DARK JUSTICE
DARK: An elite corps dedicated to preventing terrorism … and finding happily ever after
The DARK Files, Book 5
Although part of a series, this is a stand-alone with its own conclusion.
The DARK Files, Book 5
Although part of a series, this is a stand-alone with its own conclusion.
Revised & updated. First published as
Deadly Memories, then as Dark Vengeance
Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence Finalist
RT Book Reviews Top Pick &
Reviewer’s Choice Nominee
“Action-packed ... a fast-paced read with a great, hot romance between
two people who couldn't be more mismatched.” – RT Book Reviews
“An edgy suspense woven with betrayal, secrets
and a passion hot enough to burn your fingers.”
– Romance Junkies
Digital & Print - Available from The Wild Rose Press
Available here - Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes/Apple, Kobo
Which is deadlier—the deaths he can’t forget or the danger she can’t remember?
DARK Officer Jack Thorne joined the antiterrorism task force for one reason only—to exact revenge on the smuggler
responsible for the tragedy that haunts him. Vacationing in Italy, Sophie Rinaldi overhears her host plotting
to sell weapons-grade uranium to terrorists. She flees, but the man’s car strikes her. She ends up in the hospital,
the last crucial weeks erased from her mind—and still a target for murder. Whether Sophie is an accomplice or merely a witness, to find out what she knows,
Jack must keep her safe. As Sophie and Jack race to stay ahead of hired killers, they find it impossible to deny their growing attraction.
Jack is torn between his longing for Sophie and his pledge of vengeance. And how can Sophie fall for this tormented man who doesn’t trust her?
If she regains her memory, what she knows could destroy them both…
Excerpt from Chapter 1
JACK THORNE STRAINED for a bead on his enemy.
The savage hatred always coiled in his belly stretched and sharpened its claws in anticipation. Only sheer will and concentration on his goal kept his hand steady and his expression impassive.
He adjusted the lens focus and swung the view beyond the rows of grapevines and ancient lime trees, across the flower beds, until he acquired the mellowed redbrick villa.
There. The damn murderer lived in there.
Instead of Leica seven-by-forty-two binoculars, if only he had Sebastian Vadim in the crosshairs of a rifle scope. Patience, patience, he mouthed. Duty for DARK first. The Domestic Antiterrorism Risk Corps needed Vadim’s contraband and information.
As the new addition to this Nuclear Interdiction Task Force, Jack had to do his part. Intelligence from Interpol had prompted the American and Italian antiterrorism agencies to cooperate on this mission — to find and confiscate a stash of weapons-grade uranium. First they had to nail Sebastian Vadim for possession.
Afterward, Jack’s chance would come.
He’d waited five years to exact vengeance. Five years of investigating alias after alias, lead after lead. A few days more would make no difference.
“Nobody there but the cook and one bodyguard,” drawled Jack’s companion beneath the grapevine’s sheltering leaves. “The other security mug — the Italian — drove him and the woman somewhere before you got here. De Carlo and a couple DARK operatives tailed them.”
Jack’s tension deflated. He lowered the binoculars and sank prone onto the rich Italian soil. He drew a deep breath of air spiced with ripening grapes and sun-heated loam.
Leaning on one elbow, he eyed the other DARK officer, who reclined with his frayed cloth cap shading his face. Jack also wore a work shirt and pants — cover as farm labor if anyone at the villa spotted their surveillance team in the vineyard. “Any idea where Vadim went?”
Matt Leoni affected a shrug and popped two sticks of chewing gum in his mouth to join the wad distorting his cheek.
Three others — Italian cops — were strung out along the same vine row but close enough for conversation without electronics.
When no one else replied, Leoni said, “Sometimes he takes the babe sightseeing in Venice. Sometimes they go to Treviso or the beach at Jesolo for a long lunch. Don’t expect them back until three or four. De Carlo will alert us.”
Commissario De Carlo, a Venice investigative officer, was the task-force leader. “And Vadim hasn’t done anything suspicious? Contacted anyone?”
