With Every Breath (36 page)

“No!” she screamed, and she flung her body in front of Wade's just as Thomas shot. Fire exploded through her chest and her mouth opened in a soundless cry just as another shot sounded.

As she slid to the floor, she saw the neat hole form right between Thomas's eyes and then he was flung back, falling lifelessly onto his back.

Thank God.

She closed her eyes, her relief so profound that for a moment she didn't feel the horrific pain tearing through her chest. Wade was safe. That was all that mattered. Then another sound, a terrible, guttural cry of heart-wrenching pain registered close to her ears. Oh God, had Wade been hurt after all?

She felt hands on her face and strangely, wetness as well. She struggled to open her eyes and saw Wade's head hovering over hers, his eyes awash with tears.

“Stay with me, Eliza,” he said hoarsely. “Oh God, baby, why? Why did you do it? You have to stay with me. Don't you dare close your fucking eyes.”

She watched hazily as he yanked his phone to his ear and began yelling that he needed an ambulance and the situation was critical. For some reason the room was growing darker, but she knew the lights were on. Why was it getting so dark?

Then Wade's face loomed over hers again but she could barely make out his features. His hand feathered over her cheek and he looked . . . terrified. That was odd. Wade didn't get scared. Her eyelids grew heavier and then the room went completely black.

“Don't you give up!” Wade yelled hoarsely. “Don't let go. You're free now, baby. He can't hurt you anymore. Please don't give up. I love you so much. I've been in love with you ever since you got into my face the first time we met in my art gallery. Why the hell do you think I spent so much time pissed off at you? You always seemed so determined to get yourself killed. Why would I have taken a bullet for you?”

He went quiet, making a choking sound and she struggled against the darkness to pry her eyelids halfway open, trying to focus on him, to do as he demanded. More noise erupted as people poured into the kitchen. She heard her name from seemingly a dozen directions, but she was only focused on Wade. She was afraid if she lost sight of him, he would be gone forever.

His eyes had gone all watery again and he continued stroking her cheek. Sirens echoed in the distance, becoming louder by the second.

“Lizzie, my God, Lizzie, are you okay?”

Dane was here? Her muddled mind struggled to make sense of the chaos around her. She attempted to look in the direction of his voice, wanting to tell him she was sorry, but when she tried to move, a spasm of pain overtook her and warm, metallic liquid coated her tongue and then slid from the corner of her mouth.

A weird sound that mimicked stabs of pain confused her and then Wade's lips were on her forehead, pressing tenderly against her skin.

“Be still, baby. Try to stay still for me. I need you to hang on.” He was stroking upward over her forehead, smoothing her hair in a repetitive motion. “In here!” he yelled to some distant person.

She blinked but her eyelids felt so heavy. Wade grew fuzzier and she felt cold. He looked at her with such torture in his eyes.

“Why did you take a bullet meant for me?” he asked brokenly.

She smiled faintly and struggled to respond, battling against the lure of unconsciousness. She licked her lips, trying to rid herself of the odd slickness slithering over her tongue. She couldn't breathe right, and she wasn't sure she could respond to his question, but it was too important. He had to know.

“Because I love you and if you died, it would destroy me, kill me anyway. You're a good man, Wade. The very best. I thought I'd learned what love was. I saw it. It was beautiful. Worth dying for. But you taught me how to love and be loved. It's all I've ever wanted and you gave that to me.”

Her voice became fainter, more somber as she drifted further and further away. A sense of peace settled over her, the most wonderful feeling she'd ever experienced. She smiled, tears sliding hotly down her temples.

“I'm free,” she whispered. “I'm finally free.”

“Eliza!”

The world faded rapidly as more faces pushed in, one barking orders while another pressed on her chest. The last image that registered was of Wade roaring at her not to leave him and of Dane and Zack physically restraining Wade as he tried to lunge for her.

