King Me (Forever Wilde 7)

I lifted an eyebrow at him. “Can I quote you on that, Le Chaton?”

King surprised me with a laugh, a robust deep sound that made me smile. Seeing him let go like that made me realize how tense he’d been despite his flirty nature. I wondered if it had been his fear of finally being caught or simply the way he was when he was preparing for a heist.

We moved back to our seats and joined the rest of the team again. Mouse asked King a question about what kind of security he thought would be on the display case the crown lived in, and King began describing pressure plates, sensitive electronic connections, and even some advanced kind of lockable brackets we had never heard of before. Hearing him describe how to get around the most advanced art security in the world was fascinating. As much as it bothered me to know that he could overcome some of the best security museums had to offer, it sure was a relief to have someone like him on our team. I thought about how many other cases and other thieves we would be able to catch if someone like King was with us permanently.

I also remembered the notes he’d left at all of the museums and high-profile residences explaining how he’d breached their security systems. Could I convince him to explain that to us at some point?

Mouse looked up at King expectantly. “How do you get past those brackets? Are they just something you can unscrew once you turn them off?”

King smirked at him. “Hell no. You have to deactivate them on the computer first,” he said, glancing over at Ziv. “The source code is on a constant rotation which makes hacking it a bit like trying to shoot a moving target.”

Ziv nodded. “I’ve seen that before. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

King seemed to stifle a sigh. “Well, I can help if you need it. I’ve done it before. But we can cross that bridge when we come to it. I’ll need—”

“I said I could handle it,” Ziv said through clenched teeth. “You stick with your part of this job and let me handle mine.”

“And what exactly is my part?” King asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. The sneaky criminal shit?”

I moved my hand in a slashing motion. “Cut it out. First we get the plan in place, then we can worry about who is doing what. Our biggest challenge is going to be getting both sets of fingerprints for the biometric scanner on the door to the room.”

King looked over at me in surprise. “Two sets? Elek and who else?”

“We were hoping you would know that.”

King’s fingers went straight back into his hair. “Fuck.”

6

King

The first place my mind went was to the last time I heard Elek’s voice, and he’d mentioned a wife. But I’d researched the hell out of him and not found any evidence of a spouse.

I sat back and thought it through, ignoring Falcon’s attempts to get my attention.

Why exactly was I doing this? The task force assumed I was doing it because of a desire for immunity, but they were wrong. I didn’t need immunity. They had nothing on me and wouldn’t have anything on me moving forward. I’d been too careful. Hadn’t I?

So, why say yes?

Okay, fine. Immunity. I honestly didn’t know for sure whether Agent Falcon had something on me. It had definitely been hot in the air duct, so I couldn’t rule out the fact I may have dripped sweat on something. I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t be sure. And if one of the employees had nicked some of the collection… well, spending any amount of time in a German prison didn’t sound like something worth risking.

Especially if working with them could get me both immunity and the crown.

Ever since hearing that the crown had been taken, my fingers had itched to get it out of Elek’s hands. And the only way I could do that on short notice was to have additional resources. The kind of resources Falcon and his team could provide.

Was I still that hell-bent on revenge?

Hell yes.

The man had betrayed me. He’d left me at the mercy of law enforcement. You didn’t do that to your partner, and you sure as hell didn’t do it to your lover. That was the part of this I could never forgive.

Plus, he’d shorted me out of my share of a two-hundred-million-dollar payday. That was a pretty big fucking deal. But it wasn’t like I didn’t have plenty of money now. I’d had several years to amass my own wealth so I didn’t ever decide to rely on a sugar daddy again.

Third of all, I couldn’t stand the idea he had something he wanted so badly.

“Could it be a boyfriend’s,” Ziv asked when I didn’t make a suggestion.