Page 1 of The Mobster's Angel

PROLOGUE

Jack

The sun has barely risen.A sleepy silence envelops the neighborhood.

Hours remain still before teams of gardeners descend on the well-manicured lawns. But the day is already warm, and the water in my neighbor’s pool sparkles invitingly. I train my gaze on the blue rectangle.

Watching.

Waiting.

She doesn’t disappoint.

My heart catches in my throat as she steps into view. Because I’ve watched this scene unfold dozens of times. And I know exactly what sweet torture continuing to watch will be.

A better man would look away.

A better man would close the blinds.

But I’m not a better man. Hell, I’m not even agoodman.

Not even a little bit.

Some might call me obsessed.

Twisted.

Wrong.

I’m all those things. And I make no apologies for that.

Since the day I laid eyes on her, I knew she was mine. I knew it just like I know the Pope is Catholic and that bears shit in the woods.

Facts.

It is a fact that Olivia Thomas is mine.

Have I met her?

That’s debatable. Technically speaking, yes, I have met her. And she has met a version of me—that much is true. I haven’t allowed her to meet the real me, though.

One day, maybe I will. If I can find a way to wrap my conscience around that.

For now, I’m just a neighbor and a friend of the family who employs her.

In the real world, I’m as neighborly toward her as a lion toward a lamb. The family she works for are no friends of mine. They’re rivals who we have a delicate ceasefire with.

Hence the reason I bought this house.

To watch them.

Except, it’s not only the family I watch.

I watch her, too.

And I’m beginning to think she knows.

She could wear a normal bathing suit, but she never does. She wears the skimpiest piece of fabric available. Sometimes when the house is empty, her employers off on some business trip or away for a family vacation, she swims nude.

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