King Me (Forever Wilde 7)

I could hear the insecurity in his voice, and it made my heart go out to him. Now that I had seen Elek Kemény in person, I knew just how powerful someone like him could be with a young artist who had stars in their eyes. Especially a young artist who wanted to be recognized for his talents. It was so easy to see how it had happened. But it wasn’t as easy for me to understand why he had continued to live a life of crime after separating from the person who’d gotten him into it in the first place.

“Trusting someone isn’t a character flaw,” I told him. “It’s what you’re supposed to do in a relationship. And Elek should have been worthy of your trust, should have respected your trust, and if he had truly loved you, he would have. Honestly, I think Elek is all about Elek. It doesn’t seem to me that he’s capable of true love if it means putting someone else’s needs and desires ahead of his own.”

King sighed. “Yeah, I get that from an emotional standpoint, but I’ll never forget the feeling of standing in that barricaded room waiting to be arrested, knowing he didn’t care enough to even help me troubleshoot how to get out of there before the police came. There was no remorse, no apology, and let’s not even talk about dividing the spoils.”

I realized my hand was rubbing up to his shoulder and back again. His skin was warm from the shower, and the movement of my hand stirred up the lemony scent of the soap. “What did you do after you left my office in DC?”

If it had been a little lighter in the bedroom, I might have seen a blush on his face. I knew King felt guilty for manipulating me that day, and I still regretted making the mistake of believing him. In terms of my job, it had been a fatal error. But getting to know King these past few days… well, I saw more nuance to the story. Obviously, he still deserved to be punished for his actions. But… I had to admit things had changed a little. Now I cared about him too much to want to see him locked away.

The realization twisted me up inside. It was like suddenly having to choose between my job and my personal life. Except I didn’t, because the FBI had agreed to let all of his criminal past go. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

“I took a circuitous route back to Paris, then went straight to our apartment, expecting a confrontation. But it was like I’d never existed. I told you that part. So then I was even angrier. I daydreamed about revenge, plotted it out many times, and basically spent too much time thinking about the best way to get even.” King pushed himself up in bed until he was leaning against the headboard. He bent his knees up in front of him and rested his elbows on them, forking his fingers into his hair. “He has this list.”

When he hesitated, I asked for clarification. “What kind of list?”

“A wish list. Every pie-in-the-sky piece he wishes he could add to his collection. I think the bulk of his career was to stockpile enough money to retire in luxury. But he enjoys the game too much to give it up, so once he didn’t need the money anymore, he was going to start stealing for fun. He was going to steal all of his favorite things.”

All of the pieces started clicking together as King turned his face to meet my eyes. “So I got there first.”

It was like heavy dominoes falling over one after the other. Every job where King had left a note instead of stealing a piece of art, every time he had pointed out a weakness in a security system, every job that left our team scratching our heads… I finally knew why. King didn’t want those things.

Elek did.

And King didn’t want him to have them.

“Wow.” Because… what else could I say?

“Yeah,” he agreed. “And then there were the jobs where I couldn’t help myself. Pieces I knew were in the wrong hands. I didn’t set out to be any kind of Robin Hood, but if I knew where Holocaust treasures were, I couldn’t just leave them be. There had been jobs I had done with Elek where we had taken one item out of the home or museum and left something else really important. When I was finally on my own, I could do something about it. So I did.”

I thought of one of the jobs that had bothered me the most. “Why did you steal those World War I letters from the German Museum? They were important. They humanized the war. People need to see that.”