“Nothing that would give us an excuse to move on him.” The man unscrewed the cap on his bottled water and drank.
“Wiretap?”
Leoni sighed. Except for the man’s tech skills, Jack suspected he was part of the task force mainly because he spoke fluent Italian. An angry red scar slashed from his left eyebrow to his cheekbone, the result of some mission gone wrong. Maybe sometime Jack would ask him about that.
Then Leoni roused himself enough to shake his head. “Local polizia put up a roadblock of red tape. Vadim’s been a good citizen so far, spending liberally and living peacefully.”
“Hereabouts, he’s a wealthy business consultant,” another officer added. “They have no idea he’s a major player in the diamond-smuggling trade. We’re not ready to share intelligence with them.”
Leoni chuckled. “Just for grins, I tried to wire in anyway, but Vadim has a scrambler. With his black-market connections, he can get anything.”
The video officer spat into the dirt. “He will not get away this time. If the uranium charge does not stick, Interpol now has given us enough evidence on the smuggling.”
“For now, we wait.” Jack had read all that and more in the Interpol report, but he’d asked in case more intel had come in. He laid the binoculars beside him on the ground.
At one o’clock the sun floated high among three puffy clouds. Temperatures climbed to a soporific sauna, incubating the cultivated vines and the watchers camped among their shady rows. “Unusual for early June,” said one of the Italians on a yawn. Everyone nodded in a doze.
Except Jack.
Downtime or not, his mind dwelled on his quarry. He didn’t need the CO’s report to know the relevant events.
The uranium courier’s trail had disappeared after Venice, but his kinship with Vadim was no coincidence. When De Carlo interviewed Vadim, he denied any contact with his cousin and invited the officers to search the villa. They found nothing suspicious. Other than Vadim and his bodyguards, a young American woman resided there. An overly courteous Vadim had introduced her as his houseguest.
Jack emitted a snort. Guest was clearly a euphemism. De Carlo’s report stated that her bedroom — beside Vadim’s — had been awash in Italian designer boutique clothes and silk lingerie with the price tags still attached. A check of Vadim’s credit card history showed he’d purchased them all. A man didn’t buy expensive clothing for a mere guest.
He raised the binoculars and used the rest of the time to study the villa. The house, part of it dating to the 1600s, was a mix of red brick, native-stone chimneys and flagstone terraces. It stood at the end of a long avenue lined with lime trees. On one side was the vineyard, tended by the adjacent farmer cooperating with the task force. On the other side, opposite the watchers, sprawled gardens, a swimming pool and guesthouses.
“They come,” one of the Italians said. “De Carlo says five minutes ETA.”
Jack’s adrenaline surged and his temples throbbed. Deep breaths calmed him. Photographs had put a face to Vadim, but now he was finally going to see his enemy in the flesh.
When tires crunched on the gravel driveway and the purr of a powerful engine approached, he raised the binoculars.
An S-Class Mercedes sedan rolled up to the portico, and the driver climbed out, a swarthy man in a lumpy sport coat. The Italian bodyguard one Guido Mazza. He made a small bow as he opened the rear door.
The diamond dealer eased smoothly from the backseat. He gleamed like his wares, in a tailored suit the same silver-gray as his luxury automobile. At a distance he looked fit, trim and much younger than his fifty years.
Fifty is all you’ll have. Jack’s eyes narrowed as he memorized the man’s features.
Even teeth showing in a crocodile smile, bright and bogus, Vadim extended a hand for the woman.
Jack had seen photographs of her too, snapshots taken with telephoto lenses. Hot as the Italian sun but with a freshness that surprised him. Sophie Rinaldi, aged twenty-seven, from Pelham, New York. An American tourist who after two weeks of touring Italy moved in with Vadim. She--
What he saw next short-circuited his thought processes. A slim foot in a red sandal extending from the Mercedes. Then a long, shapely, tanned leg. And the other.
