With Every Breath (Slow Burn 4)

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.