You Are Mine (45 page)

He didn't let himself think about Eva or the look in her eyes as she'd told him she needed him. Or about how she'd been the one to turn the gun on Fitzgerald and save herself.

The fight with Elijah had been just the outlet he'd needed right then, but that prick getting away was not what he'd planned.

He punched in a number he'd had to use on occasion and gave the man who answered the required code and the address. Then he ended the call.

The cleanup crew who would deal with the bodies would be here in ten minutes. Which meant it was time to get Eva and get out of here as soon as possible.

“Zac? What the fuck?”

Zac spun around, reaching for the weapon in his pocket. Then stilled.

Alex, Gabriel, Honor, and Katya had come through the doors and were now standing in the lobby.

He couldn't deny it was good to see them. Relaxing his hand, he removed it from his pocket. “You're too late,” he said, unable to quite get rid of the rough thread in his voice. “It's over.”

Gabriel moved toward him, his arm held low by his side, a battered but very serviceable automatic pressing against his leg. “What's over? Where's Eva?”

“She's safe. She'll be coming downstairs shortly I imagine.” He glanced at his watch. “We can't stay here for too much longer.”

“I can see why.” This from Alex who'd circled around behind the concierge's desk and was now looking down at where the concierge and the doorman were lying.

“Fitzgerald?” There was a strange note in Gabriel's voice.

Zac glanced at him. “Dead.”

Something glittered in the other man's eyes. “You killed him?”

“No. I did.”

They all turned to look as Eva came toward them from the elevator area. She had her hands in her pockets, her expression hard and sure.

Small, prickly, and fragile. Yet so, so strong.

Savage heat turned over inside him, wanting her. Needing her.

Never again.

He'd been right to keep himself distant all this time. Right not to give anything of himself to her. He was far, far too dangerous. He'd nearly gotten her killed.

“You did?” A smile crossed Alex's features, brilliant and brief. “You're one hell of a badass, Eva King.”

“Gabriel?” Honor had started forward, moving after her lover as he headed purposefully toward the elevators.

Where the hell was he going? “We can't stay,” Zac warned harshly. “My team will be here soon and we can't be around when they get to work.”

“I need to see him,” Gabriel said shortly without turning. “I won't be long. Stay with the others, Honor.”

Honor halted next to Zac. There was a taut expression on her face.

Zac forced himself to pay attention. “What's going on?” he asked, frowning in Gabriel's direction as the elevator doors closed on him.

“We found out who Gabe's father is,” Honor said quietly. “It's Fitzgerald.”

Shock moved through him. Well, that explained the look on Gabriel's face.

“Shit,” Eva muttered. “I didn't know.”

A faint smile turned Honor's mouth. “I don't think he'll be too concerned, Eva. Don't worry about that. I'm glad to see you're okay.”

Eva shrugged as if it hadn't been a big deal. “Yeah, well, it was touch and go there for a moment.”

“How did you know where we were?” Zac asked.

“Temple,” Katya said from her position near the front door. She looked as if she was guarding it. Which she probably was. “When you both didn't turn up for the meeting, we decided to come and find you. Temple was waiting outside and she told us where you were.”

Ah, yes, Eva's driver. Another of his failures. There would have to be consequences.

“That's fortuitous,” he said. “But I don't take kindly to employees betraying my trust. I'll have to make sure that doesn't happen again.”

“She told us where you were,” Honor pointed out in a cool voice. “Which she didn't have to. I don't know why she took Eva, but I'd bet anything on the fact she meant Eva no harm. Knowing Fitzgerald, she may not even have had a choice.”

“No one gets second chances with me, Honor,” he said, not bothering to temper himself this time. “Especially not when Eva's involved.”

“Eva is right here,” Eva murmured. “And since Temple is my employee, I'll deal with her.”

There was a certainty in her voice he'd never heard before, and when he glanced at her, that same certainty gleamed in her gray eyes as they stared back.