TWENTY-SEVEN

WADE
stood in the surgical waiting room, staring broodingly out the window, Eliza's blood still bright on his clothing, his hands. His team and hers were assembled, all tensely waiting for word. He could feel the weight of Dane's stare, but there was no judgment, only worry and grief.

He glanced at the rest of her team from his periphery, and they were little better. Their expressions were drawn tight, hopelessness evident in their posture and stance.

Eliza had been in surgery for hours. She'd coded as the EMS personnel had arrived and were attempting to stabilize her. They'd left performing CPR in a load-and-go situation. That had been the last time Wade had seen her.

Eyes closed, lifeless, after saying she was finally free.

Grief welled within him once more and he curled his fingers into tight fists. If only he'd gotten there a few minutes earlier. If only Eliza hadn't thrown herself in front of him to take the bullet meant for him.

Never had anyone cared enough about him to put themselves between him and death. No one had ever loved him until Eliza, and God, he couldn't lose her now. He cursed the time wasted, the time he had spent fighting the inevitable. She'd barreled into his life, upending his carefully ordered existence, and for the first time in a lifetime he'd felt alive. And now she lay on an operating table fighting for her life. Because she'd saved his.

Don't leave me, Eliza. Fight, baby. Please fight. I can't live without you. Please don't leave me alone.

He bowed his head, emotion knotting his chest and throat until he couldn't breathe. All he could see and hear was Eliza screaming
no
and then launching herself in front of him just as Thomas had fired. Her body jerking, then him shooting Thomas and Eliza sagging to the floor in a pool of blood. He'd never forget that sight. Never get it out of his mind. For the rest of his life, that image would haunt his dreams. He only prayed that she would be lying in bed next to him so when he woke she was there, alive, whole, loving him.

The phones of Beau and Zack went off every half hour. Their wives, demanding updates, sick with worry for Eliza. Caleb, the only DSS member to remain behind, had also been a constant caller, his furious voice audible in the quiet waiting room.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't stand here while a surgeon came out and told them that Eliza hadn't made it. That they'd been unable to save her. He wouldn't survive it. He wouldn't want to survive it.

She was his. Had been his since that very first day. He should have staked his claim earlier, made it evident to her that she belonged to him. It had been obvious to everyone else, but Eliza had closed herself off to the possibility of any sort of relationship and had been oblivious. Well maybe not oblivious, but he'd frightened her, had shaken her routine every bit as much as she'd shaken his, and he should have pressed his advantage instead of backing off the way he'd done and waiting. Watching, protecting from a distance.

After her abduction and torture, he should have moved in and taken over. He hadn't. He'd been furious when she had declared she was in on the mission to take down the sick bastards who'd caused so much damage to the DSS wives—and to Eliza. But he hadn't shut her down as he should have. And then, when she'd damn near been killed in that op and he'd taken the bullet meant for her, the one that would have killed her, he sure as hell should have made certain that she was in his bed every single night.

None of this would have happened if he hadn't been so . . .
afraid
. He closed his eyes as the painful admission settled over him. She scared him to death. She made him vulnerable. Because for the first time, there was someone who meant everything to him, and the risks she took terrified him. More than that, however, she scared him merely for the depth of what she made him feel, and he'd been determined to maintain careful distance so that when he did make his move, it would be on his terms. So he wouldn't have been so vulnerable or need her as much as he did.

What a fool he'd been. Stupid, stupid, stupid. By denying the depth of his caring, his love for her, he'd denied her the protection she'd so desperately needed. The support, both physical and emotional. She wouldn't have ever left to face Thomas alone. That wouldn't have even been an option because Wade would have been there. Every goddamn day. He would have known something was wrong, unlike her team who thought she was still recovering from the trauma she'd experienced.

If Dane hadn't called him, would Wade have even known what Eliza was up to until it was too late? Would he have received the news after the fact like her team would have? That she died alone, no backup, no protection, no one to stand for her and all because she was desperately trying to protect the people she loved—including him?

