Page 22 of Dangerous Passion

Grace hated asking for favors,hatedit. There hadn’t been anyone to ask things of growing up and now, as an adult, she found she’d much rather do without than ask. That way she was never disappointed. But now she was forced into asking for help.

She could feel her face becoming warm. “I, um, I need to ask a favor. Could you perhaps lend me the money for a cab to get home? Or have someone here drive me? My pursewas—“Blown up, she almost said, but didn’t. “Lost. I need to get home somehow.”

“Okay,” Ben said. “I’m sure Drake will?—“

Drake’s eyes popped open. “Absolutely not,” he said in a low, deep voice.

Chapter Five

Shit shitshit!

Rutskoi closed his cellphone and hurled it against the wall of the apartment he’d rented under an assumed name in the Bowery.

It 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 audibleclick. He’d been so sureDrake would say yes to him—goddamnit, the manneededa 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 from the art gallery. The sniper had been lying in wait, prone on sandbags on the little terrace, with orders to shoot everyone who could interferewith 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 beenanything 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?

Theyweren’tthinking, 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, anincredibly 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 goddamnedkingin 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 end game. The end game 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.

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