Betrayals (Black Cipher Files series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

armor-piercing round from a tank.”
    Not to mention fucking IED’s.
    He balled his fists in a lame attempt to keep his hands to himself. Dammit. He did not want her going to Afghanistan.
    “I’m more likely to be attacked on the streets of D.C. or New York,” her voice broke, “like my grandparents.”
    A low blow in his opinion. Lately she'd been obsessed with the violent death of her grandparents. But Jordan let her argue, because he was too upset to speak.
    “Than I am on the streets of Kabul, as long as I wear my burkha.” She folded the faded blue fabric into a neat, precise rectangle.
    “But you aren’t just going to be in Kabul.”
    He couldn’t stand it any longer. Jordan stopped her efficient packing with the simple pressure of his palms against her shoulders, bare except for the thin straps of a soft cotton tank top.
    Savoring the warmth of her satin skin, slick with lotion and the scent of gardenias, he curled his fingers into the muscles on her arms and gently squeezed.
    “Don’t go.”
    “This is one of the things I do.” Although her voice was low, calm, the tension in her body transmitted to his hands as she turned around to face him. Her gaze was a mixture of apology and defiance. “This is for UNOCHA.”
    “Land mines?” His voice rose.
    “I don’t have anything to do with the actual de-mining or detonation of the explosives.” She skirted the subject.
    “Could you pick anything more fucking dangerous?”
    Her gaze slid away from his for a mere instant before returning and holding.
    “What the fuck,” his voice got lower, quieter, “was that?”
    He couldn’t believe her involuntary flinch from what should have been a completely rhetorical question. Not much else could be more dangerous than going to Afghanistan in the middle of a fucking civil war.
    With that one telling gesture, he knew something bigger was coming. For a bare flicker of time, he wanted to cover his ears, he didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear what was coming next.
    He knew her, knew by the look in her eyes he wasn’t going to like it. Strike that. He was going to hate whatever came out of her mouth next. And yet, he had to ask. "What?"
    “I work for the CIA,” she announced baldly.
    What?
    He knew she’d been keeping secrets...but he couldn’t even be sure he’d heard correctly. “Tell me my girlfriend didn’t just tell me that she works for the CIA?”
    The fucking Central Intelligence Agency?
    You couldn't trust a spook. Most of the time they were lying. Either by omission or because their information was classified. With her confession, he realized the first woman he'd ever considered taking home to meet his mother and aunt, the first woman he'd opened up to, had secrets he wouldn't ever tap.
    He despised secrets and lies. And he realized that he'd been in the biggest lie of all since they'd met. “Has anything you told me been the truth?” He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice.
    “Yes,” she practically shouted. “How can you ask me that?”
    “Fuck.” Jordan closed his eyes, reached for his usual calm. “Because I really don’t know you at all.”
    And fuck him, but he really didn’t.
    How could he judge anything, present or past, without filtering it through the reality that Staci Grant, his girlfriend worked for the CIA. “Was our relationship a cover for something else?”
    “No!” Her gaze was wild, desperate.
    He let his disbelief bleed through. Frankly, he’d lived through enough weird political dynamics before he was ten years old and finally understood asking about his father was a really bad idea and some things were better left unexplained. And with that thought he had to wonder...she couldn't be trying to get information about his father, could she?
    Or what if she'd been trying to get information about his job?
    He couldn’t seem to grasp anything, as if his mind was clouded with static. Trying to make sense of the past few months, he reviewed their