“They have been spilling each other’s blood for ten years.”

“They won’t work together for a girl from the flower market.”

“They will for this girl,” I said.

I grabbed a heavy iron paperweight from the shelf next to me.

“Because I am the only one who can read the code.”

“Without me, those books are just useless scrap paper.”

“And they both know it.”

Marcus paused.

I could hear him digesting the information.

He hadn’t realized that the ledgers were encrypted.

Only I had the key to Roman’s personal cipher.

“Is that true?” Marcus asked, his voice losing some of its confidence.

“Search the files if you don’t believe me,” I said.

“The pages are covered in numbers.”

“Only I can translate them.”

“Then we will just have to take you alive and make you talk,” Marcus said.

He reached into the gap, his fingers clawing at my coat.

I swung the iron paperweight down onto his wrist.

He barked in pain, pulling his hand back.

I shoved the heavy wooden cabinet with all my strength.

It tilted forward, crashing into the cabinet opposite it, trapping Marcus’s arm between them.