Overview

She was supposed to defend her. Not desire her. Alexandra Chen is a burned-out public defender with a stack of student loans and a crumbling belief in justice. When she's assigned to represent Isabella Romano—the ice-cold daughter of Boston's most notorious crime lord—she expects another case she can't win. She doesn't expect the way Bella looks at her. Like prey. Like a puzzle. Like something worth possessing. Isabella "Bella" Romano didn't kill the federal prosecutor they found at the harbor. But she knows who did. And she knows why. The secrets she's keeping could destroy her family's empire—or save her seventeen-year-old sister from a monster wearing a badge. When she meets Alexandra Chen—all righteous fury and trembling hands—Bella sees something she hasn't seen in years: someone worth protecting. Someone worth wanting. But in Bella's world, desire is dangerous. As the trial unfolds, Alex is pulled deeper into a web of corruption that reaches from the courtroom to the FBI to the Russian mob circling Boston's underworld. The justice system she believed in is a lie. The woman she's defending is a killer. And the attraction between them? That might be the most dangerous thing of all. When bullets start flying and bodies start dropping, Alex must choose: the law she swore to uphold, or the woman who makes her feel alive for the first time in years? Some verdicts can't be appealed. PRIMA FACIE is Book 1 in the IN CONTEMPT trilogy. This dark mafia lesbian romance features an age gap, enemies-to-lovers tension, morally grey characters, explicit content, and a cliffhanger ending. The trilogy concludes with a guaranteed HEA. Trigger warnings: Violence, references to sexual assault (off-page), morally complex situations, explicit sexual content.