With Every Breath

by Maya Banks

  She wanted to lean on him. He’d seen that in her eyes right before defeat registered and with it her loss of hope. She truly believed that no one could help her, even if she wanted it. How to make her believe in him? How to make her believe that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, to alleviate the pain and guilt in her eyes, to permanently remove those bruising shadows? That he would lay waste to any threat to her. To anything that caused her such sadness and grief. Maybe she’d never had that before but that had all changed the moment he’d laid eyes on her in his gallery and wanted nothing more than to kiss her. And a hell of a lot more.

  “You make it sound so simple. So easy,” she said in a strangled tone.

  “It’s only as difficult as you make it,” he said gently.

  She closed her eyes and emitted a bone-weary sigh. As though the weight of the entire world was bearing down on her, suffocating the life right out of her. Her eyes were already dead though. Lifeless. Without hope.

  He gathered her more tightly in his arms, conveying without words that he was here. Solid. Real. And he wasn’t going away. Ever.

  “Oh God, Wade. I don’t even know where to start.”

  “At the beginning,” he prompted. “We have all night, Eliza. I’ll wait. Take as long as you need. I’m here. I’ll listen.”

  Tears slithered like silver strands down her pale, hollow face. She seemed to cave inwardly in defeat and when she opened her eyes again, dull resignation was a shadow in her beautiful gaze.

  “It was ten years ago,” she began. “I was sixteen.”

  He cursed under his breath. Ten years she’d suffered the unimaginable, never sharing with anyone the hell she endured on a daily basis. Jesus, she’d been just a child.

  “I had no one,” she went on falteringly. “My parents . . . I never knew them. I don’t even know what happened to them. No one ever told me, or maybe I was too young to remember. My earliest memories were of being in the system, shuffled from home to home, never having a permanent place to live or an actual family. I wasn’t abused physically. I was just . . . ignored, not there if that makes sense. I wasn’t neglected in the sense that I had food and clothing. The bare necessities. But I knew from a very young age that I was merely a source of a check from the state each month and I had no illusions that I ever mattered to the families who took me in. Was never considered a daughter or sister. And that was what I wanted—needed—not material things. Those things didn’t matter to me. I wanted to be accepted—loved. To feel like I had a place in the world and was part of something beautiful. A family.”

  “God,” Wade muttered, helpless to do anything but listen to the wretched ache in her voice.

  “The longest I was ever with the same family was two years. I was moved often. I never understood why. I never understood why no one ever wanted me. I was a good child. Quiet. Obedient. I would have done anything to please them so they would want me to stay. But no matter how hard I tried, it was never enough. They didn’t notice. I excelled in school but they never recognized that. They just didn’t care and it took until I was fifteen that I finally realized that nothing I did would ever be good enough. I didn’t want that life until I turned eighteen and would graduate out of the system.”

  “What happened at fifteen?” Wade asked quietly.

  “I left,” she said simply, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for a fifteen-year-old girl to just walk away with no means of support, no money or food.

  Dear God. The thought of Eliza at fifteen, having nothing or no one and having to make her own way in the world sickened him to his soul.

  “What did you do?”

  “I picked up a part-time job so I could complete my GED. I worked nights and during the day I haunted the local library doing online courses. As I said I had always excelled in school so I was able to obtain my diploma just before I turned sixteen. Then I hitchhiked to Calvary. It was as far as my ride could take me, and it seemed as good a place as any. I was able to find work in a local diner and even a room at a local boardinghouse owned by an elderly lady. The rent was cheap and it provided breakfast. I ate the rest of my meals at the diner.”

  She took in a deep shuddering breath, pausing for a moment, seemingly lost in the torment of her past.

  “He came in one evening. T-Thomas,” she said, stuttering over his name. “He was older, maybe late twenties. Handsome but quiet. There was something about him that, at the time, I couldn’t put my finger on. He would always request my section and he always had a friendly smile for me and left great tips.”

  “I bet,” Wade said menacingly, already not liking where her story was headed.

  Sixteen and some asshole at least twelve years older—old enough to damn well know better—had cultivated an innocent child whose only crime was wanting to be loved.

  “One night I left the diner after two in the morning. I had worked a double and was dead on my feet. I didn’t own a car. I didn’t even have a driver’s license. So I walked everywhere and it was a small town so it wasn’t a big deal. Two street punks started harassing me and when I ignored them it turned ugly.”

  Wade sucked in his breath. “How ugly?”

  “Before it got too out of hand, Thomas appeared out of nowhere. He wasn’t a badass or even that intimidating but for some reason the punks were scared to death of him. He warned them off me, said I was under his protection and anyone touching me would answer to him.”

