King Me (Forever Wilde 7)

Ziv had hacked into the building’s security system and had the camera feeds up on the monitor for the rotunda as well as the expected path King would take to get there.

Suddenly, Ziv snorted out a laugh.

I stiffened, my anxiety spiking. “What is it?”

“He just pulled something out of his pocket and dropped it on the ground. Look.”

I leaned back to peer over his shoulder. King was stomping on something with the heel of his shoe.

“What is that?” I asked, squinting at the image.

“My guess is Agent Martin slipped a tracker or something on him when they got into the van.”

“Smart man,” I muttered, but if that was the case, part of me wondered why King would want to remove a tracker when we all knew where he was going anyway. Was it just the principle of the thing? Not wanting to be treated like a criminal?

“Okay, he’s in,” Linney confirmed as Ziv, Mouse, and I watched him disappear into the building through a nondescript maintenance door.

I turned back around to follow along on the monitors on our side, listening to Linney’s periodic instruction for King to hold or go. My nerves began to calm as King expertly navigated the long staircases, his movements quick and lithe. This was what he was good at, I reminded myself. This was his element. I just needed to relax and let him do his thing.

Easier said than done given what was on the line for him. For all of us.

Everything progressed smoothly until just before he reached the rotunda. Instead of entering the large domed room, he ducked into a side door.

I straightened, leaning toward the monitor. “What’s he doing?” I asked, as if any of them would be able to answer me.

“Maybe he heard something,” Linney suggested. Her eyes bounced from screen to screen, a furrow appearing on her forehead. “But I don’t see anyone nearby.”

“Shit,” Ziv said, pointing. “Intruder west-wing-terrace-level window.”

“What?” I asked, swiveling back around. My heart thumped thickly in my chest as I watched a shadowed figure slipping through an open window and dropping silently to the floor inside before disappearing out of sight of the cameras.

Elek. It had to be.

Fuck. This was going off the rails just like we knew it would.

Why had we gone through with this mission? Why in the world did we think it would be successful?

“Six hundred ninety-one rooms and twenty-eight staircases,” Ziv mumbled under his breath. “And… I found you, you bastard.”

“Do we tell King?” Linney asked, looking toward me. “He’s back in the main hallway now, entering the rotunda.”

“Wait,” I said. “Ziv, how far from the rotunda is the intruder?”

Ziv clicked through the floor plan, zooming out until even I could see clearly Elek was only four rooms away. Shit, that was way too close for comfort.

“Yeah, Lin,” I said. “Better tell him to hurry up.”

Her voice was smooth and clear. “Pick up the pace, kitten.”

“Don’t call me that,” King replied immediately. “Don’t ever call me that.”

Linney turned and blinked at me in surprise. “He knows what Le Chaton means, right? The man speaks French.”

“He knows. Just focus on the op.”

“Elek, or whoever this fucker is, is getting closer,” Ziv warned. “He’s one room away. Ascending the final staircase.”

I leaned in to the microphone and pressed the button. “You’ve got company coming from the staircase directly across from you.”

Linney gave me a pissy look and took the microphone back from me. “Stay in your lane, boss.”

Fuck.

King’s next message was mostly static.

“Repeat that?” Linney said.

“Call the Hungarian police. Now.” There was an edge to King’s words that I recognized as nerves or fear, the same sound he had after the gala when he’d been upset about the bruise on Demitri’s jaw.

I hated hearing the stress in his voice when I couldn’t be in there to watch his back. He was vulnerable on this op to begin with, and now he was asking us to sound the alarms?

“Ask him what the fuck,” I hissed.

“Hey, Texas,” Linney said, “You smoking crack?”

“They should have been here by now. Call them.”

Ziv and Linney both looked to me for the order.

No fucking way. The words were on the top of my tongue. No way was I calling the cops, not on King. I didn’t give a damn that it would ruin the mission. What mattered was that it would ruin King. If the police arrived and he got caught… I couldn’t even let myself finish that thought.

I refused to let anything happen to King. Not when he was under my care. And I was just about to tell him that when he said, “Boss, please trust me. I’m asking you to trust me.”

The words hit like a punch to the gut, sucking the air from my lungs.

Trust.

He wasn’t asking me as an agent trusting a thief; he was asking me as Dirk to trust King.