AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It says here that the woman living with Mr. Razin, a Chloe Stuart, is looking to hire a housekeeper.”
“Yes, she reached out to an employment agency three days ago. But that’s risky. You’d be right in the thick of things, directly interacting with the leader of a powerful criminal organization and his high-ranking associates on a daily basis.”
“Isn’t that the best way to get information?”
“Good way to get killed if you’re caught,” Roberts countered, and Alice gulped.
He wasn’t sugar-coating this for her, and she knew that he was right. If she infiltrated the home of the head of the Bratva and got caught, she was as good as dead. But if she pulled it off, finding information that could lead to a RICO conviction, she’d get the respect she deserved.
“I say that we let her do it,” the other woman at the table said. There were murmurs of agreement, but Roberts still hesitated.
“Are you sure about this, Silvers?”
Alice knew that he was giving her an out, but she wasn’t going to take it.
“I’m sure.”
“Well, that doesn’t give us much time. The agency promised to send a housekeeper tomorrow. I already had the tech guys setting up an ID for you, so I’ll have them adjust it to fit with the new parameters of your undercover operation. Do you think you can handle that with so little notice?”
“Yes.”
She hoped that she sounded more confident than she felt. Roberts gave a tight nod.
“Then, your name will be Alice Lawson, and I’ll take you to your new apartment tomorrow morning. In the meantime, say your goodbyes to loved ones and study your packet. You need to learn as much about our enemy as you can.”
The meeting ended, and Alice left the building, heading to her small apartment on the north end of the city. She’d just moved in, and the place barely felt like home yet, but she was about to leave it behind for a while.
Going into her bedroom, she sat on the bed and let out a sigh. Undercover work was something that she’d only done twice, and both times, she was pretending to be a junkie to track down a drug dealing network. It was short-term and required her to blend in more than anything.
This was going to be different. She had a role to play with his undercover operation. She’d be getting up close and personal with some dangerous people, and she just hoped she wasn’t in over her head.
Taking her cell phone out of her pocket, she pulled up her mom’s phone number. It rang three times, and Alice was sure that it was going to go to voicemail when her mom finally answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Pumpkin? That you?”
Alice smiled at the nickname. She’d been given it when she was a toddler and her mom dressed her as a pumpkin for Halloween. Her older brothers had refused to call her anything else after that, and her parents got on board. Every time she heard it, she got a warm feeling in the center of her chest.
“Yeah, it’s me. How are you?”
Her mom lived on the other side of the country in the same house where Alice and her brothers grew up. They still lived in the same town, but she was quick to strike out on her own, joining the FBI in her early twenties with the hope of making a difference in the world. Now, at thirty years old, she wasn’t sure that she had succeeded in that.
“I’m good,” her mom said. “I just had dinner with Tony last night. His wife looks like she’s ready to pop.”
Tony was the oldest sibling in the family, and the only one that was married. He and his wife were expecting their first child in about a month, and she hoped that she’d be done with this assignment by then. She’d hate to miss the birth.
“And what about Carl?” she asked about her other brother, the rebellious middle child. “Have you seen him lately?”
“Of course. He’s just down the street, after all. He came over just this morning to borrow some laundry detergent. Poor thing forgot to buy some.”
Alice rolled her eyes but didn’t comment. Her brother was lazy, but there were worse things a person could be. It was good for her mom to have such frequent visits from him, even if he was still relying on her to take care of him in many ways.
“How are you, Pumpkin? Settling in well at the new job?”
“Yeah. Really well. In fact, I just got assigned to a new case.”
