Shit shit
shit!
Rutskoi closed his cell phone with a snap and hurled it against the wall of the apartment he’d rented under an assumed name in the Bowery.
It shattered into a thousand bits that fell to the floor with a clatter. At the Waldorf, it would have fallen to the lush rose-patterned carpet and there would have been maids to vacuum the mess up. But he’d had to leave the Waldorf. Going into the operational part of the mission, he’d left the soft world of luxurious living behind and entered the iron world of warfare.
Drake’s driver had picked him up at the Waldorf, so Drake knew where Rutskoi was. If Rutskoi was foolish enough to continue staying there, his life wouldn’t be worth shit.
Drake’s revenge was always swift and lethal.
Rutskoi had realized it would come to this the instant the big street door of Drake’s skyscraper had closed behind him with an audible
click.
He’d been so sure Drake would say yes to him—goddamnit, the man
needed
a lieutenant—that he hadn’t really thought through the consequences of a no.
He had just made an enemy of one of the most deadly men on the planet. He needed help. He couldn’t take on Drake alone, it would be suicide. And if there was one thing Rutskoi knew, it was that he wanted to live.
Large.
So he’d called in Enrique Cordero. Cordero had essentially run the Central and South American arms trade B.D. Before Drake. Cordero was smart—though undisciplined—and had avoided drugs and women, the markets the cops zeroed in on. He’d had a neat little business supplying Central and South America with arms before Drake came and sucked up all the oxygen.
Enrique would be up for payback, oh yeah. Up for getting his market back. Rutskoi could share. Hell, there was enough in Drake’s business to keep ten men, a hundred. Word on the street was that Drake’s deals raked in a cool billion a year in profit. Not to mention the value of the fleet of planes and ships and helos he used to transport them. Yeah, there was enough for two. He and Cordero could split up the markets, like one of those Renaissance Popes splitting up the New World.
Rutskoi would take North America, Europe and Asia. Cordero could take Central and South America and Africa, and be welcome to them. Rutskoi had had enough of third-world countries to last him the rest of his life. He wanted to do business where there were toilets and beds and sidewalks.
He’d had it planned down to the finest detail, with Cordero’s sniper in an empty apartment across the street. The sniper had been lying in wait, prone, on sandbags on the little terrace, with orders to shoot everyone who could interfere with the kidnapping of Drake and the woman, this Grace Larsen.
Rutskoi had been inside the apartment with binoculars, away from the windows, directing the kidnapping.
The plan had been to wing Drake, shoot him full of Rohypnol, grab him and the woman and take them to a safe location. Tie Drake up and let him watch Cordero’s goons rough the woman up until Drake coughed up his bank codes and passwords.
It all hinged on how much he cared for the woman.
Out of this entire fiasco, there had been one good bit of solid intel. Rutskoi had observed Drake with the woman. Drake had put himself in danger to protect her. Drake couldn’t know that the sniper had orders not to kill him. In protecting her, he had been willing to sacrifice his life.
She was the key. This Grace Larsen was somehow the key to Drake. The man with no chinks in his armor now had one. A beautiful woman. The biggest chink in the world, a classic.
Get Grace Larsen, you got Drake. Once Drake was his, Rutskoi would become one of the most powerful men in the world.
Not bad for a former Russian army colonel. Not bad at all.
If there had been anything even remotely funny about the situation, Drake would have laughed at their expressions. Ben’s jaw simply dropped and Grace’s lush mouth opened in astonishment. They both looked utterly blindsided.
Well, what the fuck did they think?
They
weren’t
thinking, that was the problem. Smart as Ben was, as talented as he was as a doctor, he didn’t think like a soldier. It simply wasn’t in him. And Grace was an artist, an incredibly gifted one who, from what he could see, lived a simple life, mainly inside her own head.
Neither of them could think strategically, carry the complex geometry of violence in their heads without it affecting their thought processes. Drake was born to this world, was at home in this world, was a goddamned
king
in this world.
He was born with the ability to think four, five, even ten strategic moves ahead. While his enemies were busy reacting to his first move, he saw straight through to the endgame. The endgame he inevitably won.
He remembered the exact second when he’d heard the sound behind him. His body prepared itself to react, but it was meat and bone and blood. Bound by the laws of physics and gravity.
His mind, however, held no such limitations and it saw, as clear as day, the consequences of what was happening.
His obsession with Grace had left him open, a man who’d never given anyone an opening. Right now, Grace Larsen was a huge opening through the heart of his life.
Time and again over the past year, he’d told himself that what he was doing was dangerous. He took every possible precaution, evading his own security, but nothing was perfect. So in this imperfect world, someone had somehow found out where he was going.
Though he’d lectured himself to be content with buying up all Grace’s paintings and drawings, somehow it wasn’t enough. Even knowing he was putting himself in danger, he persisted in seeing her.
He’d observed her twice a month for over a year now and though he was insane to hide in an alleyway which was a cul de sac, though he understood with half his brain that he was endangering his life twice a month, the other half of his head loved his obsession. He’d make his circuitous way back to his building each and every time walking a little lighter, head filled with images of her. He could see her in his mind’s eye for days afterward, all the expressions that crossed her face. Laughing, serious, relaxed, tense in the few moments she showed new work until, inevitably, Feinstein smiled.
She was unlike any woman he’d ever known. In the past year, he’d handed over several hundred thousand dollars for her paintings. Her work was worth every penny and of course the money was nothing to him.
Still, he knew how poor she’d been. He’d checked her bank account and she’d had next to nothing. But all the money he poured into her artwork didn’t change her lifestyle at all. The greed gene seemed to have passed her by completely.
