With Every Breath (Slow Burn #4) - Maya Banks Page 0,35

was easily surprised. He’d learned his lessons young and had taught himself to always expect the worst and never be caught off guard or surprised by anything.

Shit. There went that rule . . . again. Fuck!

Her latest addition to her suitcase was several flashbang grenades but what really worried him was the addition of very real grenades and, Jesus, a stash of definitely illegal C-4 of the likes no average civilian would ever be able to get their hands on; and if that wasn’t bad enough, there was also a shit ton of items one could use to build a bomb. Hell, she could probably build a nuclear missile. All she lacked was uranium. For all he knew, she had a stash of that somewhere as well. She certainly didn’t lack for anything in her armory. She was better stocked than most third world military units. Was she planning to go to fucking war?

That idea froze his blood and he felt the stirrings of something he wasn’t at all familiar with, having never experienced it, certainly not to this degree, but it felt like fear. And fear was not a weakness he ever allowed himself. Until now. Until her, goddamn it.

Most people either packed well ahead of time and lined their luggage by the door, got a good night’s sleep and then embarked on an early flight the next morning. Or they procrastinated and packed last minute, getting to the airport barely on time. And just how the hell did she think she was going to get on a plane with a large enough arsenal to build an entire army? She wasn’t dumb, so flying was out unless she had a private jet lined up. He’d looked into her finances and while she could live well on the generous salary DSS paid, she couldn’t afford shit like private jets. For that matter she couldn’t afford all the shit she was packing, even on the black market, which begged the question, how the fuck had she gotten her hands on this shit?

He didn’t disagree that the fool woman needed a lengthy vacation that included plenty of rest and recovery. He’d wanted to shake some sense into her stubborn head when she’d insisted on accompanying her team on the takedown of the remaining fanatics whose only objective was to take the women of DSS alive and subject them to unspeakable experiments and tests; even animals were afforded kinder treatment.

But his built-in alarm system was beating like a mother fucker because, despite the fact it would infuriate Eliza that her privacy wasn’t quite as carefully guarded as she liked to think, he knew a hell of a lot more about her impromptu vacation than even her overprotective watchdog/partner, Dane Elliot. Because right now? Along with that alarm system cutting into his every breath, his vision was hazy with fury and heat scorched over his body as he curled and uncurled his fists.

Vacation my ass. If this was Eliza’s idea of vacation—being a Rambo beach bunny—then the local economy of wherever she went would suffer because she’d scare the fuck out of everyone.

Although he had to hand it to Dane because the moment Eliza had breezed out of his office as if she hadn’t a care in the world, Dane had been on the phone with Wade and crisply outlined the situation to him.

Wade’s curiosity was instantly aroused—after he’d gotten over his rage of her blowing off steam with a fucking cabana boy—because Dane simply didn’t give a fuck and he was a bare bones man of few words. It was his show. He ran the business. But apparently, when something really mattered to Dane—which Eliza clearly did—he didn’t give a shit about putting it out there. And to Dane’s credit, when he, like Wade—now that he’d seen her—had observed whatever fucked-up excuse she’d given—he hadn’t bought her spontaneous, out-of-the-blue request for extended vacation time. Dane was in a very delicate situation, hence the phone call to Wade, which must have pained him to no end, because if he interfered either as a friend or employer, he’d lose Eliza’s trust and he knew her too well. She’d leave. She’d never stay and work under people who’d betrayed her. Even for her own good.

Hell, Wade hadn’t known Eliza a fraction of the time Dane had and even he knew that much about her. It would figure that after Wade had vowed to never cross paths with DSS again, that the cause of his injury—the reason