“No!” he choked. “Get to the fire.” She was wasting time trying to pull him.

Suddenly, Grace looked at the trolley containing lunch and then back at him. “He can’t see through heat?” she asked.

Drake nodded, trying to coordinate hands and knees to crawl to the hearth. Another round embedded itself in the wall and he watched as a big chunk of laminated window fell to the floor.

Grace let go of him and, crouching, made her way back to the trolley.

“Come back! Come—” Drake’s vision darkened, his head pulsed and he gritted his teeth to stay conscious. Damn his reflexes!

But Grace was already at the trolley, moving fast. She picked up both bottles of wine and threw them at the windows.

Drake’s thoughts were slow, dull. He wanted to tell Grace that, brave as she was, throwing bottles at a sniper across the street wouldn’t help anything, but he couldn’t articulate the words, could barely think them.

She was by his side again, shaking his shoulder. “Drake—is there a way out of the building?”

He nodded slowly, painfully.

“Good.” She left his side and reached into the fire. Drake watched, gritting his teeth against the pain and the encroaching darkness. What was she doing?

It wasn’t until he saw her pick up a log that was burning on only one end and throw it at the window that he understood. The curtains burst into flame, fueled by the alcohol. The flames spread along the hardwood floor, following the line of the spilled wine.

Grace picked up a bottle of cognac and whiskey and threw them into the flames. The fire blossomed, covering almost the entire wall.

The sniper was now blind.

“Drake—get us out of here! Darling, we need to run!” She tried to help him stand, forcing a shoulder under his arm. He did his best, but he fell heavily to one knee. The room was spinning. She’d bought them some time, but it wasn’t going to help them if he simply passed out.

The sniper was firing wildly now, blindly, shot after shot, in a deadly fusillade. It was only a question of time before he hit them.

“Go.” Drake wanted to caress her face, but his hand wouldn’t coordinate. All he did was leave a streak of blood down her cheek. “Go. Get to the end of the corridor. Under the print on the wall is a keypad. The code is—”

“No, absolutely not.” Grace’s voice was sharp, the voice a soldier would use to a wounded comrade. “We’re going together. You must get up, my darling. I can’t carry you and I won’t leave you, so you need to get up.”

A round came so close he felt the air displacement. They had to get out now.

Grace put her shoulder under his arm again and stood, shakily, bearing a good portion of his weight. She slipped on his blood getting him upright and he could feel her effort.

“Go,” Drake gasped, trying to push her away. They flinched as a series of shots flung needle-sharp shards of marble from the mantelpiece. One stuck in her cheek and she simply reached up and pulled it out. Goddamn it, they were going to die here, right now. “Get out of here,” he whispered.

Her jaws clenched. “Not without you. Forget about it. We live together or we die together, it’s your choice, Drake. Do you understand?” She waited a moment to allow him to gather what little strength he had, then nodded. “Now, let’s go.”

She lurched forward, right arm around his waist, left hand holding on to his hand dangling over her shoulder. Drake straightened, ignoring the pain from his chest and back, gritting his teeth hard against the blackness that threatened to overwhelm him.

They were supposed to run for the door, but instead they shuffled. The burning curtains provided a good screen, but Drake had no way of knowing where the sniper was positioned across the street. They couldn’t be certain that they weren’t in his sights right now, the sniper preparing in this very instant to blow Grace’s beautiful head off her shoulders.

He stiffened his knees. He couldn’t fail her.

He heard her heavy panting as they made their way to the door. She could have saved herself by now, been long gone, but she’d made it clear she wasn’t leaving without him.

He wasn’t going to be the cause of her death. No way.

A lifetime of discipline asserted itself. He wasn’t going to slow Grace down. Fuck it if he could barely stand, barely see, barely think. She needed him.

Grace left him, rushed to the trolley and poured a bottle of grappa over the couch and threw a burning log into the cushions. It caught fire with a roar. Smart woman. The sniper wouldn’t be able to see anything within a radius of at least a few feet around the burning sofa. She had bought them another precious few seconds.

They had to move fast.

“Wait.” He stopped, swaying, then turned around. It was a sign of his mental confusion that he had walked right by the trolley.

“Where are you going?” Grace gasped. She was panting, face dripping with sweat from the exertion of holding him up and the heat of the burning room.

Drake shuffled forward. “Trolley.” He didn’t have the breath to explain.

In his study, his vault contained at least twenty million dollars in diamonds, credit cards on accounts with hefty sums in them, and cash in a number of currencies. They couldn’t stop to empty his vault. They had to make it out as fast as possible, via a route no one knew about, not even his bodyguards.

“Stay here, I’ll get it.” Grace took a deep breath and plunged toward the burning sofa. She grabbed the trolley’s handle and was by his side in an instant, putting her shoulder back under his arm and urging him forward, all in one smooth move.

The sniper had shifted tactics, deciding to sweep the room starting from the north end. The shots were badly distorted, ricocheting, but they still had more than enough punch to kill. They were coming at a steady pace, heading straight for them.

Grace was trembling badly, trying to bear his weight. He straightened, moved away from her, shuffled as fast as he could toward the door and all but shoved her through it, then fell forward.

They landed in a heap on the other side, Drake toppling on top of Grace. For a second, he was stunned, fighting hard not to black out, holding ferociously onto consciousness. Under him, he felt Grace’s narrow rib cage moving as she fought to pull in air. She was pale and sweating. Drake rolled off her and gathered his energy to kick the door closed.

Now the sniper had a fire and another thick wall to see through. It was entirely possible that they had become invisible.

There was pounding on the steel door that led into the vestibule, shouts ringing out. His men, having heard the shots, trying to get to him. Smoke sensors would also have sounded an alarm.

For an instant, Drake was tempted to simply punch in the code that would open the door from the inside and let his men take over. Right now, he was in no shape to lead Grace to safety. There was something wrong with him. He was probably badly concussed and if his brain was swelling or if there was subdural hemorrhaging all the willpower in the world wouldn’t keep him on his feet.

His men were handpicked for loyalty, but even the remote possibility that one or more of his men were traitors was too big a risk to take. He would be handing Grace over to his enemies.

Unthinkable.

He was used to risk taking, though not on behalf of someone he loved. It was terrifying, yet it had to be done. He’d rather go down fighting, trying to shield Grace, than hand her over like a lamb to slaughter.

He made for the end of the corridor, for what looked like a blank wall but was a secret passageway to a hidden elevator in the building only he had access to.

The wall was only fifty feet away. It looked miles away, at the end of an endless tunnel surrounded by gray fog.

He talked quickly, hoping to get it all out before he lost consciousness, gulping in air, shaking his head in an effort to keep conscious.