With Every Breath (10 page)

She rolled her eyes. “You mean the same thing said in every single one of those pointless meetings where we're all reminded of the job we do—jobs we're damn good at by the way. Dane, I know them by heart. Pardon me for already mentally planning a few weeks on a beach somewhere soaking up as much sun and sand as possible, maybe hooking up with a single hunk and blowing off some steam.”

Dane scowled and Eliza rolled her eyes. “Cut the big brother act, Dane. I don't lecture you when you're out fucking women. So far your only redeeming quality is that you don't have a double standard when it comes to men and women. Don't ruin it for me now.”

Dane sighed. “You know I have no problem with you taking vacation, Lizzie. God knows I've been after you to take some time off for years. But why now? What's going on with you? And swear to God, if you tell me nothing, I'll handcuff you to the bed in the guestroom of my house and then I'll sic Ramie, Ari and Gracie on you. Especially Gracie since she'll know
exactly
what that devious mind of yours is plotting.”

It didn't take as much effort as Eliza had thought to allow her aching vulnerability to show. The pain of the last weeks and that of the weeks to come. Dane must have seen the shadows of remembrance in her eyes because he suddenly cursed and rubbed a hand over his face.

“Christ I'm an asshole. You're still having a hard time aren't you, Lizzie?” he asked softly.

She shrugged. And then sighed, allowing the truth to blend with the untruths, or rather the truths of the past, things that even Dane and his ability to find information on anyone no matter how deeply hidden wouldn't have uncovered.

“I'm tired, Dane,” she said quietly. “I can't sleep at night. And when I do, I relive every terror-filled moment of what they did. Of what I feared they would do to you. To Ramie, Ari and Gracie. The rest of my team. My family,” she said, grief heavily laced in her voice.

But she'd be damned if she let him see her cry. No one would ever see her cry again. She wasn't that weak, helpless, idealistic sixteen-year-old girl who believed in fairy tales, princes and happily ever afters.

To her shock, Dane was on his feet and around the desk before she could take a breath and he pulled her to her feet, enfolding her into his tight embrace, hugging her fiercely. Any other time she would be horrified. She'd have a sarcastic, caustic remark about acting like a bunch of fucking wussies and then punch him in the gut. But God, his hug felt good. It felt solid when nothing else in her life was solid. He was strong and just for a moment she allowed herself to lean on him and to be strong for her. She closed her eyes.

“
I know
,” he said, fury in his voice. “Because I can't sleep either, Lizzie. Because for the worst minutes of my life I thought we were too late. That I had failed you. That we hadn't made it in time and that you were
dead
. You endured unspeakable torture and you still managed to kick ass doing it. In case I haven't told you lately or often enough, there is no one I'd rather have at my back than you.”

In a rare moment, she didn't resist, didn't avoid or pull away from the close contact with cocky words meant to diffuse an awkward, emotional moment. Instead she rested her temple against Dane's chest and closed her eyes.

“I just need to get away for a while,” she whispered. “They
took
something from me, Dane. As much as I hate it, hate admitting it, hate allowing those bastards to have taken any piece of me, they did, and I have to get it
back
. I don't expect you to understand. But if I'm going to continue doing my job, and I have no intention of letting those assholes ruin the one good thing in my life, then I just need some time to pull myself back together so I can come back whole again. Because right now I'm a liability. You know it. I know it. Caleb and Beau and the others know it too. And I could never live with myself if I got one of the people I care about hurt or killed because my head wasn't where it should have been.”

Dane frowned, but as she'd known, he hadn't argued. She knew she was fragile and it had nothing to do with the assholes who'd abducted her and tortured her. But it suited her purposes for Dane and all the rest to believe just that because then they'd look no further than the surface. She'd never asked for vacation time in all the years she'd worked for DSS. Since its inception, and even before, she and Dane had worked together in a much smaller personal security agency, taking jobs on a much smaller scale.

