The penthouse felt empty and cold without him, even with the guards outside.

Mrs. Patel was in the guest room, watching television with the sound turned down low.

Lily was sleeping in the portable crib near the desk.

I looked at her, her chest rising and falling softly under her pink blanket.

I had to keep her safe, no matter what.

I returned to the screen, my eyes burning from the bright light.

I opened a folder labeled ‘Internal Communications’.

It was a secure, encrypted messaging system Dante used to talk to his lieutenants.

The messages were mostly short, filled with coordinates and times.

But as I scrolled down, I noticed something strange.

A series of messages from an anonymous sender had been routed through an internal server.

The server belonged to one of Dante’s personal security tablets.

I leaned closer to the monitor.

The text was written in a simple substitution cipher.

It was the kind of basic code we used to study in my cognitive psychology class on problem-solving.

My heart began to beat faster.

I took a notepad and a pen from the drawer.