Page 21 of Roar Me Like You Mean It
I shut the laptop, shove it into my bag, and pace the room. The street outside is quieter than it should be, the sounds of Prague muted as though someone drew a veil over the city. I grab my jacket, ready to move, because every instinct tells me staying in one place is suicide.
The knock comes before I can reach the door.
Soft, deliberate.
I freeze, hand hovering over the Glock. Another knock, heavier this time.
“Room service,” a voice calls in Czech.
I didn’t order anything.
My hand tightens on the gun. “Not interested,” I shout.
Silence. Then the door explodes inward, the chain snapping like thread.
Three men rush in, dressed in black, faces covered, movements precise. The first grabs my arm, the second my throat, the third kicks the Glock across the floor before I canraise it. I fight, elbow sharp, knee driving into ribs, teeth bared in fury, but they’re trained and fast, their grips unyielding.
“Easy,” one hisses in accented English, his breath hot against my ear. “We only need you alive.”
I spit at him, twisting hard, but the second clamps a cloth over my mouth, the chemical sting filling my lungs before I can hold back.
The room spins, the floor tilting beneath me.
The last thing I hear before darkness swallows me is the sound of the door shutting, calm and final.
13
MALEK
The news reaches me like a blade pressed to the throat. Lysa’s voice on the encrypted line is calm, but the words she speaks are not.
“They’ve taken her.”
I sit in the dim glow of the office, curtains drawn tight against the lights of Geneva, the whiskey glass in my hand still full though the ice has melted to water. For a moment I do not move, do not speak, because the lion inside me surges at once, claws pressing against the cage of my ribs.
“Who,” I ask, my voice low, steady.
“A rogue Syndicate cell. Prague. She made contact with Novak. He gave her something, and they moved before she could run.”
I know Novak. A coward and a traitor, always with one foot in the shadows. He was bound to sell his truth eventually, and Jennifer, stubborn and fearless, was bound to be the one to collect.
“Where,” I say.
“Malá Strana,” she answers. “They pulled her out of a hotel room. Witnesses saw an unmarked van. Three men. They’re already off-grid.”
The glass cracks in my hand when I set it down too hard, shards cutting into my palm. The blood beads bright and hot, and I let it. Pain is easier than the roar pressing at my throat.
I have no duty here. She is not mine to save. She is a prosecutor, a hunter, a woman whose life is dedicated to unraveling everything I’ve built. If the Syndicate takes her apart, it spares me the trouble of doing it myself.
And yet my body has already chosen. The coat is on my shoulders, the knives are strapped across my back, and the old weight of steel slides into my hand like it never left.
“Prepare the car,” I say.
“Michaelis already has it ready,” Lysa replies. She knows me too well to pretend otherwise.
Prague by night is a city built for ghosts.
The bridges cut black spines across the Vltava, lamps glowing dim in the mist, cobblestones slick with rain. The gothic towers rise sharply against the sky, spires that pierce the low-hanging clouds, and every narrow street feels like a throat that could close without warning.
