I wrote down the letters, matching them to their corresponding numbers.

The translation took me ten minutes.

When I finished, my hand was shaking so badly I dropped the pen.

The message contained the exact shift schedules for the guards downstairs.

It contained the keycodes to the private elevator.

And it had a map of the penthouse’s blind spots.

The sender was inside this building.

Someone in Dante’s inner circle was selling us out to Lorenzo Moretti.

I stood up, my chair scraping loudly against the hardwood floor.

I had to find Dante.

I had to tell him right now.

I reached for my phone on the desk.

Before my fingers could touch the screen, the lights in the room flickered.

Then, the entire penthouse plunged into absolute darkness.

The hum of the air conditioner died.

The digital clock on the desk went black.

In the silence, I heard a muffled sound from the hallway outside.

It sounded like a heavy body hitting the floor.

My breath caught in my throat.

I stood frozen in the dark, my eyes straining to see through the shadows.