"Excellent. You’ve done a hell of a job, Lynn."
Ambrose Ward’s voice was warm, a rare note of genuine approval that made Lynn Graves feel a sudden, inexplicable rush of pride. She was sitting in her office, the heavy curtains drawn, her voice a low whisper into the encrypted line.
"Director, there’s one... complication," she said, her fingers tracing the edge of the leather-bound book on her desk. "Julian gave me the ledger, but the bastard wrote the whole thing in a cipher system. To anyone else, it looks like a ledger for a grocery store or a series of nonsensical shipping manifests. It’s 'heavenly script'—completely indecipherable without the key."
Ambrose didn't sound surprised. A man like Julian Graves, a silver-spoon heir who had survived a decade in the Stonebridge Dev Corp, woul
