Chapter 69 TELLING CALLUM

Chapter 69 TELLING CALLUM
NOVA'S POV

Callum walked into the kitchen already fully dressed, his jacket on, his keys in his hand like he had been planning to leave before he even came downstairs.

He stopped when he saw both of us.

His eyes moved from Elias leaning against the counter to me sitting at the table with my hand flat over something.

He kept his keys on the counter.

"What happened?" He pulled out the chair beside me and sat down.

"Reeves called this morning." I lifted my hand off the card and slid it across the table toward him. "He said Saturday is confirmed."

Callum picked the card up and read it even though he had already seen it last night.

I watched him read the card and kept it back flat on the table.

"Walk me through what Reeves said." He folded his hands on the table in front of him and looked at me.

"I will go exactly the way Castellano planned it." I kept my eyes on his face.

"Nothing changes on the surface. I arrive at the time on the card, I go into the private dining room, I sit across from him and I let him run the meeting." I watched Callum's hands tighten slightly against each other on the table. "The wire gets fitted on Saturday afternoon. I'll have an earpiece the whole time. Reeves will be on the other end of it."

Callum was quiet for a moment.

"Exit strategy." He kept his voice completely level.

"I have an exit word. Reeves confirms it Saturday when the wire goes on."

"And if something happens before you can use it." He looked at me with those gray eyes that were giving absolutely nothing away.

"Reeves has agents positioned inside the club before I arrive." I held his gaze. "The moment anything moves wrong, they move."

Callum nodded once and looked at the card on the table between us.

He looked at it for long enough that Elias shifted against the counter behind him and I pressed my foot flat against the kitchen floor just to have something solid under me.

"What did Reeves say about Castellano specifically?" Callum still had not looked up from the card.

"That he won't threaten me in that room." I watched the side of Callum's face. "He said Castellano will be reasonable and patient and he'll make his offer feel like the only logical thing." I paused for a moment. "He said that's harder to push back against than a direct threat."

Callum picked the card up again and turned it over in his hand, looking at the blank side, and I got the feeling he was not actually looking at it anymore.

"Callum." I turned slightly in my chair toward him.

He put the card back down.

"I need to make a call." He pushed his chair back and stood up, picking his keys back up from the counter without looking at Elias. "Don't leave the estate before I'm back."

"Callum." I turned all the way around in my chair to look at him.

He stopped at the kitchen door with his back to me.

"I'm going on Saturday." I kept my voice steady and put everything I needed him to hear into it. "That's not something I'm still deciding. It's already decided. I need you to be with me on this."

Callum stood at the door with his hand on the frame and did not turn around for a long moment.

"I heard you." He pushed the door open and walked out.

The door swung shut behind him.

I turned back around in my chair and stared at the table.

Elias came away from the counter and sat down in the chair Callum had just been sitting in, right beside me, and he did not say anything about what just happened.

He just reached across and picked up the card, turned it over in his fingers before putting it back down.

"Give him twenty minutes." He leaned back in his chair.

"Is he going to call Reeves?" I looked at the kitchen door.

"Probably." Elias crossed his arms over his chest. "He's going to ask every question he didn't ask in front of you because he didn't want you hearing the answers."

Outside I heard Callum's footsteps cross the entrance hall and then the front door opening and then nothing.

"Elias." I kept my eyes on the kitchen door.

"Yeah." He was already looking at me.

"What if the answers Reeves gives him are bad." I turned and looked at him properly. "What if the exit strategy isn't as solid as Reeves made it sound and Callum comes back in here and tells me that."

Elias looked at me for a long moment with his elbow on the table and his chin resting in his hand.

"Then we figure out a better one." He held my gaze without flinching. "But Nova, you and I both know that's not what's actually scaring you right now."

I looked at him.

He looked back at me.

"What's actually scaring you," he said, "is that Callum's going to come back in here and tell you the exit strategy is completely fine and you're going to have no reason left not to walk into that room on Saturday."

I looked at the Castellano card sitting on the table between us.

I did not say anything because there was nothing to say to that.

Because he was completely right.