I turned the page, holding the next one up to the light.

“It is not just a watermark,” I said.

“The lines of the serpent align with the handwritten numbers.”

“If you read only the figures that touch the scales of the snake, it forms a different sequence.”

My fingers traced the faint, greasy residue on the edges of the sheets.

“And the ink,” I added, sniffing the page.

“It smells of bitter almonds.”

“Cyanide,” Aries said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.

“The ledger itself was treated.”

“Anyone who turned these pages with a damp finger would ingest it slowly.”

I felt a chill run down my spine.

“Killian knew this,” I said.

“He wanted me to decode it so the poison would get on my hands.”

“Or yours.”

Aries looked at the book, his jaw tight.

“The Morettis did not just want me dead,” he said.

“They wanted the docks.”

I turned to the back of the ledger, where the pages were thicker.

There was a map of the harbor slips, printed in a faint blue ink.

Several of the berths were circled in red.