The Cipher Beneath

Marlo

The doorknob turned slowly from the inside.

I held my breath as the black envelope and Siobhan's twisted map fell from my fingertips, both landing on the ugly carpet with a soft thud. I took a step back as I heard the sound of the deadbolt unlocking from the inside. I had locked the door. A massive hand shot out of the darkness, grabbing the front of my hoodie and yanking me inside the room.

I opened my mouth to scream but a rough, hand clamped against my lips. The door slammed behind me and the deadbolt slid back into place. I kicked and fought in the darkness but a solid, muscular chest pinned me against the wooden door.

"Stop fighting me, little bird," a deep, raspy voice warned against my ear.

Jarrah.

My body went completely limp as the smell of him invaded my senses. Cold rain, sharp pine, and the heavy metallic scent of a gun. I should have pushed him off, I should have knee him square in the stomach and run screaming into the hallway but the moment his scent engulfed me a wave of shameful relief flooded through me.

He slowly pulled his hand away from my mouth but he didn't step back, instead he kept his body pressed flush against mine. In the dark I could feel his heart steadily beating against my chest.

"I told you to act normal." Jarrah hissed inches from my mouth. "Why were you standing out there for three minutes looking at a piece of paper?"

"Siobhan." I choked out, my voice cracking. "She left a map under my door. She knows I'm here. She has men waiting in the blind spots on campus."

Jarrah's body instantly became rigid. The possessive heat rolling off him turned ice cold the moment he understood what I was saying. He finally took a step back, pulling out his phone as he did so. The light from his phone illuminated his sharp jaw and dangerous cheekbones.

"Cal." Jarrah barked into the phone. "The aunt found her. Lock down the perimeter of the dorm. If anyone steps into the south alley put a bullet in their knee and drag them to the vans. We are leaving in ten."

He hung up on the call and looked at me. "Pack a bag. Only what you need. We're going to my safe house."

He turned his back to me and walked to the small window. He pulled the blinds back just enough so that he could see the street below.

My hands were shaking as I walked over to my bed and unzipped my backpack. I pulled out the pieces of jeans, socks, and toothbrush I always kept in case of an emergency. As I reached into the front pocket of my bag my fingers brushed against something thick and papery.

The letters.

Two days ago, before this whole nightmare started I had sneaked into Siobhan's home office to look for my birth certificate. Instead I had found a stack of strange letters stuffed inside a false bottom of her desk drawer. I had panicked, stuffed them into my pocket and completely forgot about them until now.

I pulled them out. The room was dark but the small desk lamp the two of us had placed on the nightstand when we first arrived cast just enough yellow glow that I could see.

I looked over my shoulder. Jarrah was still in the window watching the street like a guard dog.

I sat on the edge of the bed and spread the papers out on my mattress. There were five letters in total. To anyone else they looked like boring, everyday documents. A receipt for a charity donation. A bill for a kitchen remodel. A dry cleaning invoice.

But I wasn't just a scared college girl. I was a top tier forensic psychology student. I spent my days studying the habits of criminals, the mistakes they made when they thought they were smarter than everyone else.

My panic instantly faded as a new, cold focus took over. My brain switched gears.

I picked up the first letter. It was an invoice for a landscaping company but the text was wrong. The spacing between the words was completely off. Between the word 'hedge' and 'trim' there was a total of four spaces. On the next line between the words 'soil' and 'delivery' there was a total of two.

It wasn't a typo. It was a cipher.

My forensic skills instantly took the wheel. Criminals who deal with dirty money don't ever write down the real names or crimes. They hide their ledger in plain sight, using innocuous business templates and hiding the data in the margins.

I grabbed a pen from my nightstand and started writing on the back of the envelope Siobhan had left me. The numbers of the letters she sent were all on the bottom in the form of long strings of "reference numbers" in tiny font.

I grouped the numbers together.

The first six digits of every reference number were a date format. The next eight digits were bank routing numbers for offshore accounts. The final digits, hidden in the cents column of the fake bills were the dollar amounts.

I decoded the top letter.

Date: 08-14-16. Account: 4492-8810. Amount: $50,000.

My breath caught in my throat as I stared at the paper. August 14th, ten years ago. The exact night my parents were killed in the alley behind the theater. Siobhan hadn't paid some random thugs. She had used the wire transfer for their murder.

I felt sick as my hands moved faster, decoding the next letter.

Date: 02-10-24. Amount: $20,000. The day my brakes mysteriously failed on the highway.

I grabbed the final letter, it was dated today.

Date: 09-20-26. Amount: $250,000.

A quarter of a million dollars. The final contract. The hit for tonight.

Tears burned in my eyes as Siobhan had priced my life at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

But something else caught my eye on the very first letter, the one that paid for my parents' murder. Unlike the others this one had a very small, messy signature at the bottom corner to confirm the deposit. The ink was faded but the letters were clear.

I squinted, leaning closer to the desk lamp.

The initials were written clearly.

J.V.

My blood ran cold as I realized who it was. The pen slipped out of my fingers and rolled across the floor.

I stared at the letters. J.V.

I slowly lifted my head and looked across the dark room. Jarrah was still by the window, his broad, muscular shoulders blocking out the moonlight. The man who had stalked me for a decade. The man who was currently burning down the city to protect me.

Jarrah Vance. J.V.

He wasn't just a stalker. Ten years ago he was the assassin Siobhan hired to kill my parents and he was the one she paid to kill me.

He didn't save me back then. He kept me.

Jarrah turned around. His dark eyes locking onto mine in the darkness.

"Time's up." He said softly as he walked toward me. "Let's go."