Rae looked at the card, then back at Sam. “I’ll think about it.”

“You do that.” He handed her back the soggy napkin. “Because if you don’t call, Rae Ellen Mendoza, you’re going to ruin a really good meet-cute story.”

She smiled. “Since when do FBI agents know about meet-cutes?”

Wilkins winked as he turned to leave. “I think you’ll find that I’m not the average FBI agent.” He raised his hand in good-bye. “See you later, Rylann.”

And just as quickly as he appeared, he was gone.

“Well. That was fun.” Rylann picked up her latte and stood up from the table. Clearly, her business here was done.

Rae was silent as the two of them walked out of the Starbucks together. When they stepped outside, she finally caved. “All right. Tell me.”

“Yale Law School, joined the FBI last year. He works in the violent crimes division and specializes in homicide cases.”

Rae digested all that. “He’s a little young. But that smile is deadly.” She shot Rylann a coy look. “That was actually pretty smooth.”

The true tactical details of Operation Setup would go with Rylann to her grave. “Of course it was. You’re not the only one who’s a matchmaking evil genius.”

“I meant Agent Wilkins was pretty smooth.”

“So he passed the five-minute test?”

“We’ll see.” But Rae’s Cheshire Cat-like grin said it all as she walked away, heading in the direction of her office.

Rylann stood on the sidewalk, watching her friend go.

And all was right with the world.

“Rylann—hey.”

She looked over and saw Cade Morgan approaching.

He gestured behind him. “I just ran into Sam Wilkins, covered in cappuccino. He said something about a meet-cute? No clue what that means.” He stopped next to her in front of the Starbucks. “So what did I miss?”

Rylann smiled. Poor Cade. So close and yet so far.

Maybe next time.

TO ENTERTAIN CLIENTS, Rhodes Network Consulting LLC—aka Kyle—had purchased a premium theater box at the United Center. The box included four private seats with perfect views just twenty-eight rows above the floor, in-seat wait service, and a reserved table at the stadium’s exclusive lounge and bar.

Of course, since Rhodes Network Consulting LLC currently had no clients, the box hadn’t seen a lot of action as of late. Thus, after Jordan had essentially decreed that he and Nick have a guy’s night out to “bond,” Kyle had offered up the seats and told Nick to feel free to bring along a friend. He’d also asked Dex to join them—the more the merrier, he’d figured.

Perhaps not always the best words to live by.

Kyle warily eyed the two FBI agents—yes, now there were two; apparently they multiplied like wet gremlins—as they pushed open the red privacy curtain and entered the theater box.

“How nice,” he said to Nick. “You brought the guy who nearly snapped my ankle off putting on a monitoring device.”

Nick turned to the tall guy with dark hair and dark eyes next to him. “I totally forgot about that.”

The other agent—Special Agent Jack Pallas, if memory served—looked just as surprised. “You only said you had an extra ticket,” he said to Nick. “You didn’t say who else would be here.”

Nick looked between Jack and Kyle. “This is a little awkward.”

The waitress stepped into the box, having seen the two agents arrive. “Can I get anyone something to drink?”

Four hands shot up. “A beer.”

After the waitress left, Nick and Jack took the two seats in the back row, directly behind Kyle and Dex.

“In my defense,” Jack said to Kyle, “you were flirting with my girlfriend at the time. And you called me Wolverine.”

Kyle smiled to himself, having forgotten that part of the story. On the night he’d been released from prison, the U.S. attorney, Cameron Lynde, along with Agent Pallas, had met with him to explain that she’d arranged for him to serve out the remainder of his sentence on supervised release—all part of Jordan’s deal with the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office, although Kyle hadn’t known that at the time.

Seeing as how the U.S. attorney had been the first woman other than Jordan Kyle had seen in four months, and not having realized that she and Pallas were involved, he may have thrown one or two perfectly harmless, mildly flirtatious comments in her direction.

“Maybe you boys could call it even?” Nick suggested, looking between Kyle and Jack.

With a shrug, Jack turned to Kyle. “Not like I have much choice in the matter.” He nodded in Nick’s direction. “McCall here was just promoted to special agent in charge. I don’t want to get shipped off to Peoria on some two-year grunt-work assignment because I screwed things up with the boss’s future brother-in-law.”

Kyle shot Nick a horrified look. “Brother-in-law?”

From the seat next to him, Dex slapped Kyle on the shoulder. “See? And you were worried we wouldn’t have things to talk about.”

FORTUNATELY, ALL NEED for nuanced conversation fell by the wayside once the game started. As part of his promise to Jordan to make an “effort,” Kyle had specifically chosen a Bulls-Knicks game, since Nick was from New York and apparently a huge fan.

And so the lines were drawn. Team rivalry prevailed, replacing the former divide between ex-con and FBI agent, and the trash talk began to fly. They were men, after all—rare was the issue that could not be at least temporarily set aside within the confines of a sports arena.