When Neil received the somewhat anxious call, Castle couldn't help but chuckle. "Neil, haven't we already planned everything? The current situation is exactly what we expected, so what are you worried about? Rest assured, until you show up and successfully disarm the explosives on the submarine and open the hatch, Alex's safety will be absolutely guaranteed!"
Neil was aware of all this, but he was still shaken by Castle's "prophetic" accuracy. Before Alex was kidnapped by Vincent today, Neil had some doubts. Castle had predicted from the very beginning that Vincent would kidnap him to disarm the explosives on the submarine as soon as it was retrieved, and that Vincent would definitely target Alex. Now, with everything unfolding just as Castle had predicted, Neil found himself baffled by Castle's sometimes sharp, sometimes muddled persona.
However, Neil had complete faith in Castle's words at this point. Still busy in the FBI's New York office, he expressed his relief, "Good thing I didn't have the chance to tell Alex that the contents of the submarine had already been taken during our one and only opportunity. Alex has no idea that the submarine Vincent kidnapped her for is actually empty. This means we can still use her genuine reaction to mislead Vincent for a while longer. But Rick, you must ensure Alex's safety!"
Castle had no words for Neil, whether you called him a "romantic" or a "beast." This guy had broken out of prison just to find Kate when she disappeared after being threatened into breaking up with him. But as soon as Kate moved temporarily to the West Coast to escape Vincent's threats, Neil immediately rekindled things with his old flame, Alex. He was the very definition of a scumbag!
Damn, it's frustrating! Is it really true that good-looking people like Neil can get away with anything?
Holding the phone, Castle glanced down at his own pudgy belly and thought, "Luckily, I've already won over long-legged Beckett. Otherwise, I'd have lost my mind from trying to compete with Neil's antics!"
After informing Castle that Vincent had indeed kidnapped Alex and getting his assurance that Alex's life would be safe, Neil tactfully hung up the phone. After all, he was still in the FBI's New York office, where surveillance was everywhere. He was waiting for Mozzie to arrive the next day to act as his legal advisor and help him sign the pardon agreement with the FBI and the Department of Justice. Only then would he officially begin working with the FBI to capture Vincent Adler, the con artist the FBI had been chasing for ten years without success. Of course, everyone knew why the FBI and the DOJ agreed to Neil's deal to exchange Vincent for his freedom. But Neil felt no shame; he wanted his freedom, and the FBI wanted the treasure-laden submarine Vincent had retrieved from the New York coast, which was filled with treasures looted by the Nazis during World War II. However, in this game of deception, neither Vincent Adler nor the greedy FBI or Uncle Sam would have the last laugh.
After hanging up Neil's call, Castle temporarily set aside his plans to take a shower and rest. He sat on the couch, carefully recalling the original series he had watched in his previous life. In it, Alex didn't seem to be in any real danger. After Neil and Peter were forced by Vincent to disarm the explosives and open the submarine's hatch, the three of them were brought to a sluice gate where Vincent planned to drown them. This meant that until Neil opened the submarine for Vincent, Alex was safe!
Moreover, this time, Vincent wouldn't have a chance to drown them after opening the submarine. As soon as he kidnaps Neil, a swarm of FBI agents will be on his tail, so Castle really didn't need to worry too much about Alex's safety.
The real headache for Castle was Mozzie's proposal regarding the distribution of the treasure. If this wasn't handled properly, it could create rifts between them. But figuring out how to divide such a large amount of wealth was driving Castle crazy!
Damn, when I read novels in my past life, the protagonists would always invest and start businesses after suddenly acquiring a fortune. Why is it so complicated for me? In both my past and present lives, I have no experience handling large sums of money. Sure, I've been living comfortably off my royalties, but that's in the millions, not billions. Even after Mozzie helped me sell Adam's Tutankhamun scepter for over a hundred million dollars, it's just sitting in my Cayman Islands account untouched. After all, I'm just a writer, not some investment guru. And let's not forget the millions of dollars in cash I still have stashed away in my personal space.
And now, thanks to this treasure trove worth tens of billions of dollars in art and gold, what am I supposed to do?
Honestly, Castle had never imagined that one day he'd be troubled by having too much money. It's almost laughable!
But for Castle, this was indeed a real problem. He didn't have the composure of other novel protagonists who could face a sudden windfall without panic, easily investing in businesses or stocks. It's understandable—he was an ordinary person in his past life, never exposed to such scenarios. Even though he's a successful novelist in this life, he's still out of his depth when it comes to managing large sums of money. And now, with this huge amount of money, how is he supposed to figure out the distribution among the seven of them?
The more Castle thought about it, the more his head hurt. He sat alone in his study for a long time, unable to come up with a satisfactory solution until his daughter Alexis came home and was shocked to find him sitting in the dark. Concerned, she came over to check on him, bringing Castle back to reality.
It was rare for his red-haired daughter to see her usually carefree and cheerful father looking so troubled. She couldn't help but be curious, wondering what could have caused her perpetually upbeat, almost comically cheerful father to sit alone in the dark, brooding. Could it be that something had happened between him and Beckett, whom he had just started dating? But according to what she knew about her father, that didn't seem likely.
Seeing his daughter's look of concern mixed with curiosity, Castle sighed deeply. He was about to tell Alexis that nothing was wrong, but then a thought struck him—maybe asking his clever and sensible daughter for advice wasn't such a bad idea?
Revitalized by this new thought, Castle perked up and, ignoring the outrageousness of what he was about to say, pulled Alexis to sit down in front of him and seriously explained his current predicament.
"Dad, you're saying that you're currently facing a really confusing situation because you found a submarine filled with precious art stolen by the Nazis during World War II and almost fifty tons of gold? And now you don't know how to fairly distribute it among the seven of you... Dad, are you running a fever? Is this from your latest novel?"
Castle, who had always treated Alexis more as a friend than just a daughter, gave an awkward smile. He knew Alexis wouldn't believe him, but he didn't want to lie to her. After all, his daughter was not only smart but knew him very well. If he lied, she'd see through it immediately. It would only lead to more lies, so it was better to come clean from the start!
Alexis was finally convinced that her father was telling the truth after he swore up and down that it wasn't a joke. She realized that her usually carefree, sometimes troublemaking father had indeed gotten himself into something huge this time. No matter how he did it, he had actually gotten his hands on a huge treasure!
This fact left Alexis, who had only intended to find out what her dad had been up to recently, utterly astonished. Her seemingly unreliable father had pulled off something this incredible? He had managed to quietly steal away the entire contents of a submarine filled with treasure that a con artist the FBI had been chasing for ten years had painstakingly found? Was he trying to outdo himself???
Right now, Alexis didn't even have time to consider whether what her father did was right or wrong. The number of people sighing and unsure of what to do just doubled from one to two, as father and daughter sat in silence, the study growing eerily quiet.
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