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The Coded Whisper: Hunted across Florence, the reluctant guardian uses his master’s genius to turn two enemies against each other.
Hunted across Florence, the reluctant guardian uses his master’s genius to turn two enemies against each other.
Two years after his desperate escape from a burning Milan, Salai lives as a ghost in the prosperous, secretive city of Florence. Shedding his famous, arrogant charm and his luxurious life, he is now a scarred, quiet laborer in the Oltrarno district. But his camouflage is a he is forced to study Leonardo’s codices, the horrifying designs etching themselves into his memory. He understands the knowledge not as art, but as a system of levers and forces, and the weight of this terrifying intellect isolates him.
Meanwhile, the hunt has grown
The Agent, Gaspare Rossi, now spearheads a state-level hunt for Cesare Borgia, backed by the full, terrifying resources of Rome.
The disgraced Engineer, René de Savoie, his career in tatters, is fueled by obsessive, personal vengeance, using his own wealth to build a private army of thugs.
Salai makes a devastating selling a single "harmless" drawing to buy food. The small piece of vellum, when found and tested by the Borgia, proves the codex’s world-altering power and terrifies even Gaspare.
Trapped between the Agent’s patient, invisible web and the Engineer’s clumsy, visible hammer, Salai realizes running is over. He must evolve from prey to player. Drawing on his new mastery of light, anatomy, and hydraulics—the very lessons in the books—he engineers an intricate, deadly trap. After resisting Gaspare's seductive offer of peace, Salai lures both hunters to the same abandoned palazzo at midnight. As their forces clash in a bloody skirmish, he uses Leonardo's own designs to unleash the Arno, flooding the tunnels and escaping into the dark river current.
The game is no longer hide-and-seek. It is checkmate.
Two years after his desperate escape from a burning Milan, Salai lives as a ghost in the prosperous, secretive city of Florence. Shedding his famous, arrogant charm and his luxurious life, he is now a scarred, quiet laborer in the Oltrarno district. But his camouflage is a he is forced to study Leonardo’s codices, the horrifying designs etching themselves into his memory. He understands the knowledge not as art, but as a system of levers and forces, and the weight of this terrifying intellect isolates him.
Meanwhile, the hunt has grown
The Agent, Gaspare Rossi, now spearheads a state-level hunt for Cesare Borgia, backed by the full, terrifying resources of Rome.
The disgraced Engineer, René de Savoie, his career in tatters, is fueled by obsessive, personal vengeance, using his own wealth to build a private army of thugs.
Salai makes a devastating selling a single "harmless" drawing to buy food. The small piece of vellum, when found and tested by the Borgia, proves the codex’s world-altering power and terrifies even Gaspare.
Trapped between the Agent’s patient, invisible web and the Engineer’s clumsy, visible hammer, Salai realizes running is over. He must evolve from prey to player. Drawing on his new mastery of light, anatomy, and hydraulics—the very lessons in the books—he engineers an intricate, deadly trap. After resisting Gaspare's seductive offer of peace, Salai lures both hunters to the same abandoned palazzo at midnight. As their forces clash in a bloody skirmish, he uses Leonardo's own designs to unleash the Arno, flooding the tunnels and escaping into the dark river current.
The game is no longer hide-and-seek. It is checkmate.
412 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 4, 2025
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