For an instant, Grace regretted her quiet life. She had a few friends, but they didn’t meet up that often. Everyone was busy, no one more than she was. She essentially worked around the clock, eating and sleeping at odd hours. She could be missing for several weeks, even a month, before anyone really took notice.
The person she saw the most was dead, his head shattered by a sniper’s bullet.
She’d had lunch with one of her best friends, Alice Restrepo, the day before yesterday. They only saw each other about once a month. How long would it take Alice to report her missing to the police? When Grace didn’t answer the phone, Alice would just assume she was consumed by a painting. The bell of worry would ring eventually, but by that time, Grace could be long dead. Could be at the bottom of the Hudson River or in a concrete piling in New Jersey. Could be raped, tortured to death, her mangled body buried where no one would ever find her.
She shivered, looking down at her feet, wishing she were invisible. Though no one was paying particular attention to her, she had no illusions that she could make a run for it. A private elevator spoke of lots of money buying lots of privacy.
With a ping, they arrived at wherever it was they were going. The elevator doors opened with the quietest of whooshes. In front of them, across a very large hall, was a door worthy of the gate of a fortress. Twelve feet high at least, made of shiny steel.
The men around her filed out, fanning out into a security perimeter, but Grace stood still, eyes fixed on the ground, trying to control her trembling. Drake stood beside her, unmoving.
“Boss…” one of the men said. The men were obviously quivering with eagerness to get him behind that huge steel door.
“Go now, I’m fine,” Drake said quietly. They didn’t look happy, but they did it. They were used to obeying this man.
Drake pushed a button and the doors of the elevator closed again.
Grace stepped back and looked him full in the face. He winced a little at what he saw on hers.
“You’re frightened.” The deep voice was soft. He lifted a large, blood-stained hand to her cheek. His touch was soft, though she could feel the calluses on his fingertips. “I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about everything. More than I have words for. You’ve become involved in…a business dispute through no fault of your own. You’ve lost a friend and you’re hurt. I cannot tell you how much I regret this. But it’s done. And now you need to be kept safe from my enemies and you need medical care. All of this exists and is waiting for you behind that door you saw.”
She stared at him numbly. Though his touch had been fleeting, she still felt the warmth along her cheek.
For all she knew, this was a serial killer just waiting to entice her into his fortress. Certainly he had dealings with criminals. It was entirely possible he was a criminal himself. But the regret in his voice sounded sincere. And he wasn’t pushing her out of the elevator and into whatever was behind that door. Something in his stance told her that he would be willing to stay here forever, dripping blood on the floor, until she left the elevator of her own free will.
He swayed slightly, then brought himself back upright. The muscles in his jaw worked. There was a soft plop and when Grace looked down, another drop of bright red blood joined the small puddle on the floor.
Oh my God. He was badly wounded, he’d lost a lot of blood. He was barely standing, his forehead was beaded with sweat. And yet here he was, standing with her until she took a decision, patiently waiting for her.
Grace wasn’t too good with people, but like many introverts, she was an observer. What she saw before her was patience and regret with an overlay of pain and fatigue. No cruelty or craziness.
“Okay,” she said softly. “Let’s go in.”
Three
Drake kept himself upright by sheer willpower. That, and searing, devastating guilt that he’d ruined the life of this beautiful woman. It wasn’t a coincidence that his attackers had come while he was out in the alley watching her in the gallery and that they used her to get to him. He knew who they were, too. Undoubtedly, Dmitri Rutskoi was behind this.
Rutskoi had come prancing into his office expecting to be made Drake’s lieutenant and hadn’t taken it well when Drake had thrown him out. Drake knew Rutskoi. He was a true soldier. If he’d made it his mission to go after Drake, he wouldn’t stop until one of them was dead. And he’d undoubtedly partnered up with Drake’s direct competitor in the Americas, Enrique Cordero. Drake had recognized two of Cordero’s goons.
Somehow Rutskoi knew about Grace, which meant that Rutskoi and Cordero were willing to go through her to get to him.