When Dane had been recruited by Caleb and Beau, he'd accepted with one condition. He brought Eliza with him. No negotiation. And so they'd made the move together and continued to work together, strengthening their already very strong bond.

It was why they had such a close working relationship. They could predict the other's thoughts, movements . . . She choked back the suffocating, vile thoughts because she'd been about to compare her friendship with Dane, the only true thing she had in this world, to her relationship with Thomas, a man who had known her every thought, fantasy and deepest longing, and used them to manipulate her and make it so easy for her to fall into his lap with no resistance from her whatsoever. Never would she defile and disrespect Dane in that manner. He deserved so much better than the depraved, broken monster she'd become, still was, to guard his back. She just prayed her replacement would take that responsibility to heart and recognize how truly great a man Dane Elliot was and that they, like her, would be willing to lay down their life for him.

“How long?” Dane asked, momentarily confusing her because she'd been so caught up in her own thoughts.

She recovered quickly and glanced nervously at him, hoping he didn't read too much into the length of her request. Then she shrugged as if she hadn't put that much thought into it at all. “A month. Maybe six weeks. Provided y'all can do without me that long. Things are quiet right now but we all knows how that goes,” she said with a grin. “I don't really have a plan. I just want to go where the wind takes me and enjoy the downtime.”

Dane studied her a long time as if determining the veracity of her statement. Just about the time her iron discipline was about to desert her and she started to squirm under his scrutiny, he once again struck her speechless.

“You managed to hide it well, Lizzie. Even from me . . . until recently,” he said in a painful tone that sounded almost hurt. As if the thought of her holding out on him had never once crossed his mind. “But they hurt you and not just physically though those sons of bitches inflicted plenty of damage. They damn near
killed
you. Far too close for my peace of mind. I still can't forget that moment, Lizzie. When I thought we'd been too late. Goddamn it!”

His voice was thick with emotion, features blackening with rage and his eyes went as dark as obsidian, glittering with menace and so much pain and regret that it took her breath away.

“Swear to God, I wish to hell Gracie hadn't been able to identify them or read their fucking thoughts so I could have killed them on the spot. And it wouldn't have been slow, Lizzie. I would have repaid them for every mark they put on you. For every thought of terror they drove into your mind. And for making you doubt even for a moment that the people who care most about you wouldn't make it to save you in time.”

“Dane,” she choked out, reaching up to touch his arm. “Do you honestly think I would have lasted as long as I did if I hadn't known you'd come? You know what I went through and you know most people would have given up. Accepted the inevitable. Even
prayed
for the end so they could escape. I stayed alive because I
knew
you and the others would come, that you would have never given up, and I knew we would make every last one of them pay, not just for what they did to me. But for what they did to the other women. Never for a minute think I lost faith in you.”

He shook his head as if rejecting her absolute belief, her unwavering faith in
him
.

“Still, I should have seen how this affected you. I should have fucking sat on you and insisted you stand down when we took them out. Instead you were nearly killed and swear to God, my heart fucking stopped. I thought I was having a heart attack and if it's all the same, I don't ever want to go through that again.”

Her eyes narrowed because now she was getting pissed. She was asking for vacation, not for an analysis of her mental state—or lack thereof.

“Am I or am I not cleared for vacation?” she snapped. “Or do I need to remind you that I haven't had so much as a day off in the entire time I've worked for you.”

Slowly he smiled and the worry and fear dispersed like fog being melted away by the sun's rays. “Consider yourself on vacation as of five minutes ago. And Eliza? If I so much as see your ass within a mile of the office or poking your nose in one of our cases for at least six weeks, I'll suspend you and double your vacation time to three months and I'll have Isaac sit on you and, trust me, after you nearly getting yourself killed twice? No one would have to twist his arm to get him to take that job. He'd take great delight in being allowed to boss you around.”

Then he grinned slyly. “If that's not enough incentive for you, I'd be more than happy, as part of their training of course, to have one or more of the new recruits keep you under lock and key.”

