Reckless Night (5 page)

Instead of air-conditioning, there were big ceiling fans and an ocean breeze wafting through the room.

Waiters bustled by holding plates of food that looked like works of art. Judging from the pleased expressions of the diners, the food tasted as good as it looked.

Grace stopped on the threshold, looking around slowly. Her face glowed as she sighed with pleasure.

“This is fabulous! And the food smells so good! However did you find it when you said you’d never been to Sydney before?” She smiled up at him. “What a foolish question.

You Googled ‘Most expensive restaurant in Sydney’.” He winced. Actually it had been “Best restaurant in Sydney” and La Mer had come up as first choice on nine out of ten lists.

He’d checked out the floor plan and the promise of an extra 150 dollars had ensured a table at the far end of the room, close to the doors and the wonderful view.

Seated, he sat back and watched Grace order for them. He didn’t care what the fuck he ate. It would be good. And it was just so wonderful watching her as she concentrated on the menu with a ferocious frown.

“I hope you like what I ordered for you,” she said finally, after endless discussions with their friendly, patient waiter. It had taken Drake less time to negotiate a ten million dollar sale of arms to an Abkhazian warlord.

“All fish,” he said with a sigh. He would have preferred meat, but she had him on a strict meat quota and he’d eaten his quota for the month last week. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy it,” he added politely.

“Maybe they will have to catch the fish and it will take so long to catch it and cook it that we will be late to the opera.” She laughed and he smiled at the sound. He loved hearing her laugh.

A wine steward with spiked dyed-blond hair poured them the wine she’d ordered. A South African Chardonnay.

Delicious.

It was a sign of his ease that he would drink alcohol in public. Something he would never have done in his previous life.

That was how he was starting to think of it. A previous life. Another one entirely, not his, not any more.

This was his life now. Walking down a shopping street full of people. A delicious meal in a beautiful restaurant.

Later, the opera. His pleasure dimmed a little at the thought, but who knew? Maybe the new Drake—Manuel Rabat—might actually enjoy it. He knew he’d certainly enjoy his wife’s delight.

A life of—of enjoyment.

Unthinkable before.

Quite possible now.

The waiter slid appetizers in front of them. Fried baby octopus, oysters wrapped in prosciutto, hot clam dip.

Some fish he didn’t recognize with a ginger and chili sauce. Fried focaccia bread triangles with brie mousse.

“Oh God,” Grace moaned as she spread the mousse and popped a focaccia in her mouth. “This is delicious!” He would have smiled if his own mouth hadn’t been full.

Grace looked around again once the appetizers were gone. “It’s so strange to have all this Christmas spirit in summer. A hot weather Christmas.” It was. Jazz renditions of Christmas carols played softly in the background. A huge Christmas tree made of lit glass cylinders glowed in a corner. Palm leaves studded with tiny lights were twined around the balustrade of the iron and glass staircase leading up to a loft.

A fat Santa Claus waddled through the entrance, fake beard moving in the breeze generated by the ceiling fans.

It was Christmas but unlike any Christmas he’d ever seen. Hot and sunny. Perfect beach weather.

Australians were an informal people and most of the diners even in this expensive restaurant were in sundresses and Bermudas, with acres of suntanned skin showing.

Grace touched his hand. “We’ll get used to it.”

“Oh yes,” he said softly.

Yes, they would. He hated the cold. He’d spent his entire childhood on the streets of Odessa. In winter, he’d desperately tried not to freeze to death, huddling in doorways and over grates. If he was never again cold in this lifetime, he’d be a happy man.

And… well, he was. He was a happy man. The thought still stunned him.

“We can make this a Christmas tradition,” he told Grace. “Christmas in Sydney. My Christmas gift to you.”

“The opera,” she sighed and rolled her eyes at his expression. “Verdi, Puccini, Wagner.” Drake shrugged and drank another sip of wine to help make the thought go down.

The piped-in music segued to a lovely saxophone rendering of Do You Hear What I Hear? One of the few carols he recognized. The soulful music, gentle and soft in the background, filled his head.

Nearby, a flame ignited at a table as the waiter threw cognac over some kind of creamy dessert and lit it. A woman at the table with the flambé dessert threw her head back and laughed.

Santa Claus was making the rounds of the tables shouting Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!

The maître d’hôtel stepped away from his station frowning.

Their waiter slid a steaming oval platter of seafood risotto in front of a diner at the table next to them. Drake risotto in front of a diner at the table next to them. Drake looked over with interest because he’d ordered it. Or rather, Grace had ordered it for him. It looked excellent and—

Ice hit his stomach.

His head lifted. He was suddenly alert.

Music, food, wine instantly forgotten.

What he was in his essence—an animal under constant threat—came instantly to the fore.

He looked carefully around the restaurant, no longer happy, no longer relaxed. If he’d been a submarine, the torpedo signal would be going off. He scanned the restaurant as a sniper would—in quadrants, careful to take in every single element.

Happy diners, innocuous-looking serving staff. A fat Santa Claus wishing everyone Merry Christmas.

What was wrong?

The frowning maître d’ was conferring with the head waiter, heads together.

Drake started slowly hyperventilating. Whatever was wrong, his body knew it needed extra oxygen to deal with it.

He’d had his hand over Grace’s and now removed it.

He would need both hands.

Fuck. He was without weapons. He was a superb shot but he was without any firepower whatsoever. It had been an executive decision. His jet had a disassembled long gun and a Beretta in a lockbox camouflaged as a first aid kit on his jet, but he’d decided to enter Australiaclean. If he bought an apartment here, he’d stock it with weapons. Just in case.

A woman laughed and clinked glasses with another woman at a table ten meters away. They were obviously celebrating something.

