Chapter 49: MATTHIAS IS VOSS

ELIAS POV

Nova's dinner with Matthias was still sitting wrong with me three hours after she had told me about it.

I was in Richard's study, which was technically off limits to everyone except Richard himself, but Richard was in hospital and the lock on his study door had never been a match for a bent paperclip and four minutes of patience.

I learned that when I was twelve.

The study smelled like old books and pipe tobacco and the particular kind of silence that came from a room that had been keeping secrets for a long time. Floor to ceiling shelves on every wall. A mahogany desk that weighed more than a small car. Filing cabinets along the far wall with small brass locks that were even less impressive than the door.

I started with the filing cabinets.

Most of what I found in the first two drawers was standard business paperwork. Contracts, correspondence, board meeting minutes going back fifteen years. I flipped through them quickly, not stopping until something caught my eye.

A folder sitting near the back of the third drawer, thicker than the ones around it, with no label on the tab.

I pulled it out and opened it on the desk.

Letters. Printed on heavy paper, with a letterhead I didn't recognize at the top. The signature at the bottom of the first one made me go completely still.

Vincent Castellano.

I pulled the desk lamp closer and started reading.

The letters went back fifteen years, maybe further. Most of them were about money, about investment structures and returns and quarterly projections. The kind of correspondence two business partners exchanged when they wanted a paper trail that looked clean from a distance.

But the further back I went the more the language changed.

A letter from twelve years ago referenced a situation that needed to be handled quietly. Another from eleven years ago mentioned an arrangement that would benefit both parties if the other party remained unaware of the full terms.

The other party. Not named anywhere in the letters. Just referred to as the other party every single time.

I pulled out my phone and started photographing everything, moving through the letters slowly, making sure every page was clear.

It was the letter from eight years ago that stopped me completely.

It was shorter than the others. Just two paragraphs. The first one discussed a property transfer. The second one read:

Regarding the matter we discussed by telephone on the fourteenth, I trust you understand the importance of allowing things to run their natural course. Interference at this stage would be costly for both of us. The shares will revert as planned. Consider the matter closed.

The date on the letter was two weeks before Isabella Sinclair died.

I stood there in Richard's study with my phone in my hand and the letter on the desk in front of me and the lamp throwing yellow light across the page.

Consider the matter closed.

Isabella was the other party. She had always been the other party.

And Richard had a letter sitting in his filing cabinet that connected him directly to Castellano two weeks before her death, a letter where Castellano told him not to interfere, and Richard had kept it. Had locked it in a cabinet in his private study and kept it for eight years.

I kept photographing.

Near the back of the folder, tucked behind the letters, was a single sheet of paper that looked different from everything else. Handwritten, not printed. Richard's handwriting, which I knew the way I knew his voice.

A list of names and numbers that didn't make sense to me at first. Company names I didn't recognize, account numbers, transaction amounts running into eight figures.

And at the top of the page, underlined twice in blue ink, a name that wasn't Castellano.

Konstantin Voss.

I stared at it.

I had never heard that name before in my life but something about the way Richard had written it, the way he had underlined it twice and then circled it like he was trying to make sure he would remember it, told me it mattered.

I photographed that page three times from different angles to make sure it was clear.

Then I put everything back exactly the way I had found it, closed the filing cabinet, and stood in the middle of the study for a long moment.

Castellano I knew. Castellano was the name that had been sitting in the background of this whole thing since Nova had come back. The name attached to Marcus, to the threats, to her mother's letter.

But Castellano wasn't the top of it apparently.

Konstantin Voss was above him. Written at the top of Richard's private list, underlined twice, circled.

I locked the study behind me and walked down the corridor toward the stairs, my phone heavy in my pocket with everything I had just photographed.

Nova was at dinner with Matthias right now. Smiling at him across a table somewhere in the city while I stood here with photographs of letters that connected her mother's death to a name I had never heard before tonight.

I needed to tell Callum.

I pulled my phone back out and opened his contact and typed: Come to my room when you get home. Don't knock, just come in.

His response came back in under a minute: Already on my way back. Twenty minutes.

I went upstairs and sat on the edge of my bed and scrolled through the photographs again, stopping on the last one. Richard's handwriting. The name underlined twice.

Konstantin Voss.

I opened a new browser tab and typed the name in.

The first result that came up was a business profile. A corporate page, clean and minimal, the kind that gave you just enough information to look legitimate without telling you anything real.

I clicked on it and read the company name at the top of the page.

Then I read it again because the first time didn't make sense.

Kane Tower Enterprises.

The founding director listed at the bottom of the page, in small letters under the company history section, was not Matthias Hale.

It was Konstantin Voss.

My door opened and Callum walked in, still in his work clothes, and took one look at my face.

"What did you find?" He closed the door behind him.

I held my phone out to him without answering, the screen showing the corporate page, the company name, the founding director listed at the bottom.

He took the phone and read it and I watched his expression go through three different things in the space of about four seconds before it went completely flat and still.

"Elias." His voice came out very quiet. "Matthias Hale and Konstantin Voss are the same person."

"Nova is with him right now." I stood up from the bed. "She is sitting across a table from him right now and she has no idea.”