My body relaxed as his chest fell when he let it out.

I paid attention and I kept doing it until I fell asleep and I knew I fell asleep before Hopper did.

But I slept deeply.

I knew this because, hours later, when I woke up, he was gone.

* * *

That night, I sat on the couch, heels to the edge, knees to my chest, arms around my calves, chin to my knees, staring at it.

Staring hard.

I didn’t ever look at it. I didn’t even know why I’d put it there. I didn’t know why I didn’t hide it away. Pack it up in a box and shove it into the back of a closet so when I moved or when I died and someone went through my stuff, they’d find it and wonder. Wonder what it was. Who it was. And if they knew, they’d wonder why I kept it.

I stared hard.

Then my feet came out from under me, hitting the floor as I straightened out off the couch, walked to it, and snatched it off the shelf.

I brought it to my face.

Elliott and me. Arms around each other, my head on his shoulder.

Smiling.

Happy.

I stared at the picture.

I brought it closer, my eyes moving over his face in the only place it could ever be anymore, contained in a frame, and I found my lips whispering, “You got yourself killed, nearly got me the same way, got Tyra stabbed for… fucking… flowers.”

Elliott had no reply.

“You f**king ass**le,” I hissed.

Elliott made no response.

My body twisted, my arm going with it, and the frame flew across the room, slamming against the wall, the glass shattering before the frame fell and the shards tinkled to the ground.

I glared at it for long moments before I stomped to my purse, yanked out my iPod, and stomped to my stereo. I shoved the little thingie on the cord that led to my stereo into the little thingie on the top of the iPod, turned on the stereo, bent my head and moved my thumb on the pad until I found it.

Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band: Nine Tonight (Live).

I scrolled to the track, hit play, and walked to the couch, resuming my position, staring at my stereo as the crowd cheered then went silent as the piano started up and Bob started singing “We’ve Got Tonight”.

I listened to the words.

When the song ended, I got up, hit back, and played it again.

I listened to the words.

When it ended, repeat.

And repeat.

Again.

And again.

I did not cry.

I would not cry.

Not ever again.

I didn’t have it in me.

I had nothing left to give.

I not only had nothing left to give, I just had nothing.

And I was going to keep it that way.

If you had nothing, you couldn’t feel more pain because you had nothing left to lose.

Chapter Three

My Eye on You

Three weeks later…

“Uh… Lanie, honey, where’s the frame?”

I was smiling at Tack, who was standing in my doorway waiting for Tyra to pull the lead out and follow him to his bike, but at my best friend’s words I felt my smile freeze on my face.

Tack didn’t miss it.

Tack, the single-most decent man I’d ever met (regardless of how much he swore, which was maybe more than Hop did), was also the smartest.

He didn’t miss anything.

So when my smile froze, his sapphire blue eyes dropped to my mouth and his dark brows snapped together.

I pulled in breath and looked to Ty-Ty.

“What frame?” I asked. It was a lie and worse, I knew Tack would know it.

Tyra did, too.

This wasn’t a surprise. She knew me well. We’d been friends a long time.

Kane “Tack” Allen was tall, dark, handsome, and rough. He was also very smart, very loyal, very funny, and very in love with my best friend.

Tyra Allen was curvy, redheaded, green-eyed, and not rough in the slightest. She was also far from dumb, very loyal, very funny, very in love with her husband, and very true to me.

She and I had been through a lot even before we’d been kidnapped together years before because of Elliott’s problems with the Russian Mob. Although she’d been tied up and kept in a dark room while I was interrogated by the Mob, and we’d been rescued separately, when you shared something like being kidnapped, bonds formed even if the bonds already there were strong.

Sometime later, the day I’d been shot and Elliot had been killed, Tyra had been kidnapped, tied to a chair, and stabbed repeatedly.

Tack pulled out all the stops and paid a fortune to have a plastic surgeon erase her scars.

Mine still marred my skin. A reminder, a strong one, never to forget.

Tyra also came and got me from Connecticut, rescuing me from the dysfunction I’d moved to Denver to escape in the first place. She thought she was rescuing me from something else and I let her think that. I don’t know how convincing I was. I just knew Ty-Ty was letting it lie. She had me in Denver, under her watchful eye and close enough to feel her comforting hand. When that hand needed to form a velvet-gloved iron fist was anyone’s guess.

I just knew by the look on her face it would not be now.

Even so, Tyra had looked askance at that frame of Elliott and me tons of times. I even once caught her giving Tack eyes about it, jerking her head toward it, whereupon he shook his head. She bugged out her eyes. He rolled his to the ceiling. She crossed her arms on her chest and glared at him. As for me, I pretended I missed all this when I didn’t.

Suffice it to say, Elliott wasn’t her favorite person. He got me kidnapped. He got her kidnapped, twice. He got me shot, repeatedly. He got her stabbed, repeatedly.

So Elliott, even dead, was persona non grata.

As he should be.

For years, Ty-Ty had simply looked askance at the photo but ignored it and didn’t mention Elliott. I knew this was partially because, even though he was dead, she was pissed at him for getting me hurt, not to mention getting her hurt. This was also because her husband was loyal and he adored her and Elliott got her hurt. Even if Elliott was still breathing, it was pretty clear that Tack would make sure he wasn’t doing that for much longer. The breathing part, that was.

As for me, I didn’t mention Elliott. Not ever. My fiancé nearly got my best friend dead. Once we found out about his dealings with the Mob, Tyra advised me strongly to break it off with him. I stuck by his side. She was right. I was wrong. But we both paid for me being wrong and I didn’t go there. I didn’t go there because all I had in me was the ability to rejoice that she didn’t turn her back on me after I nearly got her killed. I held onto that like the lifeline it was. Like I was never going to let it go and no way I was going to bring him up, my decision to stay with him, and rock that boat.