“The guy is pond scum, but mamma mia, he sure can pick ’em.” Beside Jack, Leoni had awakened.
The Rinaldi woman accepted Vadim’s proffered hand as she slid from the leather interior. After smoothing her skirt — a gauzy red thing that floated to her knees — she tossed back her hair and smiled.
That soft curve of lips sent a shock wave of heat into Jack’s veins. Never had the mere sight of a woman affected him with such power. Why now? Why her?
Classic oval face, full lips, a mass of softly curling dark hair, toned feminine curves — the sensual Italian look. Hot but nothing special. Except she wasn’t what he expected, even from the telephoto shots. Softer, like her name, Sophie. With a breathless, otherworldly quality that kept his gaze riveted to her instead of to his target.
A fluke — effects of the sun and anticipation. He exhaled slowly, then again until the sensual vise loosened. He dragged his gaze from the woman to Vadim.
As the driver pulled the car around to the garage, Vadim and Sophie strolled toward the house. The diamond dealer leaned back his head and laughed at something she said. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. The older man didn’t have his hands all over her, but why would he when she was in his bed every night? An assumption on DARK’s part, but a logical one.
“Lucky bastard,” Leoni muttered. “He’s old enough to be her father.”
That wasn’t how Jack would’ve put it. But close enough. He should shoot right now. End it. But he wanted the son of a bitch to know who executed him and why.
The two continued their casual conversation as the woman tucked a wave of hair behind one ear.
“Why the devil can’t we hear them?” Jack whispered. “No bugs or wiretaps, but what about mics or EARS41?” High-tech listening via the Electronic Acquiring Reconnaissance System would do the trick.
“We tried. He’s got blockers we haven’t cracked. So we hang out in the vineyard and tail them. Old-fashioned police work.” Leoni yawned as if ready for another nap.
When the couple reached the doorway — wide double doors with a massive knocker — Vadim gestured to indicate that he was staying outside. He pointed toward the swimming pool, where his other thug waited for him. Petar, with an unpronounceable last name, hailed from Cleatia, like his employer.
Sophie smiled. Rising on tiptoes, she placed a hand on his shoulder. She brushed a quick kiss on his mouth.
Vadim barely reacted. Jack’s face heated as though she’d kissed him. He swore under his breath.
With a little wave, she pivoted, her flirty skirt allowing a glimpse of creamy thigh before she vanished inside the villa.
“Woman likes to tease. Like all of ’em.” He angled his binoculars to follow Vadim. “A velvet trap.”
“Maybe some,” Leoni murmured. “Not for me.”
Jack didn’t comment. Tease? Maybe. More like torture.
But he couldn’t let himself be distracted by a woman. For damn sure not a murderer’s woman like Sophie.
Sophie. He sat back on his heels. Nearly dropped the binoculars. How did she go from being the Rinaldi woman to Sophie?
JACK THORNE STRAINED for a bead on his enemy.
The savage hatred always coiled in his belly stretched and sharpened its claws in anticipation. Only sheer will and concentration on his goal kept his hand steady and his expression impassive.
He adjusted the lens focus and swung the view beyond the rows of grapevines and ancient lime trees, across the flower beds, until he acquired the mellowed redbrick villa.
There. The damn murderer lived in there.
Instead of Leica seven-by-forty-two binoculars, if only he had Sebastian Vadim in the crosshairs of a rifle scope. Patience, patience, he mouthed. Duty for DARK first. The Domestic Antiterrorism Risk Corps needed Vadim’s contraband and information.
As the new addition to this Nuclear Interdiction Task Force, Jack had to do his part. Intelligence from Interpol had prompted the American and Italian antiterrorism agencies to cooperate on this mission — to find and confiscate a stash of weapons-grade uranium. First they had to nail Sebastian Vadim for possession.
Afterward, Jack’s chance would come.
He’d waited five years to exact vengeance. Five years of investigating alias after alias, lead after lead. A few days more would make no difference.