The thought terrified him. It was worse than the wound in his shoulder. He’d been shot before and he knew this was nasty but not serious. A few days of rest and he’d be fine. But the thought of Grace falling into the hands of his enemies, of being maimed or tortured or killed because of him—it drove him crazy.
It had taken all his willpower to stay still in the elevator to allow Grace to choose to enter his domain. He and only he could offer safety. Offering her a choice was the only gift he could give her and it was a false one, because if she had balked, he’d have ordered his men to carry her in by force, even kicking and screaming. He’d have hated it, but he’d have done it, no question.
The alternative, letting her go, was unthinkable. Right now, the only safe place for her on this earth was by his side. Anywhere else, and she was a gorgeous target, a bull’s-eye painted right on that smooth forehead.
He watched her face, making sure nothing showed on his.
She was swaying a little, shaking with adrenaline aftermath and cold, arms locked around her midriff, as if she needed comfort only she could give herself. Some flash of intuition told him that she often did this—held herself because no one else did.
It was one of the most shocking things he knew about her. Her essential solitude, so unusual for a woman who looked like her. From what he’d been able to see, her closest friend had been Harold Feinstein and now he was dead. She’d watched his head explode.
The harsh overhead elevator light showed up every scratch, every drop of blood on her pale skin. He could clearly see the broken skin at her temple where the muzzle and front sights of the SIG had ripped a hole. Her left cheekbone was rubbed raw from where he’d tried to grind her face into the pavement in an effort to make sure she didn’t present a target.
She was shocked, pale, hurt and bleeding. Shaking, hair wet and muddy, clothes dirty and torn.
Even so, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
He punched the button and the doors of the elevators opened. Drake couldn’t see any of his men but he knew they were close.
Grace looked as if she would shatter if he touched her. Her skin was waxen, the bruises shockingly dark against the preternaturally pale skin. Did he dare put his arm around her? He didn’t want to scare her, but she looked as if she would fall down in the next minute if he didn’t do something fast.
He compromised by taking her arm and walking forward. She came along, stumbling slightly.
They crossed the big, empty hall. It was brightly lit and had security cameras all around the ceiling molding, watched over 24/7 by a team of nine men in the basement, working in shifts of three. Drake punched in a seven-digit code, then put his palm against a glass panel in the wall. The panel flashed a brilliant green. Putting a hand to the big steel door, he swung it open easily, testimony to the excellent hinges, considering the fact that it weighed 1,000 pounds. It was built to the exact same specifications as the vault in the basement of most Citibanks.
They crossed the threshold.
“Welcome,” he murmured and watched her eyes widen at the three-story atrium.
If at any time in the past year Drake had dared to imagine crossing his threshold with Grace Larsen on his arm, it would have been after a date, though God knows he didn’t date. But still, at times he allowed himself dreams in his own head. Who was to know? So he had imagined a nice d
inner in the private rooms of an elegant restaurant, afterward perhaps a drink at a private jazz club, then home.
Home. In his home. It was only in the deepest stretches of the most sleepless nights that he allowed himself to imagine Grace in his home. He never brought women here. This was his sanctuary.
There was another luxury flat in another building where he brought his women. Smaller, because he didn’t live there, just fucked there. Anonymous as a luxury hotel room, which was fine, because the women were anonymous. Good for sexual release, but that was about it. He rarely had sex with the same woman twice. Lately, it simply hadn’t been worth the possible breach in security and he’d substituted his fist. And even that had become rare.
He’d have said that his sex drive had died before its time if it weren’t for the fact that just touching Grace Larsen’s torn jacket, knowing her arm was underneath, made his cock twitch. If he hadn’t lost a whole shitload of blood, it would have been a full-blown erection.
Grace turned to him, her beautiful mouth an O. She clutched his arm, as if ready to take his entire weight if he collapsed, though she never could. “You’ve got to sit down while I call an ambulance. We should have gone straight to the hospital, I don’t know why we were brought here, you’ve lost so much blood—”
The ringing in his pants stopped her in mid-sentence. Drake placed a finger against her mouth as he pulled out his cell phone with his other hand. He flipped it open, grimacing at the sight of his blood-stained finger against her mouth. He pulled his hand away from her.
