Every Last Breath

by Juno Rushdan

  The memory was a splinter embedded in his brain. Her throaty laughter, her curtain of ringlets tickling his cheek, the pear scent from her shampoo, the grounding weight of her head on his shoulder, her smile—a punch to the gut.

  She had been the flame warming his soul.

  With her, he’d found something he’d never known before. Comfort. No judgment. No conditions. No expectation for him to change or be anything other than who he was, even though she was way too good for him. And for that, he wanted to be the best man he could—for Maddox.

  A gummy thickness tightened in his throat.

  He put the photos away, unable to bear remembering. Unable to ever forget.

  The shelf life of his responsibility to her had expired long ago, but no matter what, he couldn’t stomach the idea of her in danger. He had promised to take care of her, to keep her safe. He could make good on at least one.

  If she was in such deep trouble with her employer, this Sydell, that she’d gone to the effort of tracking Cole down, then things didn’t bode well.

  Regardless, he’d help her. If nothing else, to ensure she wasn’t on the Russians’ radar.

  His instincts were still hardwired to protect her, his body programmed to lust after her, but he’d get a lobotomy before getting involved with her again.

  Loving her had been the greatest danger. The biggest damn mistake.

  * * *

  Maddox zipped through a shower, lathering and exfoliating with a textured loofah—no need to shave, since she was religious about waxing—moisturized, and redid the makeup covering the bruise on her cheek. Lickety-split. Standing in front of her bureau, she contemplated attire. After her inability earlier to carve out her heart and serve it to him bleeding on a silver platter, she needed to show him a hint of softness, a willing vulnerability.

  The aqua lounge set she picked out matched her eyes. The pants clung to her curves. A soft cami with lace trim accentuated her cleavage without flaunting it. Not sleeping with him didn’t mean she couldn’t reel him closer with the bait God had given her. He was a man, she was a woman, and their magnetic attraction had been so wickedly powerful, it’d altered the orbit of her world.

  I’m a pro. I’ve got this. She unlocked and opened her bedroom door.

  Cole sat on the sofa, shoulders slumped. His head tipped up, and he looked at her, taking her in from top to toe in a slow perusal. His gaze stroked her with the intensity of a physical touch.

  A shimmer of awareness licked her spine, but when his eyes caught hers with undeniable interest, her toes curled. She snatched her gaze away and headed for the kitchen. “Want a drink?”

  “No. I want answers.” He lunged off the sofa and stalked up to her. “How did you know I was alive? Why did you rescue me? What does your employer, Sydell, want from me?”

  Shit, the background check came back fast. Don’t break your cover.

  “I could use a drink.” She stepped around him.

  Activity centered her. Making a drink would give her hands something to do and her eyes a focal point other than his savagely handsome face.

  “Still slithering through cracks when faced with slippery questions.” He swooped in front of her, slapping a hand to the wall, blocking her. “Be honest. What the fuck is going on?”

  She dropped her gaze to the buttercream carpet, collecting her thoughts, and he snapped his fingers in her face, forcing eye contact.

  He pressed two fingers to her carotid artery, sending her pulse skittering. A manual technique to monitor her heart rate and breathing to better detect lies. Was he serious?

  “Is this necessary?”

  He cast her a distinct hell yes look. “Are you in trouble? What are you caught up in?”

  Her training fired the perfect, calculated words to mind in a tight-shot group. He was primed to accept her cover story. Even with his innate ability to sniff out lies, his intimate knowledge of her inside and out, if she could beat a polygraph, she could beat him.

  Problem was she didn’t want to.

  They had once laid themselves bare, not a secret between them. He had treated her as though she’d been the most important person in the world, had worshipped her body and appreciated her mind and admired her spirit.

  Cherished her completely. Before she’d ruined it.

  Reducing him to nothing more than an asset made him a pawn. Desecrating the memory of their rare connection with a lie was the kind of wrong that went against the laws of nature.

