King Me (Forever Wilde 7)

After turning around to face away from him, I leaned over and reached into my backpack, looking for absolutely nothing but giving him a nice, healthy peek at my assets just to regain the upper hand.

He made a breathy grunting sound deep in his throat, and I let out a silent sigh of relief. Upper hand reestablished. I didn’t spend an hour every night on squats, crunches, and pushups for no good reason. If by some oddball twist of fate I’d lucked into working with a gay FBI agent, and he thought I was attractive, it meant I’d have a way of manipulating him.

And it was looking more and more like I’d need that sooner rather than later if I was going to use this opportunity to get revenge on Elek. I was going to steal that fucking crown right out from under his nose and make sure he could never get his hands on it again. And if, in the process, these guys were able to catch him with stolen goods and put him in jail, well, then, that would be the cherry on top.

After we were airborne, Falcon got everyone’s attention to discuss the plan.

“King is going to tell us where he thinks the crown is being held, and we’re going to go on there and steal it.”

I stared at him, replaying his words in my head to make sure I’d heard him correctly.

“Do what now?” It was one thing for me to plan on swiping the crown during the op, and yet another for Falcon’s FBI team to commit an actual art heist. “Why not just arrest the guy? You’re the cops. If you know he has the stolen crown, can’t you just go in with a warrant? And why is this a matter for the international task force? Why not Hungarian law enforcement or Greek law enforcement for that matter?”

I had seriously thought they would let me lead them to Elek and then arrest him. My hope was to snatch the crown away from him before then just to prove I could. I’d return it to the Hungarian people, of course, but I wanted the satisfaction of stealing it from him. Now Falcon was suggesting the FBI itself was going to steal it. So why was I even there?

Falcon pressed his lips together for a beat before explaining. They were really nice lips. “The Hungarian government asked for discretion.”

Something about this was setting off warning bells. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“We didn’t ask your opinion,” he said tersely. “Moving on…”

He gave the floor to Linney, who explained that she’d uncovered some information once I’d eventually given Falcon the address of the target residence on our flight from California to Paris.

“We pulled up schematics of the house,” Linney said.

“Wait, how did you get information like that so fast?” I asked.

Linney glanced at Falcon before speaking. “We have someone who can hack into any system. Unfortunately, the information Ziv has access to only goes so far. So we have you as backup.”

I lifted an eyebrow at her. “It’s always nice being the second choice.”

Ziv snorted. Falcon sighed and looked over at me. “You couldn’t possibly have thought you would be my first choice.”

“Point taken,” I admitted. “So you need a plan to get in there and take it. Do you have any idea of how you want to do it? Or am I expected to come up with that too?” I shot her a wink and a smile.

Linney shrugged, blushing a little. “A little bit of both to be honest. We have specs for the security system, we can get an eye on the comings and goings of all of the staff, and we can probably track the target’s movements. But we don’t know where in the house he’d keep something like this. And we don’t know what we don’t know about pulling off a successful heist. Obviously you have tricks up your sleeve we’re unaware of. We’re hoping you can help us figure out some of those aspects of a successful job.”

I sat forward and rested my elbows on his knees, meeting Falcon’s eyes. “The bureau is capable of planning a heist like this without my help. There’s obviously something else going on here. I want to know what it is.”

Linney answered for him. “Doing it with your help lessens the risk factors. And speed and discretion are of utmost importance here.”

“Why?” I asked, still looking at Falcon.

“That’s not really any of your business,” the senior agent said. I rolled my eyes. His attitude was annoying no matter how peeved he was at me for eluding him all this time.

Mouse spoke up in his small voice, surprising more than just me. “Does it matter?”

Was he kidding? “Yes it matters. Of course it matters.”

Mouse smiled at me knowingly. “No it doesn’t. You’re going to do this anyway. Not just because you have immunity at stake but also because you can’t stand the idea of the crown being in the wrong hands. Admit it.”