Conflicted (Undercover #2) Read Online Free PDF

certainly made sense, given that we’d barely spoken from the moment we got to his apartment to the time he—I flushed. And that morning, he’d seemed ready to hurry me out. And yet he’d sat there watching me, when he thought I was asleep. And even during the sex, I’d seen that flicker in his eyes, gotten that feeling that, however much he treated me like something to simply be fucked, there was a lot more going on inside.
    And what about this trip on the yacht? I kept Adam informed of where I was. In theory, if I got into trouble, he could get me out. But that didn’t apply if I was off in the middle of the ocean. I didn’t even know which country we were going to.
    I tried to focus on the mission, but I couldn’t help wondering what it meant, that Luka wanted to take me away with him. Did I qualify as a girlfriend, now? My last relationship had been in college and had followed the same pattern as the ones in my teens: flirting and kissing and dating and then, eventually, something more physical. This was completely different. Was I a lover, now? That sounded like something out of a 70s French movie. Was this how grown-up relationships were—you fucked the guy and then you hoped that you started to mean something to him?
    I went around and around thinking about it, getting more and more worked up. Just when I was about to wind down the cab’s window and scream to vent some stress, my phone rang. I presumed it was Adam and grabbed it. “Hello?”
    “Arianna. Thank God. What in the name of fucking fuck do you think you’re doing?”
    Nancy.
    And suddenly, everything was okay. At last, I had someone I could talk to. Someone who’d understand what it was like to be undercover.
    Of course, we’d have to talk in code. Our calls were probably being intercepted by the Russian authorities and there’d be hell to pay if they thought the CIA was running an op in their country. We had to sound like a couple of typical twenty-somethings. “I thought you were on that business trip,” I said.
    “I got back last night and found you gone. Your... dad told me about your vacation in Moscow.” She sounded casual and cheery, while letting just enough of a hint of fear bubble through that I understood her real message.
    “Yeah, well...I figured it was time I saw the world. You know I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.” I’d moaned plenty of times to Nancy about wanting to try field work.
    “Sure, sure. But Moscow? I didn’t think the travel company you use even did that sort of trip.”
    I frowned. The Company was slang for the CIA. She was hinting that the op didn’t make sense. Roberta had said something similar. Why was the CIA—and Adam—so interested in Luka? And why had he sent me, not someone experienced, like Nancy?
    I pushed the disquiet down inside me. This was my one chance. I wasn’t going to start second-guessing my new boss. Maybe she was just jealous, although that wasn’t like her at all.
    “Don’t you think you might have rushed into things a little?” Nancy asked. “Your dad says you’ve already fallen for some guy out there. I don’t want to see you get your heart broken, Arianna. And this guy sounds like a real heartbreaker.”
    “I’ll be fine,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. She wasn’t talking romance. She was talking about my body being found floating in a Moscow river.
    “You don’t know what these Russian men can be like,” she said. “A lot of them have big families. Lots of brothers.” She was talking about the brotherhood, the Russian mafia. “It makes it difficult for them to form attachments with women. In fact, they don’t get on with women at all. Do you remember I told you about my old boyfriend, Dmitri? He was Russian.”
    I felt sick. I remembered Dmitri. She’d told me, one night after too much wine, about how one of her first missions had required her to steal documents from his office. He’d caught her, beaten her and tried to rape