  “If you’re in danger,” he said, “you can tell me without zip-tying me to a chair. I won’t run.”

  Ha! “You might. You’ve no idea what you’re dealing with. Don’t make promises you won’t keep. Not again.”

  His mouth set in a hard line. “I deserve that. I swore to always be there for you. To stand by you, no matter what. And when the shit hit the fan, I—”

  “Cut and run,” she taunted, feeling him out.

  The tic in his jaw popped. “Don’t. It wasn’t that simple.” His voice vibrated with tension. “You dug me up somehow for a reason. Put all your cards on the table, and I swear, I’ll help you.”

  For him to swear was no trivial thing, but he had no good reason to bind himself to help. Not one. Guilt indebted her to him, not the other way around. He owed her nothing, while she owed him an entire life.

  She hadn’t even been able to slice open a vein, hemorrhage her pain, and wheedle him to forgiveness with her remorse. Yet still, he was willing to help her?

  “Why?” After all this time of playing dead and pretending she didn’t exist—nine years of not giving two shits about her. “What do you want in return?”

  He cupped her neck with a familiar and fierce tenderness, bringing their bodies flush, their gazes clashing. For one insane and reckless moment, she thought he’d kiss her. Even more insane and reckless, she hoped he would.

  “I want closure. To be free of you.”

  The barb punched home with painful accuracy.

  Before she’d met Cole, she’d been ignorant that anything had been missing in her life. Being loved by him had redefined the meaning of happiness, and losing him had left a gash in her soul.

  Now here he was, within reach. And he wanted…closure.

  Her heart squeezed, and everything inside her hurt like one giant exposed nerve. “You’ve been free of me for nine years.”

  “What I wouldn’t give for that to be true.”

  They’d once vowed to be honest, no matter how brutal the truth. So nice of him to remember.

  He skimmed his thumb along her jaw, coaxing her chin up, and his eyes seared into hers.

  “Tell me what it is, Mads.” His tone softened to black velvet.

  The way he said her name, Mads, an intimate caress, had her dissolving. She was once again that susceptible girl who’d been hopelessly in love. He was no longer hers, but a part of her would always be his.

  A palpable energy saturated the air, an electric current teasing her skin. Standing this close, his proximity was a call demanding an answer. Desire to touch him, to taste him tugged at her like gravity.

  He bent his head, his breath kissing her cheek. His thumb ghosted across her lips.

  She shivered, fingertips aching, and couldn’t stop herself. “I’m CIA.”

  Sugarcoating the bitter pill wouldn’t make it any easier for him to swallow. Not that she was CIA anymore, but she couldn’t tell a civilian about the Gray Box.

  He stilled and, a breath later, recoiled with appalled urgency, as though she’d confessed to having leprosy.

  “You’re a scum-sucking spook?” A volatile storm brewed across his face. “You followed in his footsteps after what he did? What it cost me? Became one of them?”

  Them. The word was a sandbag in her chest.

  She’d never blamed her father. He’d had an unwavering ethical com
pass. An admirable vision of right and wrong. He had died serving his country in a terrorist bombing overseas seven years ago, shifting the way she’d viewed him and his job. When the Agency had approached her in college, pursuing her old dream—a career in art acquisitions—had seemed selfish after her father’s sacrifice. What could she say to Cole that he would understand?

  A gleam sparked in his eyes similar to light glinting off a blade. “This whole thing has been one elaborate setup, hasn’t it?”

  “No, Cole.” She reached for him.

  Lightning reflexes launched him into the living room. He snatched his bag from the sofa. “Son of a bitch.” He screwed his eyes shut, mashing his lips like an ugly idea had crawled into his head. “You figured out I was alive somehow and leaked it to the Russians.” His voice iced over. “Fucked my life up all over again. Then swept in to the rescue. Make me feel indebted, grateful enough to forgive you, so I’d go back to being your lapdog. Is that it?”

  Her stomach soured. Could it have happened that way?

