Constantine slowly lowered his hands to his sides.
Dominic looked at the journal, then at the man who had carried it into the room with absolute confidence.
“You were never worried about my analysts taking weeks.”
Constantine remained silent.
“You were counting on me signing before anyone could expose the second layer.”
Still nothing.
Dominic leaned forward.
“And if I discovered it afterward, your own ledger instructed your people to deny the meaning and recover the evidence.”
Constantine’s mouth tightened.
“You are building an accusation from ambiguous language.”
Dominic nodded toward Arthur.
“Is it ambiguous?”
Arthur had spent the last several minutes independently reconstructing Amelia’s method.
Sweat still shone on his forehead, but his earlier panic had been replaced by concentration.
He looked at Dominic.
“The individual words allow interpretation.
The structure does not.”
Constantine glared at him.
Arthur continued.
“She is translating it correctly.”
The sentence landed with finality.
Dominic turned to Amelia.
“How did you know this?”
The question was quieter than the others.
Amelia looked down at the journal.
“My father studied cryptography.
We moved often when I was young.
He taught me languages because he thought memory should be trained like a muscle.”
“And this code?”
“He worked on a letter using a similar system for almost a year.”
Dominic studied her black uniform, white apron and tightly pinned hair as though seeing her for the first time.
“You remembered it from childhood?”
“Yes.”
“How many languages do you speak?”
“Eight fluently.”
Arthur blinked.
Amelia added, almost apologetically, “I can read more.”
Gabriel looked away to hide another smile.
Constantine did not find anything amusing.
He pointed at Amelia.
“This proves nothing about my intentions.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
Not anger.
Decision.
“You came into my city, changed our agreement, concealed the real conditions in a cipher and threatened the person who could read it.”
“I threatened nobody.”
“You just warned her she was in danger.”
“I warned her because she was interfering.”
Dominic nodded slowly.
“Thank you.”
Constantine frowned.
“For what?”
“For removing the ambiguity.”
Constantine realized too late what he had admitted.
The journal mattered.
Amelia’s translation mattered.
