Chapter 6 - THE CIPHER
“Mom!” I yelled, rushing to the open corridor door. The hallway was empty, save for the distant echoes of gunfire from the courtyard.
“She slipped out while you were opening the clock,” Sophia gasped, clutching her chest. “She said she had to buy us time. She said Carmine would listen to her.”
My mother had offered herself as a hostage to stop the assault. She had walked right into the jaws of the Romano family to protect the estate, to protect me.
The megaphone crackled again from the front driveway.
“Five minutes, Alessandro!” Carmine’s voice barked. “The girl and the book for your mother! Don’t make me send her back to you in pieces!”
I slammed my fist against the mahogany desk, splintering the wood. I had a fortified study, a terrified housekeeper, a three-year-old child, and a book of numbers. I was supposed to be the Don of the most powerful family in New York, and I was entirely outplayed.
“We have to give them the book,” Sophia said, her voice shaking but gaining a sudden, desperate strength. She stood up, walking toward the desk. “Alessandro, give them the book and give them Isabella. Save your mother.”
“If I give them the ledger, David died for nothing,” I said bitterly. “And they’ll kill us anyway. Carmine leaves no loose ends.”
Sophia looked down at the open ledger on the desk. She stared at the letter her husband had written. Her eyes scanned the meticulous handwriting, tracing the curves of the letters.
Suddenly, she frowned. She reached out and touched the page.
“He didn't write this to be read straight,” she murmured.
“What?” I asked, stepping closer.
“David loved puzzles,” Sophia said, her eyes darting back and forth across the page. “When we dated, he used to write me love letters using a skip-code. Every fifth word of the paragraph formed the real message. Look at the spacing here. It’s too rigid. He forced the sentences to fit a pattern.”
I looked at the letter.
“If you are reading this, I am dead. Lorenzo Moretti is stealing from his father, but he is not the mastermind. He is being blackmailed. The true architect of this takeover is someone the Moretti family trusts blindly. Someone who orchestrated the alliance with the Romanos.”
“Count them,” Sophia instructed, her finger trembling. “Every fifth word.”
I started counting silently.
One, two, three, four… “this”
One, two, three, four… “Lorenzo”
One, two, three, four… “father”
One, two, three, four… “is”
One, two, three, four… “the”
One, two, three, four… “architect”
One, two, three, four… “someone”
One, two, three, four… “trusts”
It wasn't making sense. "This Lorenzo father is the architect someone trusts?" I read aloud, frustrated. "It's gibberish, Sophia."
"No, look at the bottom margin!" she urged. "There's a tiny number '3' circled."
I looked closer. She was right. Faded ink. A circle with a 3.
"Every third word," I realized.
We started again.
“If you *are** reading this, I am dead. Lorenzo Moretti is stealing from his father, but he is not the mastermind. He is being blackmailed. The true architect of this takeover is someone the Moretti family trusts blindly. Someone who orchestrated the alliance with the Romanos.”*
Are I Lorenzo stealing father is mastermind being true this someone family someone the the. Still wrong.
"Damn it!" I swept a hand through my hair.
Emma walked over to the desk. She dragged her favorite blanket behind her. She looked up at the ledger.
"It's backwards," the three-year-old said simply.
I stared at her. "What?"
"Mommy reads me bedtime stories backwards sometimes. To be funny."
Sophia gasped. "The last paragraph! Read the third word from the end, going backward!"
I flipped to the very last page of the ledger, a page of seemingly random notes. I found the final sentence and counted backward. Every third word.
“Carlo... Uncle... is... traitor... Isabella... pulled... trigger.”
The breath vanished from my lungs.
Uncle Carlo is the traitor. Isabella pulled the trigger.
Isabella hadn't just ordered David's death. She had been in the car. She had pulled the trigger that ran him off the road.
And the mastermind... Uncle Carlo. My father’s oldest friend. The man who had mentored me. The man who was supposed to officiate the wedding today.
“Where is Carlo?” I asked, my voice deadly quiet.
May you like
Before I could answer my own question, the radio on Marco's abandoned tactical vest, lying near the door, crackled to life.
“Alessandro,” a warm, gravelly voice spoke through the static. It was Uncle Carlo. “Carmine is getting impatient, son. Bring the ledger out to the courtyard. Let’s negotiate like men. I have your mother.”
