King Me (Forever Wilde 7)

He laughed and bumped my shoulder back. “Definitely not. I’m regretting it already.”

“Liar,” I said, reaching out to wrap my arm around his shoulders and kiss his temple before telling him about some other interesting books I’d read on art history and the current art market. Even though we’d come at it from opposite ends, it was something we had very much in common.

The walk back to my office was deceptive. It felt like a date. We’d had a lovely lunch, I’d met some of his family, and then we’d walked along learning new things about each other.

So when I recognized my office building, it brought me up short. “Oh. We’re here.”

King dropped my hand like a hot potato, leaving my warm palm to the mercy of the December chill. We approached the building as lovers, but we entered it as colleagues.

I guessed it was better than officer and detainee, but not by much.

When we joined everyone in the conference room, there was news. Mouse blurted it out first.

“Elek booked a commercial flight from Athens to Budapest an hour ago. He arrives in Budapest tonight.”

I turned to King, but he looked just as surprised as I felt. What the hell was going on?

28

King

I couldn’t believe Elek actually taken the bait. I could only hope he’d brought the painting with him. Even if he left it back in his hotel room, my plan could still work.

We spent the afternoon planning our entry into the Hungarian Parliament Building. It wasn’t an easy building to sneak into by any means, but I’d had a couple of years to research how possible it would be if I was ever stupid enough to try it.

And now that the rotunda with the crown display case was no longer under guard, it was actually possible. I explained that part of any good heist in a publicly accessible place like this was a last-minute recon trip to make sure there were no obvious last-minute security additions since the last assessment.

It was a lesson I’d learned the hard way while in the Ukraine. The estate hadn’t had dogs until the night I’d attempted to break in. It took me an hour to find an all-night market, and even then, I was half-convinced the dogs would be too well trained to be tempted by raw meat. I’d gotten lucky.

Nadine said she’d already sent an agent ahead to do some recon, but that if I felt the need to do a final walk-through, we would be in town the following day early enough to get tourist entry to the building. Thankfully, they still had the rotunda open for visitors since their cover story for the missing crown was a simple regular maintenance break. According to the official record, the crown was with the preservation specialist getting its annual spa treatment.

I wondered what they would have said if they never found the crown.

Ziv and I worked together to make sure he was comfortable with the security systems he’d need to trick, and Linney went over the equipment we needed. Mouse took charge of replicating how I was to place the crown in the display to both secure it and properly position it for accuracy. Nadine reminded me on several occasions that I could always abort the primary mission to return it to its home in the rotunda and hide it somewhere inside the building along with one of my notes. It would be easy to call in an anonymous tip to alert the curator as to its location.

By the time we broke for the night, I had a raging headache. I dreaded going back home and being a complete downer to my family since I’d already ditched them that morning for a nap. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure they were expecting me home tonight.

So when Falcon leaned over to murmur in my ear, I wanted to cry with relief. “You’re coming home with me, and we’re going straight to bed.”

I simply nodded, texted MJ, and gathered my things, making sure I had the important items I’d left there earlier. If all went well, I’d never be coming back here again.

Falcon’s apartment was on the outskirts of the city, but it was charming. He rented the ground floor of a narrow town house that was white-painted brick with glossy black doors and shutters. When we stepped into the apartment, I felt immediately at home. The comfortable furnishings, rich colors, and varied array of houseplants everywhere were so incongruous to the gruff special agent, the first thing I did was bark out a laugh.

Then a pair of matching black-and-white cats uncurled from the sofa and came meandering over to Falcon’s feet, periodically stretching and arching to make sure he knew he wasn’t that important.

I laughed again and slapped a hand over my mouth. “I’m so sorry,” I muffled through my fingers. “You have cats. That’s… unexpected.” I noticed something else hanging across the back of an overstuffed reading chair. “Is that a cardigan?”