“Yes?”
“Dr. Kane is on his way up, sir.”
Drake closed his eyes in relief and flipped the cell closed. “A doctor is on his way up right now,” he said gently. “He’ll take care of you.”
“Me?” Those beautiful eyes opened in astonishment. “I don’t need taking care of, for heaven’s sake. It’s you who’s been shot. You’ve been bleeding like a stuck pig. In fact,” she said, frowning, “it’s a miracle you’re still on your feet. How—”
She was interrupted by the big steel door opening. The man walking through was one of the very few men on this earth Drake would allow direct access.
“Drake!” Benjamin Kane came in fast, still wearing his white coat. White coats usually conferred an aura of authority on doctors, but Kane’s wild, unkempt white-blond hair, gangly, undernourished-looking frame and patchy blond goatee made him look more like a South American kidnap victim than the brilliant trauma surgeon he actually was. “I came as soon as I got the call. Christ, man,” he continued, giving Drake a quick, professional up-and-down glance, “you need to stay out of trouble. You’re too old for this shit. Let’s get to the clinic right now. Good thing I stocked up on several bags of O. Come on, come on.”
After a brief, surprised glance at Grace, Ben ignored her. Drake knew he was trying to be discreet but would be pumping him for info later. Ben walked ahead of them down the long corridor to the clinic, white coat flapping around his skinny knees.
Drake and his men were in a dangerous business. One of the first things he’d created after moving to America was a headquarters with its own infirmary. Hospitals, by law, had to report gunshot wounds, so he’d seen to it that he could deal with most of them himself.
He’d created an actual clinic—a big room, kept sterile, with everything a medical team could possibly want, though only Ben used it. He’d stocked it with all the equipment necessary to deal with injuries, including imaging machines, and Ben could manage most nonfatal injuries with what was in the room.
Drake let him go on ahead. Ben was fast—he’d be set up for surgery by the time Drake made it to the clinic.
Drake walked slowly down the corridor, gritting his teeth against the horrible feeling of weakness. He hated it. He’d always hated it. For all his life, any weakness—physical or emotional—could get him killed. Not showing any weakness at all was second nature.
The corridor looked a mile long, and the glare of the lighting hurt his eyes. It felt like he were walking uphill. Up a steep hill.
He would have expected Grace to follow Ben, but she stayed by his side. He didn’t want her there. He wanted her in the clinic with Ben.
“Go on ahead,” he said. His voice came out almost a whisper. He cleared his throat. “I’ll catch up.”
It was disconcerting to be on the receiving end of her gaze, intense, direct, like a blue-green spotlight. “No, I’ll stay here with you.” Her voice, though soft, was firm. Though he didn’t remember her doing it, he was now aware that she’d put her arm around his waist to brace him. She walked slowly, matching him, pace by pace, watching him carefully.
Damn it, she needed medical attention. “Go!” he said harshly.
She merely shook her head, tightening her arm around his waist.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He needed her there as fast as possible, so Ben could start taking care of her. He gritted his teeth and tried to speed up, but tripped over his own damned feet.
“Here.” Her voice was low, soft. She positioned her shoulder under his arm. “Put your arm around me.”
Drake was close enough to smell her. He was intensely sensitive to smells. Once he’d thwarted an assassination attempt because he smelled smoke on the man’s clothes in his hotel room. He’d turned down a number of women because of what he could smell underneath the perfume and lotions. He was absolutely convinced that emotions smelled.
He knew the smell of fear, of danger, of hatred. Grace’s smell was utterly different. She had the smell of woman. A woman in springtime. Clean, through and through.
He stumbled. Grace held him, but barely. She was shaking with the strain and breathing heavily, the sound loud in the corridor.
