Elizabeth Bevarly - Undercover with the Mob

Dear Reader,

I had so much fun writing my first Harlequin Flipside! In fact, I have already plunged into my second.

Undercover with the Mob came about because of two fascinations I have: one with true crime, and the other with mistaken identity. Although I’m a total wimp when it comes to gritty reality (or any reality, for that matter), reading true-crime books has always been a guilty pleasure of mine, particularly those dealing with organized crime. (I have no idea why. Probably for the same sick, twisted reason that I actually like broccoli.)

As for mistaken identity, I love writing about what happens when one person makes erroneous assumptions about another, probably because whenever it happens zany antics invariably ensue. And if an erroneous assumption winds up skirting the edge of potential danger, well, that just ups the ante. Which, in turn, ups the antics. And that’s when writing becomes the most fun.

Like I said, I had a blast writing about Natalie and Jack. I hope you have a good time reading about them, too.

Have fun!

Elizabeth Bevarly

Natalie stopped dead in her tracks—and then she really wished she’d come up with a better way to think about that than dead in her tracks—at the sound of Jack’s words through his apartment door.

Telling herself she was just imagining things, Natalie turned her ear closer to the door. She thought she heard him use the word whacked. But he might not have said whacked. He might have said fact. Or quacked. Or shellacked. And those were all totally harmless words.

Then again, maybe he’d said hacked, she thought as a teensy little feeling of paranoia wedged its way under her skin. Or smacked. Or even hijacked. Which weren’t so harmless words.

Her world went a little fuzzy, and she had to sit down. Which—hey, whattaya know—gave her a really great seat for eavesdropping on the rest of his conversation.

“Hey, I know what I’m being paid to do, and I’ll do it.”

Jack wasn’t a Mob hit man turned Mob informant. He was a Mob hit man period!

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Elizabeth Bevarly is the USA TODAY bestselling author of more than forty novels and novellas. Her books have been nominated for a variety of industry awards, including the prestigious RITA® offered by Romance Writers of America, and she has won the coveted National Readers Choice Award. Her novels have been translated into two dozen languages and published in three dozen countries, and there are more than seven million copies of her books in print worldwide. Although she has claimed as residences Washington, D.C., Virginia, New Jersey and Puerto Rico, she currently lives in her native Kentucky with her husband and son.

SILHOUETTE DESIRE

856—A LAWLESS MAN

908—A DAD LIKE DANIEL *

920—THE PERFECT FATHER *

933—DR. DADDY *

993—FATHER OF THE BRAT †

1005—FATHER OF THE BROOD †

1016—FATHER ON THE BRINK †

1053—ROXY AND THE RICH MAN ‡

1063—LUCY AND THE LONER ‡

1083—GEORGIA MEETS HER GROOM ‡

1124—BRIDE OF THE BAD BOY **

1130—BEAUTY AND THE BRAIN **

1136—THE VIRGIN AND THE VAGABOND **

1184—THE SHERIFF AND THE IMPOSTOR BRIDE

1196—SOCIETY BRIDE

1231—THAT BOSS OF MINE

1252—A DOCTOR IN HER STOCKING *

1269—DR. MOMMY *

1291—DR. IRRESISTIBLE *

1323—FIRST COMES LOVE

1337—MONAHAN’S GAMBLE

1363—THE TEMPTATION OF RORY MONAHAN

1389—WHEN JAYNE MET ERIK

1406—THE SECRET LIFE OF CONNOR MONAHAN

1474—TAMING THE PRINCE

1501—TAMING THE BEASTLY MD

SILHOUETTE SPECIAL EDITION

557—DESTINATIONS SOUTH

590—CLOSE RANGE

639—DONOVAN’S CHANCE

676—MORIAH’S MUTINY

737—UP CLOSE

803—HIRED HAND

844—RETURN ENGAGEMENT

For Wanda, Birgit and Brenda, with thanks for welcoming me into the Harlequin family.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

NATALIE DORSET WAS enjoying her usual Saturday morning breakfast with her landlady when her life suddenly took a turn for the surreal.

Oh, the day had started off normally enough. She had been awakened at her usual weekend hour of 8:30 a.m. by her cat, Mojo, who, as usual, wanted his breakfast—and then her spot in the still-warm bed. And then she had brewed her usual pot of tea—her Fortnum & Mason blend, since it was the weekend—and had opened her usual kitchen window to allow in the cool autumn morning. And then she had fastened her shoulder-length brown hair into its usual ponytail, had forgone, for now, her usual contact lenses to instead perch her usual glasses on her usual nose and, still wearing her blue flannel jammies decorated with moons and stars, she had, as usual, carried the pot of tea down to the first floor kitchen, which Mrs. Klosterman and her tenants generally used as a general meeting/sitting area. It was also where Natalie and Mrs. Klosterman had their usual breakfast together every Saturday morning, as usual.

And now it was also where Mrs. Klosterman was going off the deep end, psychologically speaking. Which was sort of usual, Natalie had to admit, but not quite as usual as the full-gainer she was performing with Olympic precision today. You could just never really tell with Mrs. Klosterman.

“I’m telling you, Natalie,” her elderly landlady said, having barely touched her first cup of tea, “he’s a Mob informant the government has put here for safekeeping. You mark my words. We could both wake up in our beds tomorrow morning to find our throats slit.”

Mrs. Klosterman was referring to her new tenant, having just this past week let out the second floor of her massive, three-story brick Victorian in Old Louisville. Now, only days after signing the lease, she was clearly having second thoughts—though probably not for the reasons she should be having them, should she, in fact, even be having second thoughts in the first place. Or something like that. Mrs. Klosterman did have a habit of, oh, embellishing reality? Yes, that was a polite way of saying she was sometimes delusional.

Natalie had lived in Mrs. Klosterman’s house—occupying the third and uppermost floor, where her landlady claimed the first for herself—for more than five years now, ever since she’d earned her Masters of Education and begun teaching at a nearby high school. Other tenants who had rented out the second floor had come and gone in those years, but Natalie couldn’t bring herself to move, even though she could afford a larger space now, maybe even a small home of her own. She just liked living in the old, rambling house. It had a lot of character. In addition to Mrs. Klosterman, she meant.