  Sanborn was known as the Black Ops Whisperer. He had a talent none of them fully understood but wholly respected. He was spoken about with awe in small, private, powerful circles. But the delicate timing necessary, the intricate level of precision he’d have needed to both orchestrate and thwart a risky Russian bag and drag was not only beyond his capability, it was also beneath him to deliberately jeopardize someone’s life.

  “We’d never do that.”

  “We!” His upper lip curled. “You people most certainly would.”

  Whoa. “You people?”

  Okay, if push came to shove, they might put a potential asset in a bind for leverage, but not under these time-sensitive conditions. Not with so many moving parts out of their control and a bioweapon on the line. That would be insane, and Sanborn wasn’t a lunatic with a god complex.

  “You have to trust me. We didn’t—I didn’t—sic the Russians on you.”

  “Trust you?” His pitch-black gaze boiled. “A liar who destroyed my life once already? The CIA deserves you, honey, if they’re stupid enough to entrust you with their secrets.”

  Oh no, he didn’t. What a bullshit buckshot.

  She’d seen and heard plenty in the two years they were together. Never stuck her nose in, never pried. Never said a word about his family’s business until one stupid moment of weakness with her father. Cole had no idea who she was today, what she’d endured. She’d become a Sisyphus, rolling the boulder of Gray Box missions uphill every day as punishment.

  Her facade of equanimity teetered, but she mustered her iron composure. She’d been forged in the CIA, recast stronger in the Gray Box. “Please, listen. Give me a chance to explain everything.”

  “A chance to spin a sticky web of lies?”

  She just threw herself into this meat grinder because she didn’t want to lie to him. “No, of course not.”

  He stormed to the kitchen and grabbed his jacket. “How long have you known I was alive? Have you been surveilling me in tandem with the Russians? Tag-teaming ticks.”

  She wasn’t playing with fire, Cole was a nuclear warhead on the brink of detonation. “I had no idea you were alive until I saw you today.”

  He hunched over the counter, clutching the granite in a white-knuckle grip, chest heaving like someone had ripped out his lungs. “You must think I’m a fucking fool.”

  Her nerves stretched tight, skin turning to shrink-wrap. “The Agency hid the truth.” She pussyfooted into the kitchen, giving him space to decompress. “You’re not just an asset to me.” You’re the one man I’d sacrifice anything to be with.

  Hell, she was jeopardizing a mission because of him.

  Curses in Russian exploded from him. Nasty things, too fast for her to catch every word. He snatched his stuff from the counter and headed toward the door.

  Reading people, using feminine guile, pushing buttons, pulling strings—those were some of her strongest talents. The five little words to stop him dead in his tracks itched on the tip of her tongue, their flavor acrid.

  “You swore to help me.” Hating herself for pushing that button, she took a deep breath through the queasiness bubbling up.

  His word was his bond, yesterday, today. Always.

  He froze in front of the door. The sound of his harsh breaths filled the dead air between them. “What do you want?” A pained whisper.

  She ignored the quick twist of guilt in her gut. “Cole—”

  “You have thirty seconds,” he said, keeping his back to her.

  Taking tentative steps, she needed proximity and eye contact. “Please look at me.”

  “Twenty.”

  This was shaky ground and she was losing her footing. She swallowed hard, straining to think of the right thing to say next.

  “Fifteen seconds to spit out how you want to turn my life into a pile of steaming shit.”

  “In two days, a bioterror weapon is going to be auctioned on the black market. You have to be invited to the auction. Ilya is on the short list. I need his passcode.”

  Lowering his head, he pounded a fist on the door, barking a scathing laugh.

  “Does Ilya know you’re alive?”

  A weighted silence settled around them. The quiet felt massive, the seconds like an eternity.

  “Yes,” he finally said, sounding withered. “But I haven’t seen him since…”

  That bastard Ilya was in on it. She had asked him point-blank nine years ago if Cole was truly dead, and he had lied to her face. She really was the last to know. Damn, it hurt.

