Alessio’s childish behavior was grating on my last nerve. I’d spent the entire morning trying to corner him, only for him to disappear the moment I entered a room. At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he started using secret tunnels to avoid me.
“Coward,” I muttered under my breath, pacing my room. “Big, bad mafia boss running from a conversation. Unbelievable.”
Since confronting him was apparently out of the question, I decided to focus on something else: the coded message I’d found.
I pulled it out from its hiding spot—a folded piece of paper tucked inside the pages of a book. The symbols and numbers stared back at me, taunting me with their complexity.
“Alright,” I said to myself, sitting at my desk. “Let’s crack this.”
Step 1: Analyze the Symbols
The message was a ser
