King Me (Forever Wilde 7)

“We found something!”

Mouse came racing into the room in his Avengers pajamas, bright-eyed and eager as if it wasn’t two in the morning. King and I jumped apart, and I turned away for a minute to give my dick a chance to deflate. It didn’t take long.

“Fuck,” King said. I might have imagined the slightly strangled sound in his voice.

“What’d you find?” I asked after clearing my throat.

“Well, actually it was Ziv.” He looked around. “Where’d he go?”

Ziv came wandering in holding his laptop.

“The alarm equipment in the tunnel is a Russian surveillance brand. The company has a record of a shipment to the island the week before the crown was stolen. It’s the same brand of the cameras the agent found at King’s apartment in Paris.”

Mouse and I stared at Ziv in shock as his words reverberated around the room.

King tilted his head. “My apartment in Paris?”

“No, mine,” I blurted, stupidly.

His brows furrowed as he studied me. “You’re lying. Right to my fucking face.”

Ziv blushed deep crimson. “Boss, I am so sorry.”

King’s confusion began to cloud over with anger. “Did you have an agent on me in Paris? Why were there cameras at my apartment?”

This wasn’t going to be pretty. But I had no other explanation than the truth.

“After Prince Rashid of Jordan discovered a certain someone had made off with his Jackson Pollock, he put pressure on the US to present its most notorious art thief for extradition.” I watched his eyes for his reaction, but they weren’t the indicator of his sudden fear. His face lost all color.

“And so,” I continued, “we were given additional resources including a couple of undercover agents.”

“Agents, plural,” King mumbled before looking back up at me. “Two agents on just me?”

Ziv met my eyes and carefully shook his head. He was right. Until this op was over, we couldn’t divulge that information.

“I’m not at liberty to give you any details,” I said stiffly.

Anger flared in King’s eyes and the set of his jaw. His fingers tightened into a fist on the thick wooden tabletop. “You’re not… are you fucking kidding me?”

Gone was the tenuous unspoken truce we’d come to earlier in the day.

“I’m sorry,” I said. And I meant it. I didn’t want to be at odds with him. I’d been around him enough to know that he was either a sensitive man with trust issues or a damned good actor.

“No you’re not,” he spat. “All you care about is your op. Is anyone else under surveillance?” Suddenly, the realization dawned on him and his face fell. “Do you have someone undercover with my family?” He stared at me, his eyes begging me to reassure him.

I couldn’t.

“Please…” King’s voice cracked. “Please tell me you don’t have an agent fucking around with my family.”

I couldn’t tell him that, so I kept my mouth closed.

“Dirk,” he whispered, grabbing my heart and squeezing the shit out of it. “Please.”

I swallowed around the thickness in my throat. “As soon as we get the crown back, we’ll be out of your hair. You stay clean and we’ll stay gone.”

He studied my eyes for a second before shoving his chair back and heading for the door. “I’m going for a walk. Do not follow me.”

I watched King walk away, wondering if I’d made the right decision. Sometimes my job had gray areas that were difficult to navigate. In this case, I had to balance the need to earn his trust for the success of the op with the need to cover our asses if the man disappeared before we got what we came here for.

“You were right,” Ziv said. “I remember a year ago when you said his weakness was his family. I doubted you at first.”

Mouse weighed in. “That’s right. You said he was the only one of the ten kids who’d run off to live in another country, and it was probably because he wasn’t as close to them.”

“I was obviously wrong,” Ziv admitted.

“He went to live in another country because that’s where the Sorbonne is and he’s an art scholar,” I corrected.

“And that’s where you think they met,” Mouse said, remembering my original hypothesis.

I shrugged. “I’m not sure it matters now. But what does matter is getting him back on our side.” I stood up. “I’m going to talk to him.”

Ziv shook his head. “Bad idea, boss.”

Mouse looked nervous. “I agree. Maybe give him some time unless you want your face caved in.”

Time wasn’t something I could give him. The gala was the following night.

After grabbing shoes and a couple of hoodies out of our room, I made my way outside and looked around, noticing the bright moonlight in the crisp air. I slipped into my shoes and yanked one of the sweatshirts over my head. Movement caught my eye from the direction of the sea, so I headed that way.