He remembered her hand on his, her touch cool as she'd taken the gun from him.

It's okay. Let me take care of you.

“What happened to Elijah?” she asked.

“I lost him.” Frustration bled into his tone no matter how hard he tried to keep it steady.

“Don't worry. We may not need him anyway.” A smile turned her mouth. “I just downloaded the contents of Fitzgerald's computer to one of my cloud drives. It's encrypted, but I'm sure that won't be a problem. I'm quite good with code.”

“Holy shit, Eva,” Alex muttered. “You're not wearing superhero tights underneath those jeans are you? Christ, I feel superfluous. We may as well pack up and go home right now.”

Alex wasn't the only one. Then again, was it any surprise how Eva had handled herself upstairs? She'd saved herself and in all likelihood him too.

She'd always been a warrior.

“Yes, you might as well,” she said bluntly. “Give me a couple of hours to break the encryption and we'll go over what's there. Second Circle, tonight. Okay?”

“Zac?” Katya from the door again. “I think I see your crew.”

He wrenched his gaze from Eva's. “Let's go.”

Outside, the others headed toward the SUV they'd arrived in to wait for Gabriel.

“You go with them,” Zac said to Eva as they followed.

Her gaze flicked over him. “You're not coming?”

“No. I need to handle the cleanup, plus I want to let some of my contacts know about Elijah. See if they can keep an eye out for him.”

She slowed, then stopped, glancing in the direction the others had gone in then back at him. “I'll come with you.”

Zac stared down at her. Was she expecting things to go on as normal? As if he'd never told Fitzgerald to let her die?

It wasn't her you meant. It was Theresa.

Like it was important who he meant.

He'd put Eva's life on the line because he couldn't stand to be helpless. Because he'd wanted to take control more than he'd wanted to save her life. And maybe his despair at watching Theresa slip away from him was at the root of it, and maybe it wasn't. But knowing that wouldn't change what he'd done.

The important thing was what he did now. If he really cared about Eva, he'd let her go. Keep her as far away from him as it was possible to get.

And as for him, well, he had his anger. That's all he'd ever had.

“I'll be taking the subway,” he said. Which was pretty much Eva's idea of hell. Or at least, it used to be.

“Oh.” Her shoulders were hunched, yet the old fear that used to tighten her delicate features wasn't there. She looked pale though, shadows under her eyes. “But hey, I just killed a man so I'm sure I can handle a few crowds.”

“No.” He made it hard. Made it certain.

“Okay, so why don't you come to my apartment after you've done that? We could look at this code together.”

“I think,” he said flatly, “that I'll be busy until this evening.”

She searched his face. “Why do I get the feeling this is about more than just being busy?”

He didn't want to have this discussion now, in the middle of the street, with the crowds around them. “You should go with the others.”

A crease appeared between her brows. “No. I want to go with you.”

“Go, Eva.” He put all his authority in it, all the weight of his dominance.

People streamed past them like the currents of the ocean around a pair of islands, ebbing, flowing.

“You're leaving, aren't you?” she said quietly. “For good.”

Ah Christ, she was too sharp, too perceptive. “I'll see you tonight, angel.” He tried to moderate his voice. “We can discuss it then.”

“Why? Is it because I shot Fitzgerald?” Her gaze searched his. “No … it's not that.”

“Eva—”

“It's about you nearly pulling that trigger, isn't it?”

He couldn't talk about this in the middle of the street, with the sun shining and people all around. With Fitzgerald dead and a massive cleanup on their hands, not to mention figuring out just what the hell Fitzgerald had been doing, what kind of empire he'd been building.

Authorities would have to be advised—if they could find the evidence, that was. Hell, perhaps Eva had already found it in the contents of Fitzgerald's computer.

Yet despite all of that, he didn't move.

“I would have done it, Eva,” he said at last. “I would have killed him. I would have killed you.”

“But you didn't.”

“Because you stopped me.”

“It doesn't matter. Elijah let me go. It didn't happen.”

