Free The Betrayer by Daniel Judson Page A

still in
bed, though, when his cell phone chirped. He answered without looking at the caller
ID, and did so with a simple “Yeah.” Only one person knew the number to his
prepaid cell phone.
    “I’m sending you
some help,” the male voice said.
    Vitali had
expected to hear anything but this, and a surge of frustration immediately rushed
through him. He kept his cool, though, didn’t allow his emotion to show in his
voice. “Why?”
    “I think you
might need it.”
    Vitali didn’t
know whether or not to be insulted by this. Could his benefactor, the man his
father had served loyally for years, be angry that he missed — when he’d been instructed
to miss?
    Scare him ,
he’d been told. I need him scared, very scared . And Vitali had done just
that. Nothing more, nothing less.
    But before
Vitali could protest, the man said, “This is no reflection on you. Things have just
gotten a little more…complicated, that’s all. We need a face on all this, someone
we can afford to let people see. You can understand that, right? And no
offense, but we need a face that can open certain doors.”
    Vitali closed
his eyes, knew where this was going.
    “She’ll be there
only as support,” the man said. “She works for you, and she knows this. She
won’t give you any shit.”
    Vitali cringed
at the feminine pronoun but said nothing.
    “Sorry, but it
has to be this way,” the man said. “We can’t take any chances at this point. She’ll
be arriving at your hotel in an hour. She has the room directly below yours. I
trust you’ll show her every professional courtesy. It might be nice if you took
her out to breakfast and talked a little.”
    Vitali said
nothing.
    “I need you to
say something here, son.”
    Vitali hated
when the man addressed him that way. He didn’t care about this man’s connection
to his father, how close they may have been, or the complete loyalty his father
had felt toward him. He didn’t care that this man had been there for him since
his father’s death — had called Vitali just moments after, had assured Vitali
that he’d be taken care of, that his day would come. Trust me ,the
man had said. What other choice did Vitali, nineteen and suddenly all alone in
a strange country, have?
    Still, Vitali
knew not to bite the hand that fed him. At least not while it was still feeding
him.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Yes what?”
    “Yes, I will
show her every professional courtesy.”
    “Good.” His
benefactor sounded truly pleased. “Let her do what she does. She’s very good at
that.”
    Vitali said
nothing.
    “I’ll call you
when I know our next move,” the man said. “It should be soon, so be ready.”
    The call ended,
and Vitali resisted the urge to throw the phone across the room.
    It would be
best, he realized, if he put his rage into his workout. Tear his muscles to
shreds so they would rebuild and be even stronger than before. Push his heart
and lungs further than they had ever been pushed.
    He stripped down
to his boxer briefs and was about to do pull-ups from the molding above the
closet door when he began to wonder what the woman being sent to him would look
like.
    Would she be
attractive? Would she be older than he or would she be younger?
    Would she be
submissive?
    Then another
thought crossed his mind.
    Would he, when
this was over and done with, strip her naked and kill her, then leave her body
in this room and quietly make his escape from this country once and for all?

Chapter Eight
    Haley Siner slept only an
average of five hours a night, was usually awake and up well before Johnny, so when
he woke and realized that her side of the bed was empty, he wasn’t too alarmed.
He could tell by the sounds coming from beyond the heavy curtains hanging in
front of the half-open bedroom window — passing street traffic, voices, a single
bird singing — that it was daytime. A quick glance at the ticking clock on the
floor confirmed this.
    So nothing to
be concerned about, except maybe that