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

words, sounds were foreign me after several weeks of hearing and speaking Arab dialects.
    “Riot, escapees, reacquire.” They repeated the words over and over, in English, Dari, Pashto and Modern Standard.
    Wanting information from the warlord?
    Think, Staci. Use your brain. Use your training. I forced myself to focus on their words.
    Escapee. That was me.
    Riot? That wasn’t right.
    Reacquire? A fancy word for putting me back in that jail...or worse.
    Then their words struck me. Escapees? Multiple? Fariya wouldn’t have done that. Letting other prisoners go meant certain death.
    The old man’s words came back to me. Sacrifice.
    Shit. Shit. Shit .
    Moisture leaked from my eyes. Dammit. I couldn’t afford to lose any more. Yet tears continued to roll down my face. I didn’t have time for grief. I didn’t have time for this choking rage festering in my chest. I had to get out of here. Quietly. Silently.
    Reacquire?
    No fucking way.
    Fariya had given her own life to insure I helped her, helped her village, helped her country. She had given her life for mine.
    Someone had set me up. Someone engineered my capture. Someone wanted me dead.
    I wasn’t going to let them succeed.

FOUR
    September 6
    Washington, D.C.
    Staci is dead.
    Jordan Ramirez stared at the official, high-level, high security clearance report from Afghanistan. A succinct, thirty-two word brutal recitation of her death.
    Cigarette burns, barbed wire tearing of dermis, mole on her collarbone burned off, decapitated (head missing), skull found in ashes outside the prison. Body showed signs of pre- and post-mortem torture.
    He couldn’t bear to look at the second page yet.
    Photographs.
    Frank McClellan, his boss, gestured to the two-page report he had just handed to Jordan. “An American woman we’ve been keeping track of was killed.”
    The normal sounds of the office filtered through his consciousness. But the everyday murmur of conversation, the hum of computers and fax machines, the muted ringing of phones seemed distorted, far away.
    The smell of coffee left too long on a Bunn warmer, the subtle mix of fabric softener, floral perfume, and the slight under-scent of perspiration twisted into a surreal throb behind his left eye.
    Staci. Dead.
    He refused to believe it. She had such life, such energy, such sheer presence. She couldn’t be dead. They weren’t done yet. He was still mad at her. She couldn’t fucking go away and not finish their argument.
    He loved her.
    When was he supposed to get that out? And why the hell hadn’t he told her instead of arguing with her for misleading him about her job?
    And shit, didn’t that just say it all.
    Inside his pocket, Jordan clenched her mother’s amulet in his left hand, running his thumb over the delicately carved scarab. Beyond shifting his thumb he didn't move, didn't twitch a muscle. He couldn’t have even if a sniper had a bead on him.
    Something in Jordan’s very stillness must have given him away. “You okay, man?” Frank’s question ripped him out of his misery, and Jordan realized he'd been silent too long. And it was critical he not show any more reaction than he’d already betrayed.
    No one knew about his relationship with Staci, and if they found out, he wouldn’t be able to access this report. Jordan dropped heavily into a chair at the lunch table, before his knees gave out. “Yeah. Touch of food poisoning.”
    Frank took a surreptitious step back.
    Jordan tapped the sheets of paper against the forearm of his Egyptian cotton shirt and forced himself to focus. He had to start asking the right questions. “What was she doing in that area of Afghanistan anyway?”
    As if he didn’t already know. As if he and Staci hadn’t had the mother of all arguments when he’d discovered she was going there. And that had been before he’d found out she worked for the fucking C.I. of A.
    “She was a do-gooder, working for United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs. Humanitarian