Every single beautiful woman Drake had ever met wanted to enhance her beauty. Make it bigger and bolder, to wield more power over men. Above all, women wanted to stop the clock. They were obsessed with it.
They’d starve themselves, put themselves under the knife, inject themselves with a lethal toxin to smooth out their faces. None of it had anything to do with health and strength, it was all vanity.
Over the course of the year, Grace hadn’t changed one bit. Though she could now afford designer clothes, the best hairdressers, she could probably fucking move into the most expensive spa in Manhattan and spend all her time there…she stayed exactly the same. He hacked her credit card accounts and the only thing she spent more money on than before was art supplies.
There was no vanity there. None at all, that he could see. She didn’t buy herself new friends with her new money. If anything, at times she seemed a little lonely.
Christ, he knew what that felt like. Knew it in his bones.
Every time, he came away from watching her feeling a deep connection. It was insane, of course. The only connection was in his head. But even there, it was such a rare thing, he cherished it. Cherished just the notion of the existence of Grace Larsen, who seemed to have no ambition other than to make beautiful paintings, who seemed to have no greed or aggression in her.
It made him feel better just to know she was in the world. Because his world
was
full of violence and greed and treachery.
And today, tragically, his world had crashed into hers, changing it forever.
Ben was the first to recover. He turned to Grace. “Do you live alone?”
She looked startled, then uneasy. “Yes, I—I live alone.” She clearly didn’t like saying it.
Good girl
, Drake thought.
Don’t give out any personal information to anyone
.
She could to him, though. He’d rather rip his own throat out than hurt her. She didn’t realize that yet, but she would.
“You have some nasty gashes in your head,” Ben said. “I don’t think you’re concussed but I wouldn’t swear in court that you’re not. I think you should stay here for the time being, under observation. You’ll be cared for here.” He shot a look at Drake, who nodded his head slightly, amused that Ben had already taken her under his wing.
Drake hopped down from the hospital cot and walked over to Grace, standing so close to her she had to look up, not so close it would set off her alarms. Her face tilted up to his, expression wary, and weary.
“I’ve ordered some food brought up,” he said gently. He reached out a hand and stroked the back of his index finger down her cheek. Her skin felt incredibly soft but chilly. She was in a state of mild shock.
Drake looked into her sea-green eyes, amazed at what he found there. Pain, shock, sadness. Those were to be expected. But other expected emotions were missing.
No hatred, no hostility, no animosity, even though she’d lost a friend and had been threatened and shot at because of him.
Above all, he saw absolutely no calculation in her sad, weary gaze. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had looked at him and seen a man and not a walking bank account.
She’d seen the car, the men he commanded, parts of his living quarters, including a private clinic. She hadn’t seen it all, of course, but she’d seen enough to know he had…resources. None of that seemed to make any difference to her. While Ben had been stitching him up and he’d sent himself away from the pain, her slender hand in his had grounded him. He’d actually felt the human connection of solidarity from her, felt very strongly the comfort she’d wanted to give.
Drake couldn’t remember the last time someone had offered him comfort. Certainly no woman in his life had ever tried to offer him anything, least of all comfort. They all wanted things from him, the bigger, the brighter, the shinier the better.
She was swaying on her feet, cold and wounded, and he snapped out of his reverie. Just being near her seemed to slow his thought processes down, make him clumsy and stupid. He couldn’t stand to see her like this, hurting and sad. She was his responsibility, now. He had to start taking care of her.
“I need to go home,” she whispered, eyes searching his. He didn’t know what she was looking for. Permission? Or was she seeking some sign that he meant her harm?
“Grace,” he said. “May I call you Grace? I heard you telling Ben your name.”
As if he didn’t know her name. As if it weren’t engraved on his mind.
She nodded, eyes huge.
“All right then, Grace.” Slowly, Drake drew in a deep breath, a prelude to what he had to tell her. He was only going to give her a small part of the truth, but even that was going to be hard for her to take. The whole truth would wipe her out. He’d have to portion it out to her over the next few days. “I think you should stay here, with me, for a…while. Until we’re sure it’s safe for you to return.” Her eyes widened. “The men who came after me, they can easily find out where you live. They could come after you and probably will.”
He made it sound like a probability, whereas it was a certainty. No one would have made a move like that without knowing everything about the players. They knew enough to use her as leverage against him. No fucking way they didn’t have her address. No fucking way there wasn’t an army camped out on her doorstep, just waiting to take her down.
What little color Grace had in her face left. She was the color of ice. “I hadn’t even thought of that,” she whispered.
No, she wouldn’t have. This wasn’t her world. Her world was full of beautiful shapes and colors. She swayed again and Drake caught her gently by the elbow.
“Ben,” he said, without taking his eyes from hers, “leave the medicines we should be taking on the table. Thanks.”
Ben understood that for the dismissal it was. A moment later, the door closed quietly behind him.
Drake waited for him to leave his apartment, then opened the door into the corridor. His quarters were seven large rooms making up one side of a skyscraper, all opening out onto a big corridor.
Drake ushered Grace out. This was in many ways a dream come true. All this past year, he’d caught himself wishing he could be with her. Wishing they could eat together, spend time together. And deep down, where no one could possibly know his thoughts, wishing that this beautiful woman could be his.
She was his now, all right. But not for long, because fate had dealt him a cruel, cruel blow. Thanks to him, this gentle, beautiful woman’s life was now over.
Thanks to him, Grace Larsen was a dead woman walking.