Passion of the Streets

by A'zayler

“Federal Judge Katherine J. Sanders will be sworn in tomorrow as the eighteenth chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, enabling President Daniel Walker to put his stamp on the court for decades to come. Sanders’s nomination had been slow-walked while Senate Republicans waited to see whether the new Speaker would pursue impeachment of the president. But with Speaker Reynolds’s death, the Senate majority leader decided to move ahead with the confirmation.”

  Abrianna stared transfixed at the image in the corner of the screen. “That’s her!”

  “That’s who?” Kadir asked.

  She pointed. “That’s the other woman from the hotel. That’s Kitty!”

  “Judge Katherine Sanders?” he thundered. “She’s the one you think framed you for murder?”

  “Yes! I’d know that face anywhere. It’s her!”

  “But why?” Kadir asked, puzzled.

  “Didn’t you hear the reporter?” Draya asked. “That Speaker guy was going to impeach the president. An impeachment meant no confirmation. No Supreme Court.”

  Ghost slapped a hand across his forehead and whistled. “Holy shit. The same judge who sent you to the clink,” he said. “The new chief justice of the Supreme Court. Ha! Good luck taking her down.”

  “We’re going to need more than luck,” Kadir grumbled, ripping off his fake mustache. “We’re going to need a miracle.”

  Ghost shook his head. “Yo, dawg. That road you are on just got as crooked as a muthafucka.”

  “No shit,” Kadir hissed, staring at Judge Sanders’s image on the screen until the telecast cut to a commercial.

  Defensive, Abrianna glanced around the eclectic group and read doubt and disbelief. “You guys believe me, don’t you? I’m not making it up. She’s Kitty—the other woman at the hotel that night.”

  Draya pressed a hand against Abrianna’s shoulder. “I believe you.”

  “Yeah. I believe you, too,” Julian added, curling up only one corner of his lips. His eyes, however, avoided her gaze.

  Abrianna’s jaw hardened.

  Julian explained, “It’s just that . . . well, this is huge, Bree. The fucking chief justice of the Supreme Court? What the fuck are we going to do?”

  Abrianna’s body slumped. “I have no idea.”

  “Well. How about that?” Ghost said. “We’re all on the same page with our heads up our asses. Great!”

  Kadir cut his friend a hard look. “Chill.”

  “What? I’m just stating facts. It’s a miracle that every Uncle Sam soldier isn’t pouring into this bitch and hauling our asses to jail right now. You’re wanted for bombing the damn airport and your new chick here is wanted for killing the third most powerful man in America. Firing squads were made for terrorists like you two.” He held up a hand and added, “I’m just telling you how the media is going to spin it.”

  “And don’t forget the dead bitch we left back in the van,” Draya reminded them.

  Shut up, Abrianna mouthed.

  “Come again?” Ghost cupped his ear and leaned toward Draya. “Dead body? What dead body?” He looked to Kadir. “What the fuck is she talking about?”

  Kadir hedged.

  “Mutha—come here! Let me holler at you for a moment.” Ghost spun his boy by his shoulder and shoved him out the door.

  Sighing, Kadir went along. Deep down he knew that he was wrong for springing this situation on Ghost. If the roles had been reversed, he would have gone apeshit.

  Ghost jostled Kadir to the bunker’s break room and slammed the door. It took another minute to calm down and choose his words carefully. “There is no point in my asking whether you’ve lost your damn mind because I already know that since you laid eyes on that suicidal stripper, you’ve completely checked the fuck out of reality.”

  “Ghost, calm—”

  “Ah, ah, ah.” Ghost held up a finger and shook his head. “You’ve lost any right to tell me to calm down. I’m not the one whose face is plastered on the news as a domestic terrorist.”

  “Hold up,” Kadir interjected. “You’re wanted by the federal authorities too for political hacking.”

  “For questioning . . . and for something that they can’t prove, and, more importantly, my mug shot hasn’t debuted on a single wanted poster or news broadcast.”

  Kadir cocked his head. “Are you jealous?”