His stomach twisted, muscles readying themselves for action.

What was wrong?

“Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!” the Santa Claus cried, edging his way through the tables along the wall.

The maître d’ was talking into a cell phone.

“Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!”

It was delivered in the exact tone and cadence as before.

Drake looked at the Santa Claus more closely. There was something about the tone of the voice… at the next ho ho hohe got it.

ho ho hohe got it.

It was a recording, the words on a loop every two minutes or so. He was wearing an excellent Santa Claus outfit. Even Drake, who’d never celebrated Christmas, could see that. The suit excellently tailored, made of expensive material. Snow white, blood red. Big black belt around a huge belly.

Santa Claus was making his way around the perimeter of the room, waving his hands covered in white gloves, wishing everyone a Merry Christmas in a recorded voice on a loop.

He was coming closer to Drake’s table now. Drake could observe him more clearly.

A ll Drake’s senses went on overdrive. The smells and sounds became acute. His vision sharpened. He’d swiftly eliminated all the diners as the source of his sharp sense of danger and now focused on Santa.

The suit, the felt cap, the fake beard—they all looked very hot on this warm evening. Sweat fell down Santa’s face. Taking with it pale makeup. Beneath the makeup, Santa’s skin was very brown.

The sweat was removing the pale makeup entirely, falling to the red jacket in pale streaks.

Santa’s belly looked lumpy, as if full of hard things and not soft stuffing.

The maître d’ finished his phone call, closing the cell with a snap, and headed Santa’s way.

Santa saw him coming. His dark brown eyes opened so wide the whites showed and Drake’s highly evolved danger signals overloaded.

Time slowed down almost to a stop.

Santa pulled at his jacket, closed with Velcro, the ripping sound preternaturally loud to his ears.

The maître d’ was twenty meters away, raising his hand to Santa, palm out. The universal stop sign.

The panels of the red Santa suit were slowly pulled apart by Santa’s white-gloved hands and instead of cotton stuffing there was a vest with black cylinders attached, a string with a round pull hanging from the cylinders.

In this time out of time, Santa’s hand slowly moved up to tug at the dangling string while the maître d’

shouted and Drake picked up the silver charger from his table with one hand and a sharp filet knife from a nearby serving tray with the other and hurled both at Santa with all his strength.

The charger and knife slowly, slowly made their way to Santa’s throat just as Santa’s hand closed around the string.

“Allahu akhbar!” Santa screamed.

A gain, in that slow-motion state of time during combat, as soon as the charger and knife left Drake’s hands, he slashed upward, knocking over the heavy wooden table so it was between him and Santa and pulled Grace to the ground, covering as much of her as he could, while Santa fell into the infinity pool.

Then time came roaring back.

There was a huge explosion, the sound making his diaphragm vibrate. Drake hunched over Grace, wishing he could punch her into the ground to give her more protection, his arms around her head.

A red rain fell while screams started up all around them. Horribly, a severed white-gloved hand thumped to the floor an inch away from him, bouncing once then rolling away.

“Grace,” he shouted above the screams, still slightly deaf from the explosion. He lifted slightly and touched her frantically all over, face, torso, legs. “Are you all right?” She was in shock, eyes wide in a completely white face. She nodded and swallowed heavily.

He chanced a look around, taking his attention away from Grace for just a second.

The diners, so happy and content only seconds ago, were screaming and scrambling for the door, tables and chairs overturned, slipping and sliding on the platters of food that had been dashed to the floor.

The infinity pool was red, bits and pieces of human being floating to the surface.

Drake took in the situation in a flash. There was confusion and a number of people were bleeding, one woman stared at her red hand and started screaming.

Several people walked around, dazed.

But there was no one on the ground in the unmistakable sprawl of death. Everything Drake saw was minor—cuts and contusions and shock. The water had absorbed most of the blast.

The only dead man was the fucker in the suicide vest and he was now safely in that special hell reserved for people who killed in the name of God.

A siren started up outside, then two.

“My darling!” Drake kissed Grace, held her tightly. He could have lost her but he hadn’t. His miracle of a wife, safe.

He was trembling. Drake had spent his entire life in combat, he had learned to keep his head in combat, otherwise he’d have been long dead.

But now he trembled as he embraced his wife.

Under him, Grace stirred, her arms snaked around his neck, hanging on to him as tightly as he clung to her.

Her rapid breaths of shock sounded loud in his ear, her heart hammered against his chest.

A ll wonderful signs that she was alive.

She gasped, as if she’d stopped breathing, took in a huge breath that sounded like a sob.

“Drake,” she whispered, and he knew how shocked she was to use the name she’d forbidden herself to ever pass her lips.

“Right here,” he answered back. He kissed her temple.

“It’s over now. It’s all right. We’re fine.” Her arms tightened even more, then relaxed slightly.

“Drake?”

He lifted his head, able now to smile into his wife’s eyes. “Hmm?” She drew in another breath, and let it out shakily.

“Your pickle?” Grace lifted her head and kissed him.

“Best. Gift. Ever.”

If you enjoyed RECKLESS NIGHT, see where
Grace and Drake’s story began in
Dangerous
Passion

Available Now

And don’t miss the other books in Lisa Marie
Rice’s Protector’s Series
Dangerous Lover

Dangerous Secrets

Available Now

DANGEROUS PASSION

Alleyway outside the Feinstein Art Gallery Manhattan

November 17

F
eelings kill faster than bullets, that old Russian army saying, raced through Viktor “Drake” Drakovich’s mind when he heard the noise behind him. It was barely audible. The faint sound of metal against leather, fabric against fabric and the softest whisper of a metallic click.