Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection

by Dakota Willink

  “Everything all right, Eleanor?”

  I glance back to find the therapist standing near the door. He is dressed in trousers and a light grey twill jacket with a black button-up underneath. Reading glasses hide his tired eyes today. The coat fits snuggly around his upper arms. He isn’t muscular, but he’s built—sturdy—and nerdy.

  Sturdy-nerdy, I joke to myself and crack a smile. “All right probably wouldn’t land me in your office, Dr. Mills.”

  “Nolan, please.” He unbuttons the two center buttons and removes his jacket, before draping it over the back of his desk chair. “Shall we get started?”

  “Are you all right? You look tired.”

  He squints narrowly and bobs his head before taking a seat. “I’ve had a long weekend, but thank you for noticing.”

  The way he says noticing causes the fine hairs on the back of my neck to protest, but I ignore them and take a seat.

  I’m always on edge here. It still makes my body shiver to know he’s spending an hour analyzing me. I take my usual seat on the cool leather couch, perfectly parallel to his armchair and the coffee table … and the rug beneath that table.

  The photos on the wall are pristinely straight. Guess he has a thing with straight lines.

  “Feel free to make yourself comfortable, Eleanor.”

  “You can call me Elle or Ellie. No one really calls me by my given name.” I tuck my hands underneath my thighs and glance around. The office looks exactly the same, but he moved the coat rack from behind the door over to the window. Was he checking to see if I’d open it and step out on a ledge?

  “Elle, how have you been since Thursday?”

  That’s a loaded question. “Friday, we spent most of the time working out details of the case, and I stickied-up the house. I mean, all that was left was sticking one on his di—manhood.” My hand floats up to my disheveled hair, twirling a loose strand between my fingers.

  “Did things escalate between the two of you?”

  “No, they can’t.” I grimace, waiting for him to dig deeper. Why am I talking about this?

  “And the case you are working on, is that motivating you to get back to your former self?”

  Is it? I ask myself. When I interview and go over files, I’m not thinking about my selfish reasons. Sure, they linger in the back of my mind, but they’re not at the forefront, propelling my motivation. Then again, in Kace’s presence, my libido is the only thing propelling anything. “It’s nice to work again and work together.”

  “Have you finished the one-hundred challenge?”

  “No, I’m only halfway.”

  “And the smile log?” He reaches into the side pocket of his armchair and retrieves a yellow ledger pad, tucked inside a thick leather folder, and rests it on his lap.

  “Didn’t smile much on Saturday or Sunday.”

  He removes one of four identical pens from the inside pocket and uncaps it. “Why not?”

  “It was busy. A lot of moving around.” The whole note-taking thing makes me nervous, so I stare at the abstract photographs on his walls. The more I look at them, the more they resemble each other.

  Are they the same photograph? This must be some head shrink thing.

  “Where did you go first?”

  My eyes land on him, and my brain replays his question back to me. “For coffee, then I followed Kace around.”

  His eyebrows perk up. “Followed?”

  “He knew I was following him,” I clarify, not very well though. “I mean, I was in the car with him.” I liberate my hands from beneath my thighs and demonstrate my position in relation to Kace in the car. “Like next to him, not hiding in the back like some psycho.”

  Nolan smirks and jots something down.

  “Sorry, I’m a bit nervous.”

  “It’s okay. We’re just starting to get to know each other. It takes time for patients to build trust.”

  I barely know him, but I trust him, weird parallel lines and all.

  “What was the favorite part of your weekend?”

  My head drums up the part when Kace touched my knee at the cleaner’s office, and the way our thighs rested against each other while we worked through the app’s database to find possible courier jobs and send them off to Frank, who was leading a small undercover investigation. The Feds who came are still here, still annoying the captain and interfering, but since they have not yet connected their cases to ours, they have no jurisdiction.

  Cap grows tired of the trafficking ring angle the Feds have been using as precedence to interfere in the Bullet Man investigation. He sure as hell isn’t going to let them take credit for catching this guy.

  At least, that’s what Kace said while staring at my lips and forcing himself to focus on the job at hand, and not the hand job I heard him give himself in the bedroom on Friday night. His grunts had traveled through the thin walls and landed on my ears. My favorite part of the weekend was when he gasped my name.

  I almost went to him.

  Almost gave in to the lust pooling in my center. Almost went blind, visualizing Kace’s strong hands, fervently gliding up and down and stopping when he saw me at the door.

  I shake my head free of the fantasy I dreamt about all night long, making today feel like torture.

  “Did you not find anything pleasant?”

  “I got out of the house.”

  “What else? How was it to work with Kace again, in a non-romantic setting.”

  There’s nothing non-romantic about Kace. “Talking to Kace always feels good.” I pause and lower myself further into the couch. “I think part of my problem is I don’t want it to feel good.”

  “Why not?”

  Two words motivate my tongue to spill, and before I know it, I’m lying down and talking about my whole love life as if Nolan gave a shit.

  Three hours later, after telling Nolan Mills about my relationship and getting more homework, Kace and I stand in front of a hospital—the same hospital I was supposed to have my baby in, and the same hospital where I woke up, not a mother.