Drake forced himself upright again and concentrated like a laser beam on the clinic’s door ten feet away. He could do this. He’d done harder things and he could do this. A minute later, he was sitting on a hospital bed breathing hard, and Ben, scrubbed and gloved, was bent over him. Surgical instruments lay gleaming on a tray and Ben held a big pair of sharp scissors to cut Drake’s shirt off.
“Okay, buddy. Let’s take a look at what we’ve got here. I’ve got the X-ray machine up and running if we need it.” The scissors came closer and Drake batted them away.
“Check the woman first.”
Ben froze and looked at Grace, whose face was a mask of astonishment.
“What?”
“You heard me. And it’s not like you to need information twice. You’re wasting time and that’s not good for a trauma surgeon. You’re not touching me until she is stitched up.”
Ben took in a deep breath. “Okay, this is how it goes. This is what I got all those med school debts you paid off for me for. In school they teach you something called triage. That’s French for selection, the idea being that you select out cases on the basis of the severity of the wounds and treat the most severe cases first. And that, my dear Drake, is you.”
Drake sat back, tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “No. Her first.”
Ben made a strangled sound of frustration. But he knew better than to argue. “Okay. Have it your way.” Drake opened his eyes to watch Ben settle Grace into a chair. “Damn man,” he grumbled to her. “Okay, okay, let’s see what we have here.”
Grace tilted her head up to look Ben in the eyes. “He’s been bleeding badly,” she said, whispering. She was trying to talk to Ben without him catching on. “He has a gunshot wound. I’ve just got cuts and scrapes. Please attend to him first.”
“No.” Drake put the last of his energy into his voice.
Ben’s sigh was loud. “Head like a rock,” he told Grace, raising his voice to make sure Drake could hear him. “What can I say? He’s the one pays the bills. So, tell me where it hurts.” He was swiftly gathering together the instruments he’d need for her on a tray, the clatter of steel on steel bright in the room.
She smiled at that. “More or less everywhere. Mainly here—” she pointed to her head, “here and here.”
She indicated her neck and elbow. “I hate this. I hate being treated while he’s over there bleeding.” Grace’s eyes slid to his. Drake simply stared at her and she looked away.
“Well, my dear…What’s your name, by the way? If I’m going to clean you up, I should know your name. I’m Ben, by the way.” Ben was gently cleaning the scrapes on her hands. Grace hissed in a breath at the sting of the antiseptic.
Drake couldn’t help it. He jerked as if he’d been buzzed by a cattle prod. “Ben…” he growled.
“Sorry.” Both Ben and Grace spoke at the same time. She laughed, a soft little huff.
Ben slanted him a glance, then focused back on Grace. He was a good doctor, the best. Drake had to back off. She was covered with cuts and scrapes, there was going to be some discomfort while Ben cleaned her up.
But damn, he hated to think of her hurting. Hated it.
“So…” Ben had sterilized tweezers and was working on something in her hand. “Back to my question. What’s your name? I need to work on my bedside manner, or so everyone tells me, so I need to have a name to do that.”
“Grace,” she said softly, then sucked in a breath. Ben stopped immediately. “Sorry. No, that’s fine. I don’t mean to be a wuss. Grace Larsen.”
“Uh-huh.” Ben had that distracted voice that meant he was intensely concentrating on what he was doing. “And what do you do, Grace Larsen?”
“I’m an artist.”
“Artist, huh? I…see.” Ben’s hands stilled and he shot Drake a look. He knew what was in the study. He concentrated again on her, cleaning up the side of her face. He peered closely at her temple, gently lifting her hair away. “What happened here? Someone grind something into you?”
“You could say that.” Her voice turned dry. “A gun muzzle. It wasn’t fun.”
“No, I bet it wasn’t. The sights tore your skin. I don’t want to put stitches in, though. I’m no plastic surgeon and you’re too beautiful for me to mess your face up. But you might want to have that looked at later. I’ll put in butterfly stitches. How we holding up, boss?” Ben raised his voice without looking over at him. “I’m wrapping this up.”