Page 8 of Roar Me Like You Mean It
But for now, I let her have her performance. I let her believe this is a game she can win.
And when the time is right, I’ll show her what it looks like when the lion wakes.
4
JENNIFER
Ishould feel satisfied. The room is packed with people who fold the moment I speak, the dress clings to every curve with precise, almost architectural control, and the weight of eyes trailing me as I move is something I’ve grown used to, even learned to manipulate. This entire night should feel like victory, but instead I’m pacing the edges of it like a woman who walked into the wrong storm.
Malek Thorne is not what I expected.
I’d prepared for arrogance. Men like him don’t reach the kind of status that turns a last name into a warning label without learning how to weaponize their own ego. I came ready for slick charm and clean lies, the kind of interaction that ends with polite exhaustion and no real ground gained. But I wasn’t ready for the way he listens with his entire body, or how easily he makes silence feel like pressure.
He doesn’t need to say much. That’s what makes him dangerous.
The entire encounter back at the bar plays in my mind like a reel stuck on loop: his voice steady, his gaze unreadable, the way he stepped in close enough that I could feel heat radiating fromhim without ever touching me. I matched him beat for beat, kept my stance, held my line. But I still walked away knowing I’d been moved. Nudged off balance. And I detest the way that feels.
The music behind me softens to something rich and string-heavy, all lilting violins and candlelight illusion. I move through the crowd with practiced ease, smiling when needed, offering a nod here, a brief word there, nothing more than expected. My feet carry me toward the arched exit doors at the other side of the ballroom before I even register the choice.
I step onto the stone balcony, the shift in air immediate and welcome. The city sprawls below, lit in patches of orange and gold, a living mosaic of glass towers and moving cars and stories I’ll never know. Wind cuts across my skin and wakes up nerves dulled by wine and tension. I rest my palms on the cold railing, fingers curling against the carved stone edge, and try to pull my thoughts back into a line.
He shouldn’t have gotten under my skin. He shouldn't have left me standing here feeling like a woman who wasn’t entirely in control of the room anymore.
I reach into the satin clutch tucked under my arm and pull out my phone. The screen glows too bright in the dark. One new message from Marcy, confirming that the background report on Thorne’s private security lead—Michaelis—is nearly finished. I make a note to follow up before morning. The rest of the screen is cluttered with notifications I’ve already ignored. Four missed calls from my father, one vague voicemail from Senator Kersey, and a handful of calendar alerts I won’t bother with tonight.
The door opens behind me, footsteps crisp and measured. I don’t need to turn around. There’s only one man at this event who still wears his authority like it’s a weapon and not a performance.
Gordon Trask steps beside me, his expression unreadable beneath thin-rimmed glasses and half-shadowed eyes. He lookslike he’s already halfway back at headquarters, ready to brief someone on the shape of my posture and the temperature of my breath.
“I hear you made quite the impression inside,” he says, sipping from the short glass in his hand. Something dark and expensive. Of course.
“I wasn’t trying to,” I answer without looking at him.
“Exactly why you did.”
I turn. He’s still in full suit, though his tie’s loosened and the top button undone, a casual shift that means he’s thinking hard about something he doesn’t want to say outright.
“Let me guess,” I murmur. “You’re here to tell me I’ve crossed a line.”
“No,” he says. “You haven’t crossed it yet. But you’re right up against the edge, and I want you to understand what’s on the other side before you leap.”
I lean back against the railing, letting the chill of the stone seep into my shoulder blades. “I’m not afraid of Malek Thorne.”
“I know that,” he says, calm and quiet. “That’s what worries me.”
I don’t reply. I’ve learned over the years that silence is a better strategy than arguing with people who think they know more than they do. But Gordon isn’t one of those men. He’s methodical, calculating, and just paranoid enough to have survived this long. That earns him the benefit of a pause.
He sips again, gaze turned to the skyline. “You know what I see when I look at Thorne?” he asks. “I see someone who never stops watching. Someone who doesn’t blink unless it’s deliberate. Men like that, they don’t just build empires. They bury the ones who try to climb them.”
“He’s not untouchable.”
“He’s not normal.”
I frown. “Define that.”
He finishes the drink, sets the glass down gently on the railing, then folds his hands in front of him like he’s about to recite something he’s rehearsed.
“There are stories,” he says. “Old ones. Off-book intel buried so deep you can’t access it without a name that died with the Cold War. Stories that paint him older than the dates on his paperwork. Stronger than the men who’ve tried to break him. I’ve seen things tied to his company—movements, disappearances, alterations to classified files—that don’t make sense. Not if he’s just a man.”
