Page 72 of Fallen Saint

When she closes the door behind her, I slowly peer down at the note, which is the alphabet divided up into four grids, similar to the sudoku boxes. I stare at them, completely puzzled. Beside them is the alphabet, but beneath each letter are symbols I have never seen before. Some have dots in them.

Underneath that is just a row of numbers, reaching twenty-five. Beneath that are sums. And a lot of them. I decide to start with them because they are your basic equations.

0+3=3

7+1=8

And so on.

I know Saint loves math, but this is ridiculous. There is a pattern, but why couldn’t it be as easy as ABC…

However, when I take a closer look, I see that it is.

Unable to keep up, I quickly finish the answers and then match them with the letters in the alphabet because each answer correlates to a letter.

0 is A

1 is B

2 is C

When I match the answers, they read:

A????, I’m sorry for the secrecy. I couldn’t risk anyone intercepting. I had to do it this way in case they found my journal. The above code is pigpen cipher. It will help you decode the journal. The sudoku box works in a similar way.

Stay safe.

Saint.

I read the note endless times because never have I been so happy to see a bunch of numbers in my life. You expect to see something like this in a James Bond film. I wonder which actor would pull off this ploy best, seeing as there have been many actors who have…

Oh, my god.

Scampering off the bed, I drop to my knees and reach under the mattress to retrieve the journal. I flick open the pages crazily, and when I reach the sentence I’m looking for, I holler in excitement.

Shaken, not stirred.Seven deadly sins +2

I know the seven deadly sins like the back of my hand as they were drummed into my head at Sunday School. They are: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. Could plus two mean the second sin, which is greed?

It makes sense.

Could Saint be telling me that my James Bond likes to gamble? Or is just plain greedy? But there are a million other famous James Bond phrases he could have used. What’s the importance of using this particular one?

From memory, Sean Connery was the actor who first said this famous catchphrase. So what’s the importance of that? That mystery will have to wait, however, because I have about a hundred or so pages of secrecy I still have to crack.

Settling against the pillows, I reach for a notepad and pen, determined to put James Bond to shame.

I’ve spent the entire day combing over the journal, and I haven’t even made a dent yet. But I won’t allow that to deter me because what I have uncovered has me desperate to unearth it all.

From what I can tell, there is no fixed number of members in The Circle. The “club” is exclusive and only known to trusted friends. However, there are four main members, and Alek is one of them. I have figured out three of the four.

Astra, otherwise known as The Ice Queen, was born in Ukraine, though I wouldn’t have guessed it as I didn’t hear an accent. But just like Alek, these people are chameleons and fly under the radar to remain undetected for what they really are.

Saint was a little light handed with the information on Oscar, which leaves me wondering why. I can’t shake the feeling that something between them is personal. He made it clear he is interested in Saint, and I think if he were to pick, Saint would be his number one.

There are notes on where they meet, who they deal with, and how they keep their little club a secret. All members have something to lose if their dealings became public because the shit they’ve done is truly horrific.

Human trafficking. Sex slaves. Embezzlement. The list reads like something out of a true crime novel.

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