he had done to Nicoletta made his blood boil. Charles had killed the man after she told him. It had been his first murder. It had set the stage and laid out the path he was now on. He’d always loved Nicoletta and never regretted killing that sick son of a bitch. He’d killed him and then showered, dressed in a tuxedo, and taken Nicoletta to their senior prom. Nobody had been the wiser. They blamed it on a drug deal gone bad.

He squeezed her extra tight. “Okay, you think of Kevin, and you blow that motherfucker’s head off, okay, baby?”

“I will. I got this. Don’t worry,” she said and patted his cheek lightly.

“I just want to make sure. You don’t know what it’s like to live with killing someone,” he said, his voice suddenly soft. “It’s not easy.”

“I told you,” she said. “We need to do this right. If we’re going to get away with it—really get away with it forever—I have to do it. Plus, that way we’re both in it, right? That way, we’re bonded forever, right? Like Bonnie and Clyde?”

He winced. He wished he’d never watched that movie with her. All he wanted to say was that they both ended up dead at the end. Didn’t she remember that part?

The door swung open, and she walked toward the long rectangle of light before he could stop her.

“Hi,” she said in her soft baby voice.

“Nicoletta?” Carlton said, sounding confused. “I thought I was meeting…”

It was too late to stop now.

Twenty-One

Fifteen minutes later…

When the phone rang, the last person I expected to hear from was on the other line.

I’d only answered the phone, hoping it was James inviting me over.

It wasn’t James.

It was Maxwell Carlton, the general manager of the hotel.

“Can we meet? I have some concerns I’d like to discuss with you about the hotel and the gala. I think I know who killed Rosenbloom. But I’m afraid for my life.”

I flipped on the bedside lamp and looked around as if I could find an excuse somewhere in my hotel room.

“Why me?” I asked, wondering if he knew I was a suspect.

“Because Dante trusts you,” he said. “Right now, Dante is the only person I trust on that committee, and since he’s not around…”

“Why don’t you go to James?”

“That’s another reason I want to talk to you first—to see what you think. Then we can go to James together. You guys are old friends, right?”

“Yeah,” I said and let out a sigh.

“Listen, I’m up on the restaurant roof. Can you just run up here? It will only take ten minutes. I just don’t want anyone to see us talking, and during the day, there are too many people