With Every Breath (13 page)

He was so goddamn mad that he was precariously close to losing his shit right in the middle of her driveway. He wanted every last one of those bastards' blood, especially Dane's. Dane, her partner—no,
family
—according to Eliza's words. Words still ringing in his ears. Dane had wimped out and sent Wade like an errand boy knowing how she looked and admitting he was “worried.” For something this precious and important, Dane was too worried over making his “friend” mad when he should have been more worried about having her at all.

The entire episode, his sudden insight and decision had taken no more than a tenth of a second. A hell of a short time for the course of his life to alter. And in just that nanosecond, Eliza recovered and her face became icy, chill radiating from her eyes.

She looked cool, unflappable, like the Eliza he
thought
he'd known. The one everyone
else
was
supposed
to know. But in the time a blink of an eye took, Wade saw something he was certain no one had ever seen or bothered to notice.

She holstered her gun and took a step forward until she was a mere twelve inches from him. She notched her chin up, defiance and fire glinting in her eyes. Too bad for her. That tenth of a second had meant the difference between him letting her walk away and him sticking to her like glue.

“You don't know
anything
about me, Sterling,” she said in a cool voice. “Don't ever make the mistake of thinking you do.
Assumptions
get people killed. Readiness, preparation, working to become the best. Those are what save not only your life but the lives of your teammates as well. We aren't in this as every man for himself. We're a unit. We're . . . family.”

Something cracked in her voice at those last words and he had the strangest compulsion to simply wrap his arms around her and do nothing but comfort her and bury his face in her sweet smelling hair. The instincts he always relied on told him she was barely hanging on by a thread and would likely fall apart.

He reined himself in before she panicked and tried to kick his ass.
Tried
being the operative word. Right now he wished she would try to kick his ass because then at least he'd be familiar with this Eliza and not this kicked puppy version.

“I know a lot more about you than you think I do,” he said, his features going hard.

The lie rolled easily off his tongue, because he wanted to do something
more
to widen the crack he'd witnessed just moments before. It made him a complete bastard, but he'd never have this opportunity when her defenses were up and she'd shaken off whatever the hell haunted those soulful eyes. And it wasn't like he couldn't get the information he already claimed to have. He just hadn't had a solid reason beyond his annoying preoccupation with her to intrude on her privacy in such an underhanded way.

His code or rather sense of justice may seem twisted or even criminal by others, but if it got the job done and the desired effect achieved, then he didn't waste much time over useless emotions like remorse. And if it helped him get to the bottom of whatever the hell was making Eliza run like a scared rabbit, he'd hound her night and day until she conceded and let him in.

Because while he was raging about Eliza fearing anything, it infuriated him in equal measure that he was every bit as damn afraid, and this was
not
a familiar emotion for him. Cold. Methodical. Heartless. He'd heard them all and did not give one fuck. But Eliza had cheated death not once, but twice. Actually who knows how many other times he hadn't been there to witness just how many brushes with mortality she'd experienced.

She was highly trained, determined, dedicated and wasn't afraid to call or wait for back up. Her IQ very likely rivaled his, possibly even surpassed it, even if recent events had him muttering things like “fool woman” or “stupid female.”

Death would only be cheated so many times before claiming ultimate victory and Wade would be damned if it claimed Eliza as one of its victims.

If possible, after Wade's casually tossed out statement, Eliza went even paler and she swayed on her feet, though she brushed his hand away when he reached to steady her. She took a hasty step back, slipping her slender but well-toned arms around her body in a defensive, protective measure.

This time she either didn't have the forethought to steel her emotions and not react to his words, or maybe she simply wasn't capable, because her eyes widened and once more fear chased through her eyes, leaving deep, unfathomable shadows in their wake, almost as if they were a permanent part of her, hidden by years of rigid training and only visible under extreme duress.

Goddamn it! Twice now he'd seen actual fear and . . . vulnerability.
Twice!
And he sure as hell hadn't imagined them. He was too attuned to others, and even more so to Eliza, to his disgruntlement, always watching, studying and observing. Always looking for weaknesses.

His eyes narrowed as did his scrutiny because now he had one more shocking revelation to process.

Trepidation.

She was trembling. Barely discernible, but she balled her fingers into fists to control the slight jitter. Wade was going through his own gamut of firsts. Worry knotted his insides, and he was driven by a sensation he'd never experienced when it came to a woman. To simply haul her over his shoulder and do what came naturally to him. Take control. Take charge. And do whatever it took to get Eliza to confide in him, trust him, but most importantly to protect her from whatever the hell had her running in secrecy without telling any of her coworkers what the fuck was going on.

“I've got to go,” she whispered, darting quickly away and around to the driver's seat. To Wade's chagrin the passenger side door was already locked.

He pounded on the glass, marveling that he didn't break it.

“What the fuck is going on with you, Eliza? You're goddamn
running
and you've never had the damn sense to run from anything! Why are you so willing to fight for everyone else, at great risk to yourself, but not allow others to fight for
you
?”

She cranked the engine and he knew he was fucked. If he'd had more time, a quicker heads-up, hadn't fucked around for so long before deciding to move in and stake his claim, she wouldn't be packed and ready to run like a scared rabbit to God knows where. She would be solidly under his protection, in his bed, with no way of escaping. As it was, his options were down to two. Play chicken and hope she flinched . . . or she flattened him when she reversed from her parking spot.

He hurled himself across the hood and plastered himself against her windshield so they were face-to-face, so she could damn well see his fury as he roared at her.

“What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On!”

She cracked her window just enough so she could be heard without allowing him any way of accessing the vehicle.

