Chapter 63 A TEXT FROM CASTELLANO

Chapter 63 A TEXT FROM CASTELLANO
NOVA'S POV

Matthias chose a coffee place I had never been to before.

And something made me wonder, just how many restaurants are there in this city?

Small, quiet, tucked between two larger buildings on a street that didn't get much foot traffic in the middle of the day.

He was already inside, sitting at a corner table with his back to the wall and a clear view of the entrance. Two coffees on the table. He looked up the moment I walked in and stood up and pulled my chair out the way he always did.

"Thank you for coming." He waited until I sat before he sat back down, his hands wrapping around his cup. "I know it was short notice."

"You said it was important." I pulled my own cup toward me and looked at him across the small table. "So here I am."

He looked at me for a moment. Something was sitting differently on him today. The ease he always carried, that practiced warmth that filled every room he walked into, was still there but it was sitting slightly off. Like a jacket worn on the wrong shoulder.

"I want to be honest with you about something." He held my gaze, his thumbs moving slowly around his cup. "And I need you to hear me out before you respond."

I kept my expression open and my hands relaxed around my cup. "Okay."

He leaned forward slightly, dropping his voice even though the nearest table was empty. "I know about your mother's documentation, Nova. I know she spent years compiling evidence against Vincent Castellano and I know she hid it before she died." He held my gaze without flinching. "And I know you found it."

The coffee shop was quiet around us. Someone behind the counter grinding beans. A door closing somewhere at the back of the building.

I looked at him across the table and kept every single thing I was feeling completely off my face.

"I don't know what you are talking about." I picked up my cup and took a slow sip.

"Nova." He said my name quietly, his eyes not moving from mine. "I am not here to threaten you. I need you to understand that. I am here because I am trying to protect you."

"From what?" I set my cup down carefully.

He pressed his lips together for a moment. "From making a mistake with what you found. From taking something to people who will use it in ways your mother never intended." He leaned further forward. "Castellano is more dangerous than you understand. If you move on him without the right protection around you, without someone who actually knows how he operates—"

"Someone like you?" I kept my voice completely even.

Something shifted in his expression. Just briefly. Just enough.

"I have resources you don't have access to," he said carefully. "Connections that could make sure whatever your mother built is used correctly. That it actually lands where it needs to land instead of getting buried by people Castellano already owns."

I looked at him sitting across the small table with his coffee cup between his hands and his eyes steady on mine and the carefully constructed concern sitting on his face like something he had practiced in a mirror.

Konstantin Voss.

The man who had trained my mother. Who had sat across from her the same way he was sitting across from me right now and taught her everything she later used to document his own crimes.

"That is very generous." I held his gaze. "Why do you care so much about what happens to my mother's documentation?"

"Because I care about what happens to you." He reached across the table and covered my hand with his. "I have been watching you navigate all of this alone and I don't want to see you get hurt."

I looked down at his hand on mine.

Then I looked back up at his face and I smiled at him, slow and warm, and I watched something in his expression loosen slightly with relief.

"Give me a few days to think about it," I said softly. "This is a lot to take in."

He searched my face. "You're not upset that I know?"

"I'm surprised." I turned my hand over under his briefly before pulling back to reach for my cup. "But I appreciate that you came to me directly instead of—" I stopped like I was choosing my words. "Instead of doing something else with it."

He nodded slowly, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. "I just want to help you."

"I know." I smiled at him over my cup. "Give me a few days."

We finished our coffee and he walked me out and kissed my cheek at the door and told me to call him anytime, day or night. I watched him walk toward his car and stood on the pavement until he turned the corner.

Then I pulled out my phone and typed Elias. He knows we have the box. He just told me directly. He is trying to get me to bring the documentation to him.

Elias's response came in seconds. Where are you?

Outside the coffee place. I'm fine.

Stay there. I'm coming.

I put my phone in my bag and stood on the quiet street with the weak afternoon sun on my face and my heart beating steadily in my chest.

He had shown me his hand.

Which meant he was more desperate than we had thought.

Which meant we had less time than we had planned for.

My phone buzzed again. Not Elias this time.

A number I didn't recognize. No name. One message.

Miss Sinclair. My name is Vincent Castellano. I think it is time we met. You are very much your mother's daughter and I have been waiting a long time to tell you that in person.