Thief
by Leslie Georgeson
(Popov Bratva, #4)
Publication date: June 14th 2022
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Mafia, Romance, Suspense
I live by one simple rule.
Do not get attached.
Feelings are a weakness that I can’t allow.
It’s an easy rule to abide by. Keep everyone at a distance.
Then a sassy, smart-mouthed redhead interferes in my heist. For the first time in my life, I botch the job.
If I let her go, she’ll turn me in. I have no choice other than to take her hostage.
Too late, I learn she’s a celebrity. Her disappearance will make the headlines and lead back to me. She’s nothing but trouble in a tight, sexy body.
Can I strike a deal with a woman who challenges me at every turn?
Then I discover she has secrets that could ruin her. Now I have the upper hand. I plan to use it to my advantage.
She has more to lose than I do. Or so I think.
I am about to learn that some rules are meant to be broken.
—
EXCERPT:
My stomach dropped. Had I seriously lost my wallet? This was not good. I needed to go back to the store before they closed and see if I could find it.
It was ten-thirty at night. The store closed at eleven. I needed to hurry.
There might be a slim chance someone had found my wallet and turned it in to someone at the store. It was also possible I’d dropped it somewhere and it still lay where it had fallen. If I hurried, I might actually get lucky and find it before someone picked it up.
The paparazzi should be long gone by now.
Snatching up my purse, I tossed my phone inside and headed for the garage. I’d never lost my wallet before. I wouldn’t feel better until I had it back in my possession.
Snagging a hoodie from the coat rack by the back door, I slipped it over my head. Moments later, I was in my Audi R8 and pulling out of the garage. I’d fallen in car lust the moment I’d seen the sleek and sexy convertible at the car dealership last year. Melanie called it a “dickmobile” and I loved the description with its intended pun. The sports car had cost me over a hundred and fifty grand. It was one of my few splurges. Mostly, I was careful with my money, investing over half of it for the future. I was smart enough to know I wouldn’t be on top forever. Everyone’s career had its ups and downs. Considering where I’d come from, I wasn’t about to be too confident. Today I might have it all, but tomorrow I might have squat.
I took nothing for granted.
Ten minutes later, I reached the store. 10:45 p.m. I still had fifteen minutes until closing.
The parking lot was nearly empty now. Only a few cars remaining. A sleek black Escalade. A beat-up blue Honda. A nondescript gray sedan.
Assuming the owner of the Escalade was wealthy, probably a celebrity and unlikely to care if he or she spotted another celebrity, I parked next to it. Plus, I felt safer parking near another expensive car. People with nice cars were less likely to ding your vehicle with their doors.
Pulling the hoodie up over my head to hide my face and stuffing a pepper spray in the pocket for my safety—a girl could never be too cautious—I exited the car and hurried toward the south entrance where Gus had picked us up earlier. If I couldn’t find my wallet on the ground, then I would go inside and ask the store clerk if someone had turned it in.
I’d only taken about eight or nine steps across the parking lot when I sensed a movement behind me.
My skin prickling, I whirled around.
A man dressed all in black slipped out of the back of the Escalade and rushed around to the driver’s side of my Audi, his face hidden beneath a black balaclava.
My mouth dropped open.
Are you kidding me?
Frozen with shock and cursing my dumb luck and the decision to park near the SUV, I could only stare as my car bleeped, the lights flashing as it unlocked, and the man slipped behind the wheel. Of my car. How the hell did he unlock it?
What I did next was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But I wasn’t about to lose my precious Audi in addition to my wallet.
Pulling the pepper spray from the pocket of my hoodie, I raced back to my car just as the engine fired up.
Oh, no, you don’t, asshole!
Yanking the passenger’s side door open, I leaped into the vehicle just as it started to move forward.
The man jerked toward me in surprise.
I aimed the pepper spray at his face.
And pressed the trigger.
Leslie Georgeson
Leslie Georgeson writes romance and suspense, sometimes with a dash of sci-fi or paranormal tossed in to make things more interesting. She is the author of the popular military romantic suspense series, THE DREGS, which was nominated for the 2018 TopShelf Indie Book Awards. Her other titles include the UNLIKELY HEROES series, the UNDERNEATH series, the standalone romantic mystery, NO SON OF MINE, and the newly released romantic suspense duet, THE PACT. Book one, The Mocking Man, is now available on Amazon.
Leslie lives with her husband and daughter on a quiet country acreage in Idaho. She is currently working on The Honest Liar, the second book in THE PACT, and anticipates an early May 2020 release.
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