With Every Breath (Slow Burn 4)

“Smart girl,” he murmured.

She ignored him and went on, her eyes locked on some faraway point, lost in her nightmare.

“There was blood everywhere. The floor, the walls. It was as though he purposely splattered it. There was one woman already dead, but she was barely recognizable as a woman or even a human. He’d tortured her so badly that all that remained was . . . pulp,” she said in horror. “But there was one who was alive. The one he was playing with and toying with. And what he said to her. God, I’ll never forget what he said to her as long as I live.”

Wade squeezed her but remained silent.

“He apologized to her. Told her he was sorry but that he couldn’t ever do these things to his precious love. That I was perfect and he would never touch her—me. He was talking about me, Wade! Said he could never touch me with anything but love and tenderness and so he had no choice but to slake his desires on other women. He told her not to worry, though, that he wouldn’t keep her much longer. That her torment would end today and she would finally be at peace. Then he asked her to forgive him. Forgive him! I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. I wanted to save her, but all I did was stand there where he couldn’t see me, so horrified, so terrified and disgusted that I couldn’t move.

“She told him to go to hell, that she would never forgive him. That she hoped he rotted in hell. He was so enraged that he killed her right there in front of me.”

“Oh baby,” Wade whispered, his eyes burning.

He buried his face in her hair and rocked her gently back and forth, holding her as she trembled violently in his arms.

“I got out of there as quickly as I could and went to the police. They called the DA in immediately and questioned me for hours. Asked me if I was certain of what I saw. As if I could forget.” She shuddered. “I’ll never forget. I still see those images when I close my eyes at night. Not a day has passed that I don’t remember.”

“So what happened then?” Wade asked.

“They arrested him. The dead woman I’d seen was no longer there and neither was the woman he killed while I was there but there was blood everywhere and they found DNA to match the women they’d already found the bodies of as well as DNA to match the as of yet undiscovered bodies.”

“You had to testify,” Wade said grimly.

She nodded. “It was awful. The defense painted me as a lovesick teenager with a fixation—obsession—with Thomas and that when he turned me away because of my age that I launched a sick vendetta against him. But the evidence was such that they didn’t even need my eyewitness account. He was sentenced to five consecutive lifetimes behind bars.”

Wade’s brow furrowed. “Then why . . .” His voice trailed off trying to make sense of it all.

“I got a call from the prosecuting DA a few weeks ago,” she said bitterly. “He told me that Thomas must have gotten to one of the investigating cops. The cop testified under oath that he’d tampered with evidence in order to make the case a slam dunk. But there was no need and I know the investigator never did any such thing, but if Thomas did indeed get to him then he would have been compelled to carry out Thomas’s wishes regardless of whether he was telling the truth or not. As a result, Thomas’s conviction was overturned and he’ll be a free man in two days.”

Wade’s blood froze. Now it was all starting to come together and make sense. Why Eliza had severed all ties with the people she loved and why she was on a veritable suicide mission.

Needing confirmation before he jumped to conclusions, although with the arsenal she was packing and the fact she’d sent what amounted to a goodbye letter to Gracie and the others, he knew he was not wrong in his assumption of her plans, he tipped her chin up so she was forced to meet his gaze.

“What exactly are you doing here, Eliza?” he asked in a dangerously quiet voice. “And what did you mean when you said you’d marked me for death? And why is it so fucking important that this guy never know of your association with the people you’re close to in Houston? Why the fuck would you go off alone like you have no help, no one to have your back?”

She made a sound of frustration. “Because he will kill anyone I love. Anyone who has had any part of my life. He’s obsessed with me and he’s irrationally jealous. He would think nothing of removing anyone he viewed as competition for my affection. He wants me to himself. He wants to be the only person in my life. He wants me completely and wholly dependent on him in every way.”

Wade processed her statement for a moment. From all she’d told him about this Thomas guy, he didn’t find that hard to believe. The guy was one sick fuck, no two ways about it.

“I thought . . .” She broke off as grief washed over her already hollow features. “I thought he would be in prison the rest of his life. That I was free and that I could start over. Do you know that Eliza Cummings isn’t even my birth name?”

He knew his face registered the shock he was feeling.

“I had it legally changed. I wanted nothing to do with the life I was leaving. No reminder. I no longer wanted to be that person and so I started over. New name. New identity. New past. And I erased everything that came before. I thought I’d left it all behind. That I was safe to actually lead a normal life. I could make friends. Friends who showed me the true meaning of love and not the sick, twisted thing Thomas professed to be love. If I had known, if I’d had any idea he would go free I would have never allowed myself to get close to anyone. I would have never risked the people I love that way. But now I’ve made you all targets. He’ll see every single one of you as threats and he’ll go after every one of you and I can’t let that happen, Wade. I can’t.”

“So you decided to take him out first,” Wade surmised, his features grim.

She swallowed and nodded.

“And he would know about the people you cared about and especially that I made love to you by reading your mind.”

A spasm of pain rippled across her delicate features. “Yes,” she whispered.

He gave her an exasperated look. “Did it ever occur to you to stay the hell away from him? Not to ever give him that opportunity? He wouldn’t have found you in Houston and if he had, he would have been taken out and not by you.”

She lifted her chin in defiance, a spark lighting her eyes giving him savage satisfaction to see remnants of the Eliza he knew so well lurking there behind the grief and self-recrimination.