  “Jealous? Who? Me?” He waved the notion off. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Kadir squinted and read the truth in his face.

  Ghost swung the conversation back to the matter at hand. “Who is the corpse?”

  Kadir sighed.

  “Please, please tell me it’s not the president of the United States.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Kadir said.

  “Then who?”

  “Remember the madam we raced across town to talk to?”

  “You’re shitting me,” Ghost said. “She killed her?”

  “No. Abrianna didn’t kill her,” Kadir snapped. “We just . . . sort of kidnapped her.”

  “Oh. Well. That makes more sense. What’s a little kidnapping every now and then?” Ghost shrugged with a straight face. “What the fuck, man? Snap out of it!”

  “We didn’t have much of a choice since the woman cleared out of her estate. A friend of Abrianna’s was catering a party for the woman’s boyfriend, so her other friend, Draya, created these disguises and we crashed the joint.”

  “To kidnap the madam?” Ghost clarified, following along.

  “Right. Only . . . there was a hiccup.”

  Ghost crossed his arms. “That tends to happen when committing federal crimes.”

  Kadir glared.

  “What happened?” Ghost asked, rolling his hand, wanting to get the end of the story.

  “Bruh, I’m still not sure. This guard showed up when we were loading the body up, and I think . . .” Kadir glanced at the closed door and then crossed over to stand in front of it, to make sure that no one entered. He lowered his voice. “I think . . . Abrianna threw this four-hundred-pound guy up against the side of the house—without laying a finger on him.”

  Ghost stared.

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” Kadir tossed up his hands. “I don’t blame you. If I hadn’t seen the shit for myself, I wouldn’t believe it either, but . . . there’s no other explanation. I saw what I saw.”

  “Catering?”

  “Yeah. We—”

  “Never mind. Finish the story.”

  “Like I was saying, the guy startled us, and when he approached the van to see for himself what we were doing, Draya slammed the van door into his face and his gun went off.”

  “So that’s how she got shot?”

  “Right. But when the gun went off,” Kadir’s voice went even lower, “Abrianna screamed and . . . this huge guy flew backward. I mean literally up in the air and slammed into the side of the house, knocking him out cold. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Silence.

  Kadir’s hands fell to his sides. “You don’t believe me.”

  “Believe what? That your hooker girlfriend out there has superpowers? Sure. Of course I believe you. Why wouldn’t I?”

  Kadir’s gaze leveled on his friend. “I’m not bullshitting you, man.”

  Ghost evaluated Kadir and then took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  “Okay? So you believe me?” Kadir checked, surprised.

  “I believe that you believe what you thought you saw.”

  Kadir ran that sentence back through his head. “But . . . you don’t believe it happened?”

  “Is it important that I believe it? Does it change anything?”

  Kadir sighed. “I guess not.”

  A few minutes later, they returned to the cot room where the group waited.

  “I’m not crazy,” Abrianna Parker insisted.

  Ghost folded his meaty arms while his black gaze centered on her. “I’ve only known you for a few days, I hope you don’t take offense, but I personally think you’re batshit crazy and
I don’t want anything more to do with this nonsense.” His lethal gaze sliced toward Kadir. “Look, bruh. We go way back, but this mess right here? I want no part of it.”

  Kadir squared his shoulders at the curt tone. Emotions warred across his face, and despite his own visible doubt, he defended Abrianna. “Why don’t we just hear her out?”

  “Hear her out? She just said that the new chief justice of the Supreme Court—and your mortal enemy, I may add—murdered the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the second man in line of succession to the presidency. Do you know how fucking crazy that shit sounds?”

  “No crazier than half the conspiracy theories that you’ve entertained over the years. All of which has you huddled down here in this underground bunker, hiding from the feds in the first place. Is what she’s saying really that hard to believe?”

  Ghost opened his mouth, but the words never tumbled out.

  Kadir arched a brow and cocked his head.

  Finally, Ghost closed his mouth and speared Abrianna with a look. “What happened to the madam? Wasn’t she supposedly behind the conspiracy theory when y’all left here the last time? Who is it going to be next? The president?”