“Nobody there but the cook and one bodyguard,” drawled Jack’s companion beneath the grapevine’s sheltering leaves. “The other security mug — the Italian — drove him and the woman somewhere before you got here. De Carlo and a couple DARK operatives tailed them.”
Jack’s tension deflated. He lowered the binoculars and sank prone onto the rich Italian soil. He drew a deep breath of air spiced with ripening grapes and sun-heated loam.
Leaning on one elbow, he eyed the other DARK officer, who reclined with his frayed cloth cap shading his face. Jack also wore a work shirt and pants — cover as farm labor if anyone at the villa spotted their surveillance team in the vineyard. “Any idea where Vadim went?”
Matt Leoni affected a shrug and popped two sticks of chewing gum in his mouth to join the wad distorting his cheek.
Three others — Italian cops — were strung out along the same vine row but close enough for conversation without electronics.
When no one else replied, Leoni said, “Sometimes he takes the babe sightseeing in Venice. Sometimes they go to Treviso or the beach at Jesolo for a long lunch. Don’t expect them back until three or four. De Carlo will alert us.”
Commissario De Carlo, a Venice investigative officer, was the task-force leader. “And Vadim hasn’t done anything suspicious? Contacted anyone?”
“Nothing that would give us an excuse to move on him.” The man unscrewed the cap on his bottled water and drank.
“Wiretap?”
Leoni sighed. Except for the man’s tech skills, Jack suspected he was part of the task force mainly because he spoke fluent Italian. An angry red scar slashed from his left eyebrow to his cheekbone, the result of some mission gone wrong. Maybe sometime Jack would ask him about that.
Then Leoni roused himself enough to shake his head. “Local polizia put up a roadblock of red tape. Vadim’s been a good citizen so far, spending liberally and living peacefully.”
“Hereabouts, he’s a wealthy business consultant,” another officer added. “They have no idea he’s a major player in the diamond-smuggling trade. We’re not ready to share intelligence with them.”
Leoni chuckled. “Just for grins, I tried to wire in anyway, but Vadim has a scrambler. With his black-market connections, he can get anything.”
The video officer spat into the dirt. “He will not get away this time. If the uranium charge does not stick, Interpol now has given us enough evidence on the smuggling.”
“For now, we wait.” Jack had read all that and more in the Interpol report, but he’d asked in case more intel had come in. He laid the binoculars beside him on the ground.
At one o’clock the sun floated high among three puffy clouds. Temperatures climbed to a soporific sauna, incubating the cultivated vines and the watchers camped among their shady rows. “Unusual for early June,” said one of the Italians on a yawn. Everyone nodded in a doze.
Except Jack.
Downtime or not, his mind dwelled on his quarry. He didn’t need the CO’s report to know the relevant events.
The uranium courier’s trail had disappeared after Venice, but his kinship with Vadim was no coincidence. When De Carlo interviewed Vadim, he denied any contact with his cousin and invited the officers to search the villa. They found nothing suspicious. Other than Vadim and his bodyguards, a young American woman resided there. An overly courteous Vadim had introduced her as his houseguest.
Jack emitted a snort. Guest was clearly a euphemism. De Carlo’s report stated that her bedroom — beside Vadim’s — had been awash in Italian designer boutique clothes and silk lingerie with the price tags still attached. A check of Vadim’s credit card history showed he’d purchased them all. A man didn’t buy expensive clothing for a mere guest.
He raised the binoculars and used the rest of the time to study the villa. The house, part of it dating to the 1600s, was a mix of red brick, native-stone chimneys and flagstone terraces. It stood at the end of a long avenue lined with lime trees. On one side was the vineyard, tended by the adjacent farmer cooperating with the task force. On the other side, opposite the watchers, sprawled gardens, a swimming pool and guesthouses.
“They come,” one of the Italians said. “De Carlo says five minutes ETA.”
Jack’s adrenaline surged and his temples throbbed. Deep breaths calmed him. Photographs had put a face to Vadim, but now he was finally going to see his enemy in the flesh.
