Chapter 1 - The First Rule of Cipher
Dominic Russo didn't blink, didn't shout, and didn't hesitate. Before Constantine could draw his weapon, Dominic’s right hand moved in a fluid, practiced arc, striking the heavy crystal decanter on the mahogany table. It shattered against Constantine’s collarbone, spraying hundred-year-old whiskey and razor-sharp glass into the arms dealer’s eyes.
Constantine screamed, stumbling backward, his gun clattering across the marble floor.
"Out!" Dominic growled, grabbing my wrist with a grip like cold iron. His calloused fingers dug into my skin, dragging me backward as two of his bodyguards lunged forward, drawing silver-plated Berettas.
Muzzle flashes erupted in the tight confines of the Sapphire Room. The deafening crack-crack-crack of gunfire shattered the remaining crystal, sending cascades of broken glass onto the blood-stained carpet. I didn't cry out; my father’s lessons had trained me for terror. Panic is noise; clarity is quiet, his voice echoed in my head from a long-forgotten room in Prague.
Dominic threw open a concealed mahogany service door behind the velvet drapery, shoving me ahead of him into the dim, narrow corridor reserved for high-end catering staff. His chief enforcer, a hulking man named Marco with a jagged scar across his jaw, slammed the heavy metal door behind us and bolted it, leaning his full weight against the frame as bullet impacts dented the metal from the other side.
"Give me the book, Amelia," Dominic demanded, his voice low, steady, and terrifyingly calm despite the violent chaos mere inches away. He held out his hand. He was breathing through his nose, his dark suit completely unruffled except for a streak of Constantine's blood across his left cuff.
I pulled the leather-bound journal tight against my chest, my knuckles turning white. "No."
Marco turned, his eyes wide with shock at my insolence, raising his firearm toward my chest. "Boss, let me take it from her."
"Lower the gun, Marco," Dominic commanded without looking at him. His black eyes, dark as midnight on the Atlantic, remained fixed on mine. "You realize where you are, little girl? You are standing in the underbelly of Manhattan with the secrets of twenty dangerous men in your arms. You aren't a waitress anymore. You're a target."
"I know what this book contains," I said, my voice trembling slightly before finding its footing. "I know it holds the names of the men who liquidated your shipping routes in Boston. I know it lists the off-shore accounts in Zurich where your second-in-command has been transferring your money. And I know..." My breath caught, tears pricking the corners of my eyes as the ghost of my past wrapped around my throat. "...it contains the name of the man who staged my father's car accident in Geneva six years ago."
Dominic took a half-step closer. He was tall, broad-shouldered, radiating an aura of absolute control that filled the claustrophobic hallway. He smelled of cedarwood, rich tobacco, and fresh gunpowder. "Your father was Julian Reed," he stated, not as a question, but as a realization. "The master cryptographer who vanished after the fall of the European syndicates."
"He didn't vanish," I whispered fiercely. "He was murdered because he built the cipher Constantine is using against you. If you want this book translated, you need me alive. And if you want me alive, we make a deal right now."
Dominic chuckled, a low, dangerous sound that sent a cold shiver down my spine. "A waitress negotiating with the Russo family. Ten million dollars was a joke I threw at a weak translator, Amelia."
"I don't care about the money," I lied, thinking of the stacked medical bills and notices sitting on my broken kitchen table in Queens, though the truth was far bigger now. "I want the man who killed my father. You give him to me, and I give you your empire back."
The metal door behind Marco shook under a heavy explosion. Dust rained down from the concrete ceiling. Constantine’s men were using breaching charges.
May you like
"Deal," Dominic snapped, grabbing my arm again and pulling me down the winding stairs toward the subterranean garage where a matte-black armored SUV was idling. "But from this second on, Amelia, you belong to the house of Russo. You don't speak to anyone, you don't look at anyone, and you stay within arm's reach of me. Do you understand?"
I looked down at the ancient leather journal, feeling the raised ridges of the Soviet-Corsican symbols pressed beneath my fingertips. "I understand."
