Dominic did not flinch.
“What is the primary target?” he asked.
Amelia looked down at the strip.
“You are.”
No one spoke.
The distant murmur of the main restaurant pressed faintly through the padded walls.
Somewhere beyond the private room, silverware touched porcelain.
A waiter laughed at something a guest had said.
Inside the Sapphire Room, nobody breathed normally.
Dominic picked up Constantine’s pistol, removed the magazine, and set both pieces apart.
“How?” he asked Amelia.
“The strip says the newly crowned heir is to be brought to the Valarious location under the pretense of inspecting the recovered cargo.
Once he enters, the doors are to be sealed.”
Arthur stared at the markings.
“I can see the word for doors now.”
Amelia nodded.
“The writer disguises it as ‘accounts,’ but the verb means to bar or fasten.”
Dominic’s face revealed nothing.
“And then?”
Amelia hesitated.
Constantine saw it and smiled through his fear.
“Go on.
Tell him the fairy tale.”
She read the final coded phrase.
“It says control of the eastern routes will pass to the surviving partner before dawn.”
Dominic looked at Constantine.
The arms dealer’s smile disappeared.
“That does not say kill,” Constantine argued.
“It says transfer authority.”
“It says surviving partner,” Amelia replied.
“Not senior partner.
Not remaining signatory.
Surviving.”
Arthur removed his glasses and wiped them with shaking fingers.
“The distinction is clear.”
Constantine twisted against Gabriel’s grip.
“You are trusting servants over me?”
Dominic leaned one hand on the table.
“I trusted you enough to let you enter my city, sit in my room, and place a book in front of me.
You used all three privileges to prepare a trap.”
“You have no proof that I wrote it.”
“No,” Amelia said.
“He does not.”
Constantine glanced at her, surprised by the agreement.
Dominic did the same.
Amelia turned the journal to the light.
“But the writer left proof of who ordered it.”
She opened to the inside back cover.
The leather was cracked near the binding, where the hidden strip had been tucked.
Beneath it was a shallow impression, almost invisible unless the cover was angled toward the chandelier.
Her father had taught her that paper remembered pressure.
A message written on one sheet often scarred the surface beneath it.
Amelia moved a candle closer, careful to keep the flame away from the leather.
Indented strokes emerged in the angled light.
Arthur leaned in.
“A signature?”