  “Hey!” Kadir shoved Ghost, sending him careening into the nearest wall.

  “Yo, dude!”

  “Watch it,” Kadir warned.

  Julian crowded behind Kadir, ready to tag into the fight.

  Tension layered the room while everyone else held their breath.

  Ghost backed down. “All right, man. My bad.” He clamped his mouth shut.

  Kadir glanced back over at Abrianna. “Please. Continue.”

  Abrianna battled her pride to get the rest of her story out. “Look, you guys already know the rest. It was my first night as an escort working for Madam Nevaeh. That woman showed up and introduced herself as Kitty. My john was happy when she arrived up. They knew each other. We . . . partied . . . and when I woke up, my client was missing part of his head and that Kitty bitch was nowhere to be found. I got out of there, but then gunmen showed up at my apartment. My best friend Shawn, who’s still laid up in the hospital right now, took a hit, but I kept running until I jumped into your car, Kadir.”

  “Where they shot up my car and I brought you here the last time.” Kadir finished the story for her.

  “Right.” She huffed. “Now, what are we going to do?”

  Everyone’s eyeballs ping-ponged around the room again. Clearly, none of them had a clue to what to do next.

  Ghost sighed. “Great,” he moaned.

  Their gazes shifted around the room again.

  Roger, one of Ghost’s hackers, cleared his throat and drew everyone’s attention.

  Ghost’s brows climbed to the center of his forehead. “You got something to say? Speak up.”

  Nervous, Roger cleared his throat. “Well . . . I take it that the media received the image of Abrianna from the Hay-Adams Hotel security surveillance.”

  Ghost shrugged. “Yeah, and?”

  “Then Kitty, er, Judge Sanders should be on surveillance, too,” Abrianna said, grinning.

  Roger smiled. “Exactly.”

  Hope, the last emotion in Pandora’s box, filled the room.

  “But how are we going to get our hands on their surveillance footage?” Draya asked.

  Kadir’s handsome grin stretched. “How else? We hack.”

  However, hacking the luxury hotel turned out to be a difficult job. Ghost and Kadir ascertained that it would require physical access to the hotel’s security server.

  “How are we going to manage to do that?” Abrianna asked.

  “My guess is that someone is going to have to pose as an employee and break into their security department. Once in there, upload a custom malware to give us access to their digital files.”

  “That sounds simple, which means it’s anything but,” Abrianna said.

  Ghost smiled. “Smart girl. I’d imagine posing as an employee would be difficult. Something as small staffed as a hotel, everyone would know everybody. Don’t you think?”

  “Well, it’s a pretty big hotel with shops and restaurants—but getting near security . . .” Abrianna shook her head.

  “Right.”

  Julian spoke up. “What if someone was applying for a job?” He had everyone’s attention and continued, “I worked security once at a hotel, and our security department was near the human resources office. New hires passed by our department every day.”

  Ghost and Kadir smiled. “You’re hired.”

  Julian blinked. “Me?”

  “Yep. You’re not on anybody’s radar. And you have the expertise to get in the door.” Kadir slapped Julian on the back. “First thing tomorrow, you’re applying for a job.”

  Julian looked sick.

  DON’T MISS

  Stiletto Justice

  Camryn King’s sizzling debut novel delivers an intriguing tale of three resourceful women with a ruthless senator in their sights—and even more explosive ways to take him down....

  Enjoy the following excerpt of Stiletto Justice. . . .

  Prologue

  “Is he dead?”

  “I don’t know, but seeing that lying trap of a mouth shut is a nice change of pace.”

  Kim Logan, Harley Buchanan, and Jayda Sanchez peered down at the limp body of Senator Hammond Grey of Kansas.

  “I agree he looks better silent,” Kim mused, while mentally willing his chest to move. “But I don’t think prison garb will improve my appearance.”

  “Move, guys.” Jayda, who’d hung in the background, pushed Harley aside to get closer. She stuck a finger under his nose. “He’s alive, but I don’t know how long he’ll be unconscious. Whatever we’re going to do needs to happen fast.”