  Wade’s lips thinned. Some hero. A grown-ass man who damn well should know better than to get involved with a vulnerable sixteen-year-old girl.

  “He walked me home and then every night after that. He was at the diner every single day I worked. I thought it was wildly romantic,” Eliza admitted with a flush. “To a sixteen-year-old girl who’d never been loved, who’d never had anyone who cared, Thomas was everything I’d ever dreamed of. He seemed to know all of my secret desires, the things I yearned for and then he made them happen. It wasn’t until it was too late that I understood how he was able to manipulate me so easily,” she whispered.

  “What do you mean?” Wade asked in a low voice.

  She closed her eyes. “Most people would think I’m crazy, but at least you should have no problem believing me since you know well what Tori, Ramie, Ari and Gracie can do.”

  A prickle of foreboding snaked up Wade’s spine.

  “He’s psychic,” she said baldly. “He can see into someone’s mind and pull out every secret thought they ever had. Worse, not only does he have the ability to read minds, much like Gracie, he can also manipulate people into doing his bidding. He can plant a suggestion or an impulse and they are helpless to do anything but obey.”

  Wade’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what he did to you, Eliza? Did he have you under his control?”

  She looked on the verge of tears again. Her eyes were swamped with unmistakable guilt.

  “He didn’t have to,” she said, bitterness lacing every word. “I would have done anything for him, did do anything.”

  “You didn’t kill those women,” Wade said forcefully.

  This time the tears not only welled, they fell in endless streaks down her cheeks.

  “But I did, Wade. I did.”

  Wade shook his head. “No fucking way. You’ll never convince me you killed anyone, least of all innocent women.”

  “Thomas was—is—obsessed with me. I doubt his years in prison have lessened it to any degree. If anything his obsession has only grown. He loved me or rather his sick, twisted version of love and I believed him. God, I believed him. Worse, I wanted to believe it. I didn’t want to believe he was a monster capable of such evil. I just wanted to be . . . loved.”

  Her voice cracked with emotion and Wade held her even tighter, shaking with anger and helpless rage.

  “He was so gentle and understanding with me. I wanted to make love with him, wanted him to be my first. I was so caught up in the romance of it all. But he told me I was too young, that it would be wrong for him to ma
ke love to me until I was older. He told me we had all the time in the world and that he would wait forever. What I didn’t realize at the time was that because of his love—obsession—with me he couldn’t bring himself to act out his sick perversions on me. So instead he chose other women. Me, he held sacred. His precious love. Too precious to be touched by his evil. So other women died horrible, painful deaths in my stead.”

  “Baby no,” Wade said, his voice aching with sorrow and regret at the horrible guilt she’d carried for far too long. Guilt that was not hers to bear.

  “I didn’t know,” she said painfully. “When the news broke after the first horrific murder, the community was shocked. Thomas was horrified and insisted I never walk to or from work alone. He was with me at all times. Or so I thought. When he wasn’t with me, he was raping and torturing those poor women, because he refused to ever touch me with anything other than gentleness and tenderness. With love.”

  She choked on the last word, shuddering violently as though it made her physically ill.

  Wade pressed his lips to her temple and left them there as she trembled in his arms.

  “It wasn’t until after the third murder that I began to suspect. Even then I couldn’t bring myself to entertain that Thomas could possibly be responsible for committing such reprehensible atrocities on another human being. Not my Thomas. He was so quiet. The epitome of a gentleman. He was liked and well respected in the town. He was a philanthropist. Always willing to lend a hand to someone in need. But then . . .”

  She trailed off as a huge, gulping sob overtook her. She buried her face in Wade’s chest and wrapped her arms tightly around him, holding on to him like he was the only solid thing in her world to hang on to.

  He waited patiently, not pushing her for more. He let her cry, holding and soothing her until finally she quieted and resumed her story.

  “And then one day, I asked off from the diner. Told them I was sick. I told Thomas I was feeling unwell and he acted so concerned. He brought me soup to the boardinghouse, fussed over me and told me to stay in bed and rest. I waited until he left and then I followed him.”

  Wade closed his eyes. Even at sixteen Eliza had possessed a strong sense of justice. She could say what she wanted about being blinded by love and that she had been firmly rooted in denial, but if she hadn’t wanted to know the truth, she would have never sought out proof of her suspicions.

  “He owned several properties. As I said, he was a wealthy man. A real estate developer and he was well liked by the locals. He’d donated a shelter to the town and quite a bit of money for its operation and upkeep. He told me he’d done so because of me. Because he never wanted a child to know the kind of upbringing I’d been forced to endure. He went to such lengths to perpetuate an elaborate hoax that it’s truly mind-boggling.