He hadn't seen it then, but God, he saw it now. He'd been so blind, so determined that he'd have Eliza on his terms and his terms only. He had seen the same things he felt reflected in her eyes, the same fears he felt, the same vulnerability. He'd scared her every bit as much as she'd scared him, but she'd cared enough to distance—or try to distance—herself from Wade so Thomas would never know of his existence.

“Sterling,” Dane's quiet voice sounded next to him.

Wade jerked, thinking that perhaps the doctor had come in while he'd been lost in thought and self-recrimination. But the waiting room was as it had been for the last hours, only now Dane stood at his side, the first time anyone had approached him.

“You can't do this to yourself, man,” Dane said in a low tone, meant only to be heard by Wade. “You can't tear yourself apart and blame yourself or grieve prematurely. Eliza is a fighter. She won't go down easy. She knows Thomas is dead now. She will never worry about him coming after her or the people she cares about.”

“She
took
. A
bullet
. For
me
,” Wade hissed, his fists clenching tighter.

He wanted to tear the waiting room apart. Wanted to punch the walls until his hands bled. Anything to release the overwhelming pain and despair. Never had he felt this kind of agony. Such a sense of loss. Like half of him had been cut away, like he'd lost the other half of his soul.

“I know she did,” Dane said somberly. “She would have done it for anyone she cared about. Hell, she would have taken it for a stranger. That's just who she is. She'd likely deny that Thomas in fact made her a better person, made her into the selfless, beautiful person she is today, one who fights for justice no matter the cost. But the truth is, what happened to her when she was sixteen shaped her. She walked away from that life, became someone else because she refused to allow him to continue controlling her. She wrongly took the blame for the deaths of every single one of his victims and that fucks with you.”

“She had nothing to do with their deaths,” Wade exploded. “She had
no
right to carry that burden for ten goddamn years. She was only sixteen.
Sixteen
. And she insists on looking at the choices and emotions of a young girl who had nothing, no one to love her, no one who cared, through the eyes of an adult, with an adult's knowledge.”

Dane nodded. “You and I know that, but she doesn't. Maybe she never will. Or maybe she'll finally be at peace now that justice has been rightfully served.”

“Not at the expense of her life,” Wade said fiercely. “I'll never accept that she has to die in order to find peace. I sure as hell won't. I'll never know another goddamn day's peace knowing she sacrificed her life for mine.”

“She'll pull through,” Dane said simply. “Eliza simply doesn't know how to quit.”

But Wade could see the worry and despair, reflections of his own, in Dane's eyes. Could see it in every single one of her teammates' expressions. None of them would ever know peace again if Eliza died.

Wade turned back to the window, staring blindly at the sky as the first soft light of dawn appeared on the horizon. He didn't want to face another sunrise without her. He wanted her to be the last thing he saw when he went to sleep at night and the first thing he saw when he woke the next morning.

She held his heart in the palm of her hands, held his future, his destiny. It all belonged to her, was wrapped up solidly in her and he waited with growing resignation to know her—and his—fate.

The sun rose steadily, dousing the waiting room with bright sunshine, a direct contrast to the black storm of emotions held within. The quiet was driving Wade out of his mind. He was going to go insane if someone didn't tell him something soon.

But he feared the appearance of hospital personnel even as he waited, on edge, for someone to come. Because if they told him the worst, his heart and soul would die in that moment.

Exhaustion and worry had taken its toll on him, and he finally sank into a chair, leaning forward to bury his face in his hands. He had to hold it together. If he broke, if he let even the first wave of emotion get the better of him, he'd never stop. And so he held rigid in his vigil, mind numb, sorrow wrapped solidly around his battered heart and soul.

Still more hours passed and with it the threads holding Wade's sanity together grew thinner. No one had moved. No one had eaten or even gotten up to go to the bathroom. No one stood down for a single moment.

Close to noon, a haggard looking man in scrubs appeared in the doorway, exhaustion pronounced in his eyes. When he called for those here for Eliza Cummings, Wade surged to his feet, as did every single other occupant of the room.