  She eased behind him as one would a caged animal that might tear her apart. “It’s weaponized smallpox. A new strain. Thousands could die in the first wave alone. If uncontained, it’ll start an epidemic.” She dared to put a hand on his shoulder. “We need you to prevent it.”

  He whirled on her with such swift rage that she stumbled back. Her heart beat harder and faster than a war drum, but she stilled, gauging what he was capable of. Then she saw in his eyes the hurt outweighing the anger. She was in no physical danger from him. Of that, she was certain, but the situation was slipping through her fingers faster than grains of sand from a busted hourglass.

  “Don’t. Touch. Me.” Anguish slashed across his face, and her breath caught.

  God, that look—that look would haunt her forever.

  “You should’ve put me out of my misery and let the Russians take me. Damn you.”

  He tore out of her condo, slamming the door.

  Panic snapped along her nerves.

  Years ago, an explosive argument would have led to even more explosive, sheet-clawing sex. But neither had ever walked away when they fought, much less stormed out.

  She roped her arm around herself against the vicious ache. “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself,” she whispered the D. H. Lawrence poem. “A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”

  Raising her chin, she summoned self-possession, getting her shit together, and went to call Gideon and Reece.

  Chapter 08

  Maryland

  11:56 p.m. EDT

  Gunpowder-gray clouds roiled across the black tarp of sky, occluding the spotlight of the moon and legion of stars as Aleksander paddled the stolen canoe into Whitehall Bay.

  The water was calm, no waves buffeting the small boat. Darkness of the lazy night enveloped him like an old friend in welcome. The luxury homes sprawled along the shore had expansive parcels of forested land in between. One man’s myopic desire for absolute privacy had paved a path slick as black ice for Aleksander to put him in the grave.

  He moored the canoe in the shadow of an overhanging oak. Spanish moss draped the low boughs with dense webs, and a damp resinous scent perfumed the thick night air. Wrapping the rope from the boat around the tree trunk, he tied a clove hitch knot. He p
ulled the hood of his camouflage suit over his head. The lightweight, polyester mesh ghillie was covered in over a thousand synthetic leaves patterned after deep, shady woodlands.

  Silent as fog rolling in, Aleksander waded through high grass, weaving past trees. The army had taught him how to blend in and disappear. He had thirty years practice in vanishing.

  His footsteps were light, his movements ghostly. A massive oak tree on the wood line, with wide outstretched branches like the gnarled fingers of a giant, gave him a clean sight line to the back of the gated mansion where the bedrooms faced the bay and pool. He took out a night vision monocular with laser range finder and confirmed the distance. Fifty meters.

  Longest shot he’d ever made was at two thousand, and he made every shot he took.

  A deadeye.

  He slung the rifle strap over his shoulder, climbed the tree, and situated himself on a sturdy limb in a prone position. Pulling the charging handle, he chambered a round. He used his pack to support the barrel and rested the butt on a beanbag, eliminating any concerns of muscle fatigue.

  The leaves shivered around him, the breeze whispering across the grass. More interminable waiting. He emptied his mind and visualized the Osumi Canyon, the river running through his mountainous hometown of Berat. Mild white-water rapids, pockmarked slopes of the canyon, small caves, verdant vegetation so picturesque, heaven had reached down to kiss the limestone cliffs of the gorge. The Grand Canyon of Albania. His wife’s special place.

  He flinched as the images invaded. His wife, Sonia, and little Mila, his beloved darlings. He always pictured them as he’d last seen them. Broken. Bruised. Bloodied. In pieces.

  Not only were they murdered, but his memories of them had also been butchered.

  The demon in his head seethed. Eyes dark like two pits of charred earth, it foamed at the mouth. Rabid to rip out jugulars. It begged. Oh, how it begged to be unchained, to make the world its playground and bathe in blood.

  No, no. Aleksander couldn’t free it. That wouldn’t be payback. It’d be madness. He hadn’t fallen so far down the slippery slope not to discern the difference.