“I don't owe you an explanation for my whereabouts at any time,” she shouted back. “You aren't my boss, so back off. No one else has a problem with me taking downtime so why the hell should you? God knows you were all about having someone sit on me and not let me out of the damn hospital bed and then you had to interfere in a mission that DSS had well in hand. My team believes in me. They trust me. Can you say the same?”

“Get this through your head, Eliza,” he said in a menacing voice. “This has nothing to do with me having lack of faith in you. We both know you've more than proven your skills, your loyalty and the fact that you're willing to die for every member of your team. It has everything to do with the fact that while you're so busy saving the world, covering your partners' asses and taking out assholes who don't deserve to breathe the same oxygen as the majority of the population, that no one is
caring for you
. No one has
your back
and I know damn well you've backed off your team and have been doing your job by rote. Being reckless, taking stupid chances almost as if you
want
to die. Here's a newsflash for you. You can't run from
me
. I have resources beyond your wildest imagination, and I'll turn the fucking world over until you're back where you belong. Alive. Well. And not in pieces. You got me?”

His face was plastered against the windshield and he was looking at her as fiercely as he'd ever looked at anyone before—man or woman. There was no mistaking his determination and that he meant every word he'd shouted. Even with her window partially opened, he wanted every single word to sink in to this beautiful, infuriating and stubborn as hell woman. One who inspired both respect and absolute terror in him despite his irritation over both.

She paled and swallowed hard, as if her throat were knotted and she could barely breathe around it.

“Eliza,” he said harshly, no longer even attempting to leash his temper or the bite in his voice. “Where the hell are you going and what the hell are you running from?”

She closed her eyes but not before he saw grief simmering into the liquid pools. She was unnaturally pale and one would think she would be showing signs of recovery after her ordeal, but all she looked was scared, vulnerable and unsure of herself. Three things no one would ever associate with Eliza, much less ever give voice to them. Jesus! How the hell could no one else see what he was seeing right now?

Then she leaned her head tiredly on the steering wheel where her hands still tightly gripped it. “I can't tell you, Wade,” she said quietly, catching him off guard with her use of his first name. She'd made it a practice to put distance between them by calling him by his last name, as did most of the other DSS agents. And now, in the space of twenty-four hours, she'd used his name twice. He doubted she'd even realized it either time.

She lifted her head, resolve rigid in her eyes as she visibly composed herself. She stared at him with enough frost in her gaze to freeze a desert.

“I can't . . . w-won't tell you anything. Now
get off my car!”

She emphasized her statement by pounding on the steering wheel so hard that he inwardly winced. Hell, she may have broken it, though he wasn't sure if it was the steering wheel or her hand that wouldn't have held up. If she thought to infuse strength into her statement, it was an epic fail, because all it did was make her sound and appear even more vulnerable and . . . lost. Fuck it all, she looked lost and forlorn. Like she had no options. No choices. As though her path had been decided a lifetime ago and every year had been spent in preparation for here and now.

But he'd caught her slip in speech and knew she was as aware of it as he was. She had said
can't
, only to hastily amend it to
won't
. Was the almighty Dane, the man she gave her unwavering loyalty to, fucking blind? Because if Eliza had stood in his office as Dane had said she'd done, and Dane saw what Wade was seeing now, hearing what Wade heard, then Dane should have cuffed her and sat on her until he pried the truth from her. It wasn't as if DSS didn't have invaluable resources in the wives of some of the DSS members. Especially Anna-Grace. Let Eliza weasel her way out of
that
.

“What
won't
you tell me, Eliza?” he seethed. “You don't have the goddamn sense to ask for help. You're too busy trying to save the world without thought of protecting your own ass, and it's obvious you're scared and even more obvious you aren't safe. Because you don't back down.
Ever
. And any brainless twit could see that you
know
you aren't safe.”

She erupted, her eyes blazing, hands in tight fists as if it took everything she had not to punch right through the window of the car door.

“It's not me who isn't safe!” she yelled.

For a moment he was dumbfounded. Eliza was calm and cool under pressure. He'd never seen her this rattled even when those sons of bitches had tormented her and waterboarded her like the inhuman savages they were.

She was furious. He got that.

She hurt. He understood that too.

She wanted vengeance. He could see it in her eyes. God, he wanted vengeance as well, and not the kind the judicial system did—or rather didn't—dole out. But whether or not they lined up on the same side, she was damn well going to be behind him where she would be protected.

So what the fuck was going on here? She was definitely leaving town. But it sure as hell wasn't on vacation.

They stared at each other several long seconds, his thoughts formulating in meticulous fashion as he quickly assimilated all the pieces of the puzzle. His gut clenched, puzzling him, and he played it off as natural concern for any woman as courageous as Eliza.

But was she even planning to come back? Because she was definitely running, and if she was to be believed, the fear that had glittered in her eyes in those brief, unguarded moments wasn't for herself.

Realization made him swear violently. No, she wasn't afraid for herself. She was deathly afraid of anyone close to her being harmed and that pissed him the hell off.

She must have sensed his blinding rage and the fact he was about to punch right through her windshield to prevent her leaving because her expression became pleading, another jolt to his system, because his Eliza didn't beg for anything.

“Please, Wade. Just
go
. I have to get as far away from here and the people I care about before it's too late. I'm running out of time. If I don't leave soon enough, he'll find me and he'll kill every single person I love, care about, did something nice for or even just smiled at.”

Wade was a writhing mass of fury and confusion because he had been one hundred percent right in his conclusion as to why she was leaving as fast as possible. He wanted answers and he wanted them now, but most of all, he wanted to know who the fuck had put such terror and panic into this fierce woman, and why she was so certain this asshole would find her and kill everyone of importance to her. Did she have so little confidence in the people she worked with? The people she trusted with her life? Or was this every bit as bad as his gut was screaming it was.