Chapter 9 - The Decryption and the Trap
Rosalind picked up the photograph with trembling fingers.
The ink was faded, but her father’s handwriting was unmistakable.
“You lied to me,” she whispered, staring at Ambrose, who stood by the heavy oak door.
“You said he was just a craftsman your father hired.”
“You told me you barely knew him.”
Ambrose walked slowly toward the workbench, his shadow falling across the yellowed photograph.
“I spent four years in his workshop, Rosalind.”
“When my father realized I had no stomach for senseless slaughter, he sent me to Warren to learn discipline and patience.”
“Your father taught me how to restore bindings, how to work with leather, and how to tell the difference between power and brutality.”
Rosalind’s eyes welled with hot, angry tears.
“Then why was I scrubbing floors at Dover’s Diner while you lived in this palace?”
“Why did you leave Miles to rot in a second-rate home?”
“Because Warren made me swear an oath on his deathbed,” Ambrose said, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper.
“The night before the fire, Warren called me.”
“He told me he discovered that someone inside the Raldi family was selling our operations to the Castigliones.”
“He said if anyone saw me near you or Miles, the traitors would realize he had passed the evidence to you.”
“He begged me to stay away until the ledger was recovered and the acid trap could be neutralized safely.”
Rosalind looked back down at the disassembled book spine.
Beneath the photograph lay three folded sheets of translucent onion skin paper.
Using a magnifying lamp, she began aligning her father’s custom bookbinder’s grid over the handwritten ciphers.
The letters shifted into legible sentences.
It was not a list of mob bookies.
It was a detailed record of an illegal shipping syndicate moving heavy weapons through the Providence port, protected by state officials.
And at the bottom of the second page, one entry made her breath hitch.
The Castiglione family had arranged a hit on Miles Halloway for four o’clock this morning at the secure medical facility north of the city.
Rosalind dropped the magnifying glass, the lens cracking against the desk.
“They know where Miles is.”
Ambrose pulled his phone instantly.
“Otis, status report on the safehouse.”
Only static answered through the receiver.
Then, a harsh voice spoke over the open line.
“Mister Raldi, your driver is currently asleep on the grass with a concussion.”
May you like
“If you want to see the boy draw another breath, bring the Halloway girl and the original ledger to Pier 42 within twenty minutes.”
“Come alone, or we drop the boy into the bay inside a wooden crate.”
