Page 44 of Skotos
I shifted my eyes toward Carlo and back to Will.
He nodded, understanding flaring in his eyes. This was not a conversation for prying ears, even ones owned by men who wore the same jersey.
The car wound past the Tiber, slipping through narrow alleys and grand piazzas. My fingersdrummed against my knee. I wanted to be in Bern, chasing flight logs and customs reports, not hurtling through a city where holy men pretended not to play politics. But orders were orders, and if answers were here, we’d find them—even if we had to shake them loose from behind a silk curtain.
“Still think this is just a coincidence?” Will asked.
I looked out the window at a group of nuns crossing the street, the hems of their habits catching the breeze.
“No,” I said quietly. “I think we’re standing on the edge of something massive, and I don’t think we’re the only players moving about the board.”
Carlo pulled to a smooth stop outside the Hotel Eden, where a bellhop opened the door before we could even reach for the handle.
“You will find the rooms comfortable,” Carlo said with a wink. “But do not eat the chocolate on the nightstand. It is a trap.”
We chuckled and thanked him before making our way into the polished lobby. Check-in was swift—almosttooswift—even for a reservation made by our illustrious Baroness. Our keys were already waiting.
“Room 214,” the desk clerk said, sliding over a heavy brass key with a forced smile. “Enjoy your stay.”
The elevator groaned its way upward like an old man protesting the verticality of stairs. We steppedout onto a richly carpeted hallway. Cigarette smoke plumed, as though an entire nightclub had walked before us, puffing until their lungs could hold no more. Room 214 was at the end, just past a carved armoire that looked older than Greek democracy.
I turned the key and stepped inside—then froze.
A silhouette was crouched beside the window, hand deep in a lampshade. The door wailed open, and the figure’s head snapped up like a coiled spring.
There was a flash of metal.
Something hurtled toward me.
Thud!
“Down!” Will barked, but I was already moving, diving sideways just as a dagger stuck into the wall, its handle wobbling wildly but failing to wriggle free. Shards of paint skittered across the floor.
Before I could recover, the figure sprinted toward the open window and launched out with terrifying grace. A split-second later, we heard the thump of boots hitting the canopy below.
Will dashed past me and threw open the window. “Shit!” he hissed. “He’s running across the rooftops!”
I scrambled to his side.
The tiles below stretched like a painted ocean of red slate. The figure—fast, and cloaked—was already darting across the top of a chapel, leaping from eaves like a spider on caffeine.
“Son of a—” Will clenched the windowsill. “We’ve been made.”
“Not just made,” I said, staring at the wreckage by the wall. “They were planting something.”
A closer look confirmed it—a small listening device, singed from impact but intact enough to recognize.
“It doesn’t look military grade, but it’s pretty sophisticated, something a state actor would use,” I said.
“Or Soviets if they didn’t want to give themselves away,” Will added.
“Right.” My heart found its way further up my throat.
“They bugged the damn room,” Will said. “I bet there’s more, too.”
I nodded, then grabbed a spiral notepad from my pocket and scribbled. “We need to go down and get another room, but don’t say that. They’re probably already listening through ten other bugs.”
Will’s eyes widened as his head nodded.