  A lot of emotions flow through me, so it’s hard to isolate just one. They’re overwhelming and relentless, drudging up memories too hard to process in public. To hold myself up, I lightly place my palm on the cold stone of the building. Soon, Kace will use his presence to block my ability to think and insist I stay behind and let him take this one with his partner.

  I have to suck it up. I need to talk to the Bullet Man before anyone else.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Kace says as he rubs my arms from behind. His body presses tightly against mine, reminiscent of the time in the kitchen. Allowed one time, and he’s taken the liberty of crossing my post-Tyler boundaries.

  “Yes, I do, if I ever want to get my life back on track.” I flip around to find Kace’s heated gaze, his pupils slightly dilated. The rich brown of his irises once turned me to liquid, and today, they almost soften me again.

  I want the comfort of his arms more than I want to step foot inside this building, and he knows that. He always knows me too well, even when I think he doesn’t understand. He steps closer and wraps his strong arms around me. “It hurts me too, Ellie. Every time I drive by here, I picture the nurse telling me you were in surgery, but my son didn’t make it.”

  I’m not ready for this conversation, but I’m trapped in his arms.

  “It felt like I was alone, and all I wanted was to hold you.” His voice bears the burden of loneliness, strained and gravelly. “I didn’t know if you were going to make it. No one told me anything, just that you had been shot. I don’t even know how I got to the hospital that night.”

  I force myself to listen.

  “I think I started running, and the next thing I knew, I was upstairs with Cap, who was the only one making coherent sentences. It hurt so much, I couldn’t talk.”

  I sigh softly. “Breathing hurt?”

  “God, yes. It felt like someone filled my lungs with lighter fluid and set me on fire, burning me up inside. Y
ou were in the operating room for hours, clinging to life, and I couldn’t be there to hold your hand. People talked to me, trying to distract me, but I stared down the clock, daring it to move faster or rewind so I could save you. The seconds got louder and louder as my anxiety built … I couldn’t imagine a life without you and Tyler, but I never thought the two were separate until the nurse came out. She slit me open right there, cut me in two, and was ready to hack me into pieces. My gut thought the worst… I mourned our baby, but I clung to hope. I fucking prayed for you to survive, and I felt so damn selfish.”

  “You don’t have to tell me this.”

  “You know why I felt selfish?”

  I shake my head, not because I don’t know, but because I can’t handle him being flawed. His optimism and perfection serve as the barrier, keeping me from throwing my arms around his neck and burying my face in his warmth.

  “Because I knew, given the chance, you’d leave me to be with Tyler, just like I would. So I prayed for God to save you—for him to bless the hands of the people who worked on you and to bring you back to me, even if it meant without Tyler. Losing both of you would have killed me.” He buries his face into the crook of my neck and whispers, “I’m sorry.”

  Out of their own accord, my hands fly to the back of his head, locking him in place. Gently running my fingers through his hair, I forgive him for wanting me to live. “It’s okay, Kace.”

  It doesn’t mean we’re good, but it means we’re communicating and revealing feelings we’ve been harboring for months.

  “I don’t hate you for loving me.” I hate that you still love me, even when I don’t deserve it. When he finds out I’m using him to get to the Bullet Man, it will be the end. I know it. And I’m not sure I want to risk it anymore.

  The heavy-set nurse, with the blue eyes and kind smile, greets us at the entrance to the hospital. We had called ahead to know if she worked the ER tonight. We exchange introductions, and to be honest, I forget her name right off the bat.

  The second she mentions my baby, I shut off.

  “Oh, my goodness. You were the couple who lost the baby. I remember your faces. How are you two doing?”

  “As best as we can, considering the circumstances,” Kace answers, brushing his shoulder against mine.

  She cocks her head to the side and sighs softly. “You said you wanted to talk to me about the suit I dropped off?”

  “Yes,” Kace takes the lead. “It was old and faded, right?”

  “It was my grandfather’s,” she corrects after the initial shock of his directness.

  “Why did you drop it off, and why did you use a fake name?”

  To ease her hesitation, I chime in, “We know about the apps.”

  Her shoulders slump, and she confesses, “I needed money to help a friend who was going through a hard time. I didn’t want to use my real name for this very reason.”

  “That’s kind of you, but to use an alias seems extreme. Did you suspect illegal activity?”

  She shakes her head before blurting out, “No.”

  Kace doesn’t buy it. The stiffness in his spine gives it away.

  I didn’t either. She framed her answer.

  “My friend is grieving, and she lost her job. So, one of the younger nurses here told me to check out this app. I found the job: Dry clean delivery. All I had to do was supply the suit and leave a package inside.”

  “Where did you get the package?” I ask.

  “From here.” She points to the waiting room with her chin. “It was left under this chair.” She walks backward and places her hand on the row of chairs lined up against the wall. “Right around here.”

  “Did you see who placed it there?”

  “Yes, actually. A young man with an injured elbow. I thought it was strange because he placed the package under the chair with the same hurt elbow and didn’t even flinch.”

  “How old was he?” I ask, wondering what the connection is with the drugs and younger kids.

