“King,” Linney said. “Are you waiting for it to cream and sugar itself?”
I realized I’d been staring at a full pot of coffee for an absurdly long time.
“Yes? I don’t think that’s unreasonable this early in the morning,” I explained. “Do you?”
I reached for a mug and did my thing, tossing some bread in the toaster while I was at it. When I finally took my usual seat next to Falcon, I ignored the lemony scent of him.
Kind of.
“After I finish this, I’m going to put together the things I need,” I said unnecessarily. “Make sure I have everything I need.” Why was I still talking? “And then I need to go over the entry plan again with Ziv.” I swallowed. They already knew all of this. What the hell was my problem? “We need to test comms too.” How many times would I use the word “need” before I shut up?
Jesus.
Falcon looked up from his laptop and met my eyes. “You okay?”
No. I’m falling for the wrong person. That wasn’t part of the plan.
“Of course.”
He studied me for a minute, those eyes boring into me as usual. I was getting used to being the bug under his microscope, and it wasn’t nearly as intimidating as it had been originally.
“Hmpf,” he grunted, turning back to his computer. “Drink your coffee. You’re acting weird.”
Mouse looked up from his work. “Maybe he’s nervous, boss. Give him a break.”
Falcon didn’t look up but said, “He’s not nervous.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, feeling more relaxed all of a sudden. “I could be.”
He looked up at me and raised a brow. “Yes, you could be. But you’re not. And I know that, because—”
For a split second, I pictured him saying “because I fucked all the tension out of you last night.”
“—you’ve done this a million times.”
“Maybe not a million,” I said. “But you’re right. Plus, nerves are inversely proportional to the success of the op.”
“Well, shit,” Mouse muttered. “We’re doomed.”
“You’re going to be fine,” Falcon assured him. “Your part of the op is simply eating dinner at your own place. Nothing to be nervous about.”
He was strong and steady, the fearless team leader whose quiet confidence anchored the entire group around him. It was sexy as fuck to watch, especially when he was dressed in a business button-down with the sleeves rolled up.
I nibbled on my toast and tried to think about the crown instead of Dirk Falcon’s muscular forearms.
After a few minutes, Ziv stopped typing. “Okay. I’m in their surveillance system and have cut the video loops we need. I’ll be able to deactivate the simple door and window contacts, no problem. Not there yet on the motion sensors.”
He stretched and stood up to refill his coffee.
“I told you those shouldn’t be a problem. They’re set above the height of the dogs, so all I have to do is army crawl.”
“Yeah, but if I can deactivate them, it’ll save us a shit-ton of time.”
I shrugged. “You’ve never seen my belly crawl trophies. They’re pretty impressive.”
Ziv rolled his eyes, but I could see the slight smirk too.
When I was done eating, I wandered outside to the small storage building at the back of the house. It wasn’t big enough to be a garage, but it held the lawn mower and other gardening supplies as well as the crates of supplies the FBI had sent to support our mission here.
At some point Linney and Mouse had organized everything onto two folding tables. I rifled through everything, gathering up the extra items I needed and shopping for anything else that caught my eye. They had a pair of night vision goggles that looked almost like eyeglasses. I grabbed them to test inside the house. I also found a funky little tracker that I wanted to ask Ziv about.
Just as I finished closing the door to the outbuilding, Mouse came racing out of the house. “Come inside, there’s something new.”
I followed him back to the kitchen where Linney and Ziv seemed to be in a heated argument. As soon as Mouse and I sat down, Falcon told them to be quiet.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Transcripts from the security guards just came in from conversations late last night. They picked up reference to crown and boat in the same conversation. They think it was in reference to moving something. Could he be moving the crown onto the boat?”
“I already told you I thought that’s where it would have been in the first place.”
Falcon sighed. “Shit.”
“It probably means he’s planning on leaving for a while. I don’t think he’d move it to the yacht if he wasn’t going to be on the boat with it, but I could be wrong.” I tapped a finger on the table while I thought about it. “If it’s true that he gave up a ride on Daddy’s jet to stay for this dinner… well, he can’t exactly fly commercial with a gold coronation crown in his carry-on. And he’s certainly not going to trust a shipping company. So, the yacht is the best way to transport it. Maybe he’s flying commercial and he’s sending Tibor on the boat with the crown. That’s a possibility.”