The small café on Ninth Avenue was the kind of place where people went to be left alone. No music, no free Wi-Fi, just bitter coffee and walls stained with time. Ethan sat in the farthest booth, one eye on the front door, the other scanning the street through the window's greasy reflection.
He wasn't paranoid. He just didn't like surprises.
And today had already delivered one too many.
He stirred his coffee, untouched, cold. His fingers itched—not for caffeine, but for answers. The man who'd called himself Cassian said to meet here. Alone. No weapons. No tricks.
Ethan didn't follow instructions blindly. He arrived early, scoped out exits, memorized the placement of every person in the room. A couple whispering over tea. An old man reading a paper. A bored barista cleaning an already spotless counter.
Then the door opened.
The man who stepped inside wore a tailored black coat and a face that looked carved from purpose. No hesitation. No wandering eyes. He walked straight toward Ethan like the world owed him answers too.
Cassian.
Ethan leaned back, arms crossed. "If this is a job offer, I'm gonna need hazard pay."
Cassian slid into the booth without invitation. "You're cautious. Good."
"I'm not cautious," Ethan said flatly. "I just don't trust people who show up out of nowhere claiming to know my name."
Cassian's gaze didn't flinch. "You should trust that I'm not here to waste time."
"That makes one of us."
He pulled a photo from his coat and slid it across the table. Ethan didn't touch it.
"I know who I am," Ethan said.
"You know who you were told to be."
Ethan's jaw tightened. The man was too calm. Too rehearsed.
The photo showed a much younger Ethan—barely five—standing beside a man whose face had been burned into news archives and conspiracy blogs: Marcus Alden.
His father. Allegedly.
"I don't do hallucinations in daylight," Ethan muttered.
Cassian spoke, low and measured. "Your father was a very real man, Ethan. And he spent the last decade erasing your existence to keep you alive."
Ethan finally picked up the photo. It wasn't just the image—it was the background. A crest on the wall. One he'd seen once in a tech patent his friend had shown him. A forgotten company with roots that ran deep and mysteriously cold.
"And now what?" he said. "You want me to believe he left me a secret kingdom and a list of enemies who want me dead?"
Cassian nodded once. "Close. He left you a war. And you're already in it."
Ethan laughed. Sharp. Bitter. "You have the wrong guy. I'm not a piece in someone's legacy game."
"You are the piece," Cassian said. "And the game doesn't stop just because you sit out."
A flicker of tension passed between them.
Cassian placed a slim, encrypted flash drive on the table. "Proof. The beginning of it, anyway. Bank accounts. Corporation records. Surveillance clips. Files that were never meant to see daylight."
Ethan didn't touch it. "You could've Photoshopped all of this in a basement with Wi-Fi and too much time."
Cassian's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "You think I'm recruiting you? That this is some act of charity?"
"I think you're hiding something," Ethan said. "And I think you're enjoying playing the part of the mysterious handler."
Cassian leaned forward. "If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't have made it to this booth."
Silence. Ethan hated that he couldn't argue with that logic.
"So what's your pitch?" he asked finally. "What's in it for me besides bullets and cryptic warnings?"
Cassian's voice dropped. "Truth. Answers. Power, if you want it. Revenge, if you need it."
Ethan's eyes narrowed. "I don't do revenge. I do survival."
Cassian slid a burner phone across the table. "Keep this. When you're ready to stop reacting and start choosing, call the number preloaded in it."
Ethan stared at the phone. It stared back, silent and weightless. Like a trigger waiting to be pulled.
"Let me guess," he said. "Limited time offer?"
Cassian rose from the booth. "This isn't a negotiation, Ethan. It's a warning."
He left without waiting for a response, the bell above the door jingling like the end of a conversation that had only just begun.
Ethan sat there, the flash drive and phone between his hands, like two halves of a future he hadn't asked for.
For a long moment, he didn't move.
Then he stood up, left a tip he didn't owe, and walked out into the cold.