  “Couldn’t be more than eighteen. He had a baby face, and he kept acting like his mom would walk in and smack some sense into him, you know?”

  Kace checks the waiting room for cameras. “Did you find anything weird about the package.”

  “No. It was very light. I figured it had money in it. I didn’t want to dig too deep with things like this.” She clears her throat and looks over my shoulder.

  We had just caught her in a lie. Before Kace flusters her with the information, I take the opportunity to see what’s behind me. Nothing. “How much did the job pay?”

  “Not much. One-fifty. But it helped her, and once I got my paycheck, I got her some more.”

  “Did anyone ever contact you again?” Kace asks.

  “No, I deleted the apps.”

  Apps. More than one. “Why?”

  “I didn’t need them anymore.”

  “Did the person who dropped off the package sign in? Do you have a name?” Kace pulls out his phone and shows an image of the kid from the hotel. “Did he look like this?”

  She leans over to check the screen, careful not to touch the phone. “No, he was a bit more muscular, like he played ball. I can see what name he signed in with … because you are family, right?” she says a little louder, eyeing me in the process.

  “Yes,” I lie.

  It takes a few minutes at the nurse’s station, but she supplies us with a name. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work. It’s never a dull day in the ER.”

  I catch a glimpse of the name on the paper, only the first two letters: t and y. My brain drudges up memories of the shooting.

  Suddenly, I’m whipped back in time and descending the staircase of the bus, holding my phone in my hand and messaging Kace, telling him I had reached the second destination. Tyler kicked me in the spleen as soon as I cleared the vehicle, and I grabbed on to the side of my stomach, letting the pain pass.

  The pain never passed.

  Kace tucks the sheet of paper in his pocket and reaches for my hand. He leads me out toward the double doors, where the cool breeze hits my heated cheeks. “Are you okay, Ellie?”

  “I’m sorry. You’re bringing me along to help you, and my mind drumming Tyler up.”

  “It’s okay,” he says and drops a kiss to my forehead.

  “No, it’s not okay. I don’t even know what I’m doing most of the time.”

  “Just being here is helping me. I’d rather have you by my side than Frank any day.”

  I smirk and rest my forehead against his chin. “Did you get the sense she was hiding something?”

  “No, but then again, I didn’t know the kid from the motel had twenty-thousand-dollars’ worth of drugs in his paper bag.”

  “She said applications. Why would she need to delete all of them if she only had one job? And why does she have them in the first place? She’s a nurse. Don’t they pay well? I’m pretty sure they get paid better than we do.”

  “We can look into her a little more. She may know more than she’s letting on.”

  “What about the kid she talked about? Do you want to follow him?”

  “I don’t think following the couriers is going to get us anywhere, but we’ll work on finding this kid before chasing down some leads with the CCTV and footage we recovered from the sites. Frank’s working on cross-referencing them to see if any license plates overlap. It’s a lot to sift through, and there is a long list already. Too many couriers and too much footage; we’re going on speculation that the Bullet Man is actually at any of these sightings.”

  “Or that he’s in a car.”

  Kace sends the nurse’s information to Frank. “Let’s head home and see if we can go find something we missed in the crime scene photos. Or maybe we can do dinner? It’s almost five.”

  “Dinner sounds good. Bag of chips and coffee wasn’t much of a lunch.”

  Kace stores his phone in his pocket. “I remember the days where that’s about all you ate for lunch. You never wanted to leave the pre
cinct.”

  I wasn’t a victim then. “That was two years ago.”

  “I still remember the first day we met.” He leads me toward the car, where he opens the door for me. “Cap brought Frank and me into his office and a couple guys from The Tank, then he took me aside and told me to lie about my family. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I followed orders, and you picked me right out.” Kace’s goofy grin floods me with memories. “That was the first time I ever lied to you.”

  The same feelings, as the ones from our first encounter, return and mix with the longing accrued within the past week.

  That day, the second I had walked in through the door of Cap’s office, my eyes zoned in on Kace. He held my gaze, clearly stating his intent. He didn’t have to say much, but the way his eyes narrowed and curved upward at the ends and how he shifted in his chair to take up more space and be the alpha in the room gave it all away.

  I had to pry my eyes off him to gauge the others in the room. Every chance they could, my pupils landed on him. I had never been so attracted to someone in my life, but I had a job to do. Cap told me my job position would be a bit unconventional, and he wanted me to do a small demonstration to get the detectives on board.

  Desire aside, I greeted each of them and established a basal line—things they seemed to do naturally—and then I started my questioning. Not only did I find out when Kace lied, but his partner also lied based on him, and one of the two guys followed his lead.

  “You lie and get everyone else covering for you.”

  “I’m magic like that.” He closes the door and comes around to the other side.

  I clutch the seatbelt like it’s some kind of barrier capable of protecting my heart from him. “You have a tell when you lie. Like this.” I mimic the expression. He inconspicuously pinches the inside of his bottom lip in his teeth. It’s quick and usually camouflaged by some movement around his mouth.

  He swivels his upper body toward me. “I don’t see anything.”

  I repeat it and hide it with a smile.

  “The smile?” Of course, he’d pick that out. He’s been extremely in tune with my lip movements this week.