  “Fine with me.” Harley stripped off her jacket and unzipped her jeans. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get the hell out of here.”

  “I’m with you,” Kim replied. Her hands shook as she unsnapped the black leather jacket she’d borrowed from her husband and removed her phone from its inside pocket. “Jayda, start taking his clothes off.”

  “Why me?” Jayda whispered. “I don’t want to touch him.”

  “That’s why you’re wearing gloves,” Harley hissed back. “Look, if I can bare my ass for the world to see, the least you can do is pull his pants down. Where’s that wig?”

  Kim showed more sympathy, as she pointed toward the bag holding a brunette hair transformer. “Jayda, I understand completely. I don’t even want to look at his penis, let alone capture it on video.”

  Harley had stripped down to her undies. She stood impatiently, hand on hip. “I tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to get buck-ass naked for you two to punk out. It’s why we all took a shot of Jack!”

  “I’m too nervous to feel it,” Jayda said as she wrung her hands. “I probably should have added Jim and Bud.”

  “Hold this.” Kim handed Jayda the phone and walked over to the bed. After the slightest of pauses, she reached for the belt and undid it. Next, she unbuttoned and unzipped the dress slacks. “Jayda, raise him up a little so I can pull these down.”

  Harley walked over to where Kim stood next to the bed. “Don’t take them all the way off. He looks like the type who’d screw without bothering to get totally undressed.”

  Kim pulled the pants down to Hammond’s knees. The room went silent. The women stared. Kim looked at Harley. Harley looked at Jayda. The three looked at each other.

  “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” Jayda asked.

  Harley rubbed the chill from her arms. “We’re all seeing it.”

  “Star Wars? Really, Hammond?” Kim quickly snapped a couple pics, then gently lowered the colorful boxers and murmured, “Looks like his political viewpoint isn’t the only thing that’s conservative.”

  She snapped a few more. Harley donned the wig, looked in the mirror, and snickered. “Guys, how do I look?”

  “Don’t,” Kim began, covering
her mouth. “Don’t start laugh—” The low rumble of muted guffaws replaced speech.

  The liquor finally kicked in.

  “Come on, guys!” Jayda’s whisper was harsh though her eyes gleamed. “We’ve got to hurry.”

  “You look fine, Harley. As gorgeous a brunette as you are a blonde.”

  Harley removed her thong and climbed on the bed. “Remember. . .”

  “I won’t get your face, Harley. What the wig doesn’t cover, I’ll clip out or blur. You won’t be recognizable in any way.”

  “And you’re sure this superglue will work and hide my fingerprints?”

  Jayda nodded. “That’s what it said on the internet.”

  “I’m nervous.” Harley straddled the unconscious body and placed a fisted hand on each side.

  “Wait!” Kim stilled Harley with a hand to the shoulder. “Don’t let your mouth actually touch his. We don’t want to leave a speck of DNA. I’ll angle the shot so that it looks like you’re kissing.”

  “What about . . . that.” Jayda pointed toward the flaccid member.

  “Oh yeah. I forgot. Look inside that bag.” Harley tilted her head in that direction. “With the condom on, it looks like the real thing.”

  Jayda retrieved a condom-clad cucumber and marched back to the bed as though it were a baton. “He won’t like that we’ve filmed him, but he’ll hopefully appreciate that we replaced his Vienna sausage with a jumbo hot link.”

  The women got down to business—Jayda directing, Harley performing, Kim videotaping. Each job was executed quickly, efficiently, just as they’d planned.

  Finally, after double-checking to make sure her work had been captured, Kim shut off the camera. “Okay, guys, I think we’ve got enough.”

  Harley moved toward the edge of the bed. “Pictures and video?”

  “Yep. Want to see it?”

  “No,” she replied, scrambling into her jeans. “I want to get the hell out of here.”

  “That makes two of us,” Jayda said, walking toward the coat she’d tossed on a chair.

  “Three of us.” Kim took another look at the footage. “Wait, guys. I have an idea. Jayda, quick, come here.”

  “What?”

  “No time to explain. Just take my phone . . . please?”