  “I followed him to an older house he was in the process of having renovated. There was a fully intact concrete reinforced basement with soundproof walls. Oh God,” she choked out, stopping in midsentence to bury her face in his chest once more.

  Wade stroked her hair, pressing kisses to the crown of her head as he murmured soothing words of encouragement.

  “While he had a construction crew working on the rest of the house, he held women in the basement and tormented them, delighting in the fact that help was only a short distance away and yet no one could hear them scream. When I saw . . .”

  “What did you see, baby?” he prompted gently.

  “Hell,” she said bleakly. “I saw hell.”

  “What happened?”

  “I snuck down the stairs leading into the basement and the first thing I remember is the smell. Blood. So much of it. And rot. Decomposing human flesh. It made me sick, but I knew I had to be strong and I couldn’t give away my presence.”

  “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 obsesse
d 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.

  “I’m not an idiot, Wade.”

  “Then stop acting like one.”

  She shoved up and away from him, glaring ferociously at him. He grinned, which only served to heighten her indignation.

  “I couldn’t live with myself knowing he was free, that he would kill again. And he would, Wade. He would. The justice system let those women down and I won’t let him get away with it. I’ve got to take him out for those women. For me. And for the people I love. I don’t want to live the rest of my life always looking over my shoulder, afraid that he’ll hunt me down, and he will. I don’t want to be afraid of him going after people I love because I was too weak to do what needs to be done. It’s my only choice. The only way I can look at myself in the mirror. I can’t bring those women back, but I sure as hell can make sure he never hurts another one. So I’m going to be there when he gets out. He isn’t going to have to look for me because I’ll find him. And then I’m sending him straight to hell and me with him. If I survive taking him down, I won’t run. I won’t hide. I won’t even defend myself because I’ll be guilty as sin and if I spend the rest of my life in prison at least he will no longer pose a threat to innocent women or the people I love.”

  “And you don’t think you’re rare and precious?” he asked softly. “That you don’t stand for what’s right?”

  She looked away, but he nudged her chin back so she looked at him.

  “You aren’t doing this, Eliza. You are not embarking on some suicide mission to atone for sins that aren’t even yours to bear.”

  “You can’t stop me,” she hissed.

  He arched an eyebrow. “Can’t I?”

  “I won’t be responsible for any more deaths!”

  Wade caressed her cheek, feathering his touch over her face and then thumbing her lips as he stared intently at her.

  “You weren’t responsible.”

  He gently kissed her, not a passionate, all consuming kiss. One he ached to give her and make love to her all over again. But a tender kiss meant to reassure and comfort her.

  “Eliza, you can trust me,” he said with absolute sincerity. “You have to know how strong my feelings are for you. You can’t be that blind.”

  Tears glittered like diamonds on her eyelashes as she stared helplessly at him.

  “Trusting my instincts is exactly what got me into this mess,” she said desperately. “What got me in way over my head with Thomas. I can’t trust myself, Wade. I can’t afford to ever make that mistake again.”

  His gaze softened and he kissed her lightly again, still stroking her face and then tangling his fingers in her hair, smoothing the tresses that hung in disarray. She looked hungry, like a woman who’d been thoroughly made love to and who wanted—needed—more. He wanted nothing more than to give her just that. Himself. Over and over until he’d solidly pushed everything from her mind except him, the two of them, and nothing else in the world mattered.

  “Baby,” he whispered in a soft, loving voice he hadn’t thought himself capable of. Not ever or with anyone until now—her. Only her. “You were sixteen years old. Just a young, vulnerable girl who had nothing and no one. You only wanted to be loved. That isn’t a crime. Everyone wants to love and to be loved. You aren’t that person anymore. You haven’t been that person in a very long time. You’ve grown into an exceptional woman with the best instincts and strongest character of anyone—man or woman—I’ve ever known and that’s why I fucking admire you so much.”

  She looked stunned by his admission. She didn’t know what shocked her more, his assessment of her character, or if it was the fact that the words had come from him, a man who until a short time ago had been nothing but an overbearing bastard and a complete asshole.

  It was little wonder she would have such a hard time accepting such an abrupt about-face when before, from all appearances, they couldn’t stand to be in the same room together. Had she ever wondered why he harbored such animosity toward her?

  He’d known from day one that she spelled trouble for him. He had known from the start that she was a complete game changer for him and he hadn’t liked that one bit. He’d fought it and he’d done plenty of denying, but there was no disputing the fact that she was it for him. He was drawn to her like a magnet, not wanting to be caught in her web but not having any damn choice in the matter.