When tires crunched on the gravel driveway and the purr of a powerful engine approached, he raised the binoculars.
An S-Class Mercedes sedan rolled up to the portico, and the driver climbed out, a swarthy man in a lumpy sport coat. The Italian bodyguard one Guido Mazza. He made a small bow as he opened the rear door.
The diamond dealer eased smoothly from the backseat. He gleamed like his wares, in a tailored suit the same silver-gray as his luxury automobile. At a distance he looked fit, trim and much younger than his fifty years.
Fifty is all you’ll have. Jack’s eyes narrowed as he memorized the man’s features.
Even teeth showing in a crocodile smile, bright and bogus, Vadim extended a hand for the woman.
Jack had seen photographs of her too, snapshots taken with telephoto lenses. Hot as the Italian sun but with a freshness that surprised him. Sophie Rinaldi, aged twenty-seven, from Pelham, New York. An American tourist who after two weeks of touring Italy moved in with Vadim. She--
What he saw next short-circuited his thought processes. A slim foot in a red sandal extending from the Mercedes. Then a long, shapely, tanned leg. And the other.
“The guy is pond scum, but mamma mia, he sure can pick ’em.” Beside Jack, Leoni had awakened.
The Rinaldi woman accepted Vadim’s proffered hand as she slid from the leather interior. After smoothing her skirt — a gauzy red thing that floated to her knees — she tossed back her hair and smiled.
That soft curve of lips sent a shock wave of heat into Jack’s veins. Never had the mere sight of a woman affected him with such power. Why now? Why her?
Classic oval face, full lips, a mass of softly curling dark hair, toned feminine curves — the sensual Italian look. Hot but nothing special. Except she wasn’t what he expected, even from the telephoto shots. Softer, like her name, Sophie. With a breathless, otherworldly quality that kept his gaze riveted to her instead of to his target.
A fluke — effects of the sun and anticipation. He exhaled slowly, then again until the sensual vise loosened. He dragged his gaze from the woman to Vadim.
As the driver pulled the car around to the garage, Vadim and Sophie strolled toward the house. The diamond dealer leaned back his head and laughed at something she said. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. The older man didn’t have his hands all over her, but why would he when she was in his bed every night? An assumption on DARK’s part, but a logical one.
“Lucky bastard,” Leoni muttered. “He’s old enough to be her father.”
That wasn’t how Jack would’ve put it. But close enough. He should shoot right now. End it. But he wanted the son of a bitch to know who executed him and why.
The two continued their casual conversation as the woman tucked a wave of hair behind one ear.
“Why the devil can’t we hear them?” Jack whispered. “No bugs or wiretaps, but what about mics or EARS41?” High-tech listening via the Electronic Acquiring Reconnaissance System would do the trick.
“We tried. He’s got blockers we haven’t cracked. So we hang out in the vineyard and tail them. Old-fashioned police work.” Leoni yawned as if ready for another nap.
When the couple reached the doorway — wide double doors with a massive knocker — Vadim gestured to indicate that he was staying outside. He pointed toward the swimming pool, where his other thug waited for him. Petar, with an unpronounceable last name, hailed from Cleatia, like his employer.
Sophie smiled. Rising on tiptoes, she placed a hand on his shoulder. She brushed a quick kiss on his mouth.
Vadim barely reacted. Jack’s face heated as though she’d kissed him. He swore under his breath.
With a little wave, she pivoted, her flirty skirt allowing a glimpse of creamy thigh before she vanished inside the villa.
“Woman likes to tease. Like all of ’em.” He angled his binoculars to follow Vadim. “A velvet trap.”
“Maybe some,” Leoni murmured. “Not for me.”
Jack didn’t comment. Tease? Maybe. More like torture.
But he couldn’t let himself be distracted by a woman. For damn sure not a murderer’s woman like Sophie.
Sophie. He sat back on his heels. Nearly dropped the binoculars. How did she go from being the Rinaldi woman to Sophie?
