"Do you know who I am?" The strikingly handsome elderly man with white hair and beard, still exuding charisma despite nearing seventy, stared intensely into Castle's eyes with astonishment.
"Damn it, Brian, your boss is actually my dad? Oh right, Brian came from the CIA, and so did my dad!"
Castle, utterly frustrated and wishing he could strangle Brian, who was likely still bedridden, was taken aback by this huge "surprise" before he was even ready to reconcile with his father.
"Come in first," Castle sighed, resigned to his fate. After all, the man at the door was his father; without him, there would be no him. He couldn't just leave him outside, could he? Stepping aside, he allowed his father to enter.
The distinguished older man glanced around playfully and took a seat on the sofa as if he owned the place.
"My real name is Sean. Has Martha ever mentioned me to you?"
Sean, potentially more formidable than Castle and Brian combined, used his first words in the room to gauge how much his son knew about him, who had been hidden behind the scenes for nearly three decades.
"No, mom never mentioned you. It was after I became an adult that I pieced together clues to find you. By the way, my hacking skills are top-notch. The secret databases at the CIA and FBI are like my backyard."
Castle mixed truth with embellishments as he spoke to his father, whom he had never met since birth.
"Oh? Is that so? It's been almost forty years, and I never expected you to have such a complicated identity. I wouldn't have believed it myself had I not thoroughly investigated you before coming here. I was shocked to discover you could even mobilize a squad directly under 'The High Table.'"
Sean, seeing through his son's lies with a glance, nudged Castle to remind him that lying to your dad isn't easy, especially when you're nearly forty.
"Uh, well, it was an accident. I was just trying to hire some mercenaries through The Continental Hotel, but a friend who gave me the Rage Lion coins also provided an instruction manual. I followed the instructions and called The Continental, and they ended up arranging such a formidable mercenary squad for me."
Castle told the truth, which seemed to settle Sean's suspicions for the moment.
"The Rage Lion coins, were they from Gianna of the D'Antonio family?"
Sean's question startled Castle again.
"How did you know?
Gianna's boyfriend, Alexis, oh, your granddaughter's godfather, so she gave me some."
Castle was taken aback by his father's intelligence capabilities.
"Did you know that every Rage Lion coin has a serial number? You gave six of them as a tip to that mercenary squad called Black Fox, didn't you?"
Sean effortlessly explained the father-knows-best dynamic.
"You knew that too?" Castle was astounded.
"Nonsense, I designed the darn things!"
Sean casually dropped a bombshell that he was the designer of the Rage Lion coins!
"What? You designed them? You're involved with The High Table?"
Castle's jaw dropped.
"I don't have much to do with The High Table, just friends with some people above it!" Sean nonchalantly added another stunning fact, dazzling his son.
"In fact, when Brian called earlier to ask me to contact Richard Castle, the father of his daughter's classmate, I had a hunch it might be you. So I decided to check who you had hired through The Continental's intelligence network before coming here. The Continental then told me directly that you were using their team. Can you imagine my surprise?"
Sean observed his restless son and sighed.
"But, as a seasoned behind-the-scenes operator, I have to ask: how did you recognize me immediately? Don't tell me it was through the CIA database. My digital records don't exist in the CIA's central data, and even if they have my records, as far as I know, they are all locked in a secure, manned basement vault."
"Basement? Paper records?"
A sudden realization struck Castle, prompted by Sean's words.
"Are you a R.E.D agent?"
Castle blurted out in shock.
Sean was genuinely surprised this time; his son knew about the CIA's most secretive R.E.D program?
"How did you know about R.E.D? That's impossible!"
Sean discovered that his son, whom he had never met, seemed to have more secrets than he did.
Castle regretted his loose tongue, realizing he'd dug himself deeper just when he'd managed to divert his father's suspicions.
"My friend, a superior hacker, accessed some very covert channels and learned about R.E.D. He told me that the CIA refers to retired, uncontrollable, extremely dangerous agents as R.E.Ds. A major identifier for these agents is that they don't have any digital records in the CIA's database; their files are all paper and stored in a
secure vault in the CIA's basement."
Castle bullshitted earnestly, hoping to deflect his father's attention by throwing his hacker friend under the bus.
Sean, cunning beyond measure, wasn't easily fooled by such tactics, but this was his son, after all. How could he interrogate him?
"Alright, if you don't want to talk about it, let's leave it. We all have our secrets, don't we? What's your plan for dealing with Valentino? I hope you're not planning on using The Continental's resources again. You know that the D'Antonio family is one of The High Table's twelve leaders. They technically can't get involved in this kind of affair."
"Heh, I know, so I didn't plan to involve The Continental anymore. Did you see I settled the Black Fox squad's account? I plan to go myself!"
Castle grinned, shocking his father with his audacity.
"What? You're going yourself? With what, your belly?"
Sean eyed Castle's protruding stomach, suspecting his son had drunk too much at dinner.
"Don't underestimate me. Didn't Black Fox tell you that it was mostly me doing the work this morning on Heaven Street?"
Castle was puzzled why his father would ask such a question.
Sean found himself increasingly unable to fathom his son: "Aren't you just a writer? Since when did you become so skilled?"
That's when the fall-guy number two, John Wick, came up.
"My friend, John Wick—Gianna's boyfriend—ever heard of him? He trained me personally."
"The Boogeyman? He's your friend?"
Sean realized his son truly was his own flesh and blood; the apple didn't fall far from the tree when it came to stirring up trouble.
"Yes, he's my friend, the godfather to your granddaughter Alexis, and Gianna's dream man. By the way, I played matchmaker for them!"
Castle boasted, making his father Sean consider whether it was too late to disown him.
"Damn, kids raised by single mothers really do turn out to be troublemakers..."
Sean sighed deeply, regretting that he hadn't been there to raise Castle himself.
___________________
Read Ahead
P@treon.com/Mutter