She made a face and rolled her eyes. “You're all a bunch of Neanderthals.
You
just hide it under that smooth, polished preppy look you've got going on.”

He frowned and then outright scowled at her.

She threw up her hands in surrender. “Hey, vacation was my idea, remember? I have no intention of doing anything remotely work related.” Okay, it wasn't a lie. What she had to do in no way involved DSS or anyone involved with DSS.

“I plan to find a nice beach house somewhere private where they have nice cabana boys who will bring me fruity, girly cocktails with little umbrellas in them, work on my tan and hopefully the scars will fade and by the time I come back to work, you'll all be so sick of me and my attitude, you'll promptly wish I had taken three months instead of half that,” she teased.

His scowl darkened further at the mention of her scars and she wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

“Dane,” she said, a hint of impatience but gentle understanding in her voice. “I'll be fine okay? I'm not so stubborn that I can't or won't admit I need a break. It's been . . . hard.”

She nearly choked on the words, on the admission that she was struggling and needed time to put herself back together. God, she hated this, putting doubt in Dane's mind that she was no longer capable of pulling her own weight in a job she loved. But then it wasn't as if she had a job to come back to, so what did it really matter? Dane's expression immediately softened and his hand went to her shoulder and squeezed.

“I have no doubt you'll be fine, Lizzie. I won't have it any other way. Now get out of my office, go get packed, if you aren't already. But do me a favor please? Would you check in every once in a while just for my peace of mind? I . . . worry about you. You have my word that no one will call you and I'm not asking you to check in with the others. This is purely off the record. Friend to friend. Just let me know how you're doing and that you're okay.”

She smiled, a genuine smile and one she hadn't been able to pull off no matter how hard she tried since her life had irrevocably changed course.

If she hadn't been so relieved to have gotten past Dane without him being astute enough to know something was definitely going on, other than her sudden desire for an impulsive vacation, she would have remembered that nothing ever got by Dane. And she was an idiot for thinking so.

Not five minutes after she left and Dane lifted one of the slats of the blinds covering his office windows to ensure her vehicle was gone, he then went back to his desk and sat down, punching in a phone number that only served to further blacken his mood.

Never in a million favors would he ask the favor he was about to request from the man he was about to ask it of. He'd never considered any situation where he'd humble himself enough to ask for help from a man who set his teeth on edge. But for Eliza, he had no pride. For Eliza, her safety and ensuring she remained safe, he'd do the unthinkable.

“Wade Sterling,” Dane nearly growled into the phone. “Tell him Dane Elliot is calling about . . . Eliza Cummings.”

If there was one man Eliza couldn't steamroll, it was Wade, a man who'd taken a bullet for her when he went up against every single member of DSS and told them what flaming dumbasses they were for allowing an injured, tortured woman who hadn't had sufficient time to recover from participating in the takedown of the men who'd hurt her so horrifically.

And when it became a battle of wills, with Eliza showing more fire and determination than Dane had ever seen from his usually unflappable partner, and her refusing to back down under Wade's intimidating, ferocious decree, he'd simply honed in on the mission, insisting on going along even though he in no way worked for DSS; and furthermore he was a man who lived cloaked in shadows and Dane didn't trust him as far as he could throw him.

Only, he'd stepped in front of a bullet that Lizzie's vest wouldn't have protected her from. It would have struck the vulnerable flesh of her neck and killed her instantly. Instead, Wade's much taller frame had caused the bullet to lodge into his arm and even then, the bullet used had been an armor-piercing bullet and had torn through the flesh of his arm, missing bone, thank God; and because Eliza had time to turn, the bullet had gone through Wade's arm and had wedged itself into Eliza's protective vest as Wade had taken her down, covering her body with his own.

Yes, if anyone could find out what Eliza was up to and the source of so much pain and shadows in her eyes, and worst of all the fear Dane had seen clearly reflected in a tenth of an unguarded second before she'd visibly collected herself, it was Wade Sterling.