“It does matter. I was angry and I wanted to kill him. Angry enough that your life wasn't important.”

He expected to see pain in her eyes, but there wasn't any. Only her direct, silver gaze staring back at him. “So? I wasn't scared, Zac. All I could think about was that it wasn't fair. That you shouldn't have had to be put in that position. That he used me to get to you. But … I wasn't scared for myself, not once.”

His heart twisted. “You should have been.”

“No and you know why?” She lifted her chin in that way she had. “Because I trusted you. Because deep down, I think I always have. You wouldn't have pulled that trigger, Zac. You would have found a way. You would have found a way to save both of us.”

She spoke with the certainty of absolute conviction, saying the words he'd wanted to hear for so many years. He believed her, that she had indeed trusted him.

The problem was that she shouldn't. Her trust was the last thing he deserved. Because in the end, his anger had been more important than she was.

“That doesn't change anything,” he said, trying to be gentle when the pain in his chest felt anything but. “I can't give you what you want, Eva.”

Her jaw tightened, a glitter of pain in her eyes. “Because of what happened—”

“Because I never could.”

“So what? That's it? For seven years I've been your closest friend and now you're just going to throw that away because of some stupid anger management issues?”

His fingers were clenched. He tried to relax them. Tried to breathe past the weight that felt like it was crushing his chest. “I can't be friends with you, angel. Not anymore. Not after last night.”

She tilted her head back. Mutinous and stubborn to the last. “What if I don't want friends? What if I want more than that?”

The weight grew impossibly heavy. “What more?”

“I want what Honor and Gabriel have.” She was looking at him as if he held all the answers to the universe. And she was demanding he give them to her. “What Alex and Katya have. I think we could have that. You and me. I think we deserve that.”

The weight on his chest turned into a mountain.” We can't have that, Eva. That's what I'm trying to tell you.”

“Why not?” She didn't seem to care that people were glancing at them. That they were out in the open, in the middle of a public street. “Why can't we? Shit, if it's the Dom-sub stuff you're worried about, I don't care. I got off on what you did to me, you know that.”

“It's not the Dom stuff.”

“Then what?” Something glittered in her eyes. It wasn't pain, though that was there. It was something far more tangible. Something he'd never seen from her before. A tear. “I'm alone, Zac. I've always been alone, my whole goddamned life. My mother abandoned me, my father may well have done so, and then I was taken and I spent two years in that house alone.” The tear slid down her cheek and she made no effort to brush it away. “And I'm tired of it. I don't want to be alone anymore. And … and I think you're tired of it too. So what I'm saying … what I'm trying to say is … We don't have to be alone anymore. Neither of us do. Not when we can have each other.”

The mountain broke his ribs. Crushed him flat.

She didn't understand. Being alone was the ultimate in control, the ultimate in power. He was master of himself and he answered to no one. Cared for no one. And that was the best part of all because then there was no vulnerability, no helplessness.

He couldn't give that up, especially after what had happened in front of Fitzgerald. Emotions were a weakness he couldn't afford.

Not even for her.

It hurt. But then punishments weren't supposed to be easy.

He made sure none of the agony he told himself he didn't feel showed on his face, kept his voice level. Calm. The Dom in charge. “Yes, you're right. We could have that. But you're missing one thing, angel.”

“What thing?”

“I don't want what you want.” He said it gently. Clearly. “I've come to terms with being alone. I like it. It's easier. And I'm afraid that's the way it has to be.”

Another tear slid down her cheek. “I don't know what's worse. The fact that you're lying to yourself or you're lying to me.”

“I'm not lying. It's the truth.”

“Zac—”

“This is your seventh punishment, angel. “

She blinked. “What? What do you mean?”

“You had one more, remember?”

“But—”

“Absence, Eva. I get to leave you alone. The way you left me alone.”

Her cheeks were wet, the tears in her eyes painting them bright silver. Like mirrors. Reflecting his own agony back at him.