Page 127 of Anchor
He blinked. “You don’t think he’s ready.”
Claire walked to the edge of the long table and pressed her palms against the glass. “He doesn’t know what my mother did, and that she’s not my mother. I don’t even know if he remembers what Vos did to him. His memory's still fractured. He just got back pieces of our beginning. If I drop this on him now, if I say Vos and my mother are together in Prague…” She broke off.
Lincoln let the silence hold.
Claire inhaled through her nose. “I need Patrick’s instinct. Seth’s caution. Tuck’s gut. We don’t do this blind.”
Lincoln nodded. “Understood.”
She stood there, frozen for another moment. “Also,” she added without turning around, “as soon as Ian's free, I need to speak with him. No gatekeeping.”
“Sure.”
Claire barely heard him leave. She stared at the mountains a moment longer, willing her heart to stay inside her chest. And waited for the only men who might understand how to carry the truthbefore it shattered the man they all loved.
STRATEGY BRIEFING ROOM – 1543 HOURS
A single monitor on the wall played the Prague feed on loop, muted, slowed, and timestamped. Heather Bowman and Vos, side by side, walking calmly beneath the overhang of a private hospital entrance, like ghosts who never knew they were meant to stay dead. She kept staring at Vos—the height, the stride, his hand on Heather’s arm was all his, but his face was altered.Is thatwhy you are you going to a private hospital? Plastic surgery?
Claire stood near the long table, arms crossed. The door opened softly. Tuck came in first, in a suit, back to his day job. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes immediately found hers.
Seth Brady followed in black Chase scrubs, clean-cut, steady-eyed, his ID badge hanging from a lanyard. He was always clinical and composed.
Patrick Hedges brought up the rear in blue surgical scrubs covered by a long lab coat, jaw clenched like he’d already heard something he didn’t want confirmed.
Claire wasted no time. “That was recorded in Prague, twelve hours ago. Confirmed ID by two in tech. The man is Vos, albeit with a new face.”
They all stared. Patrick leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Who’s the woman?”
Claire’s throat tightened. “Heather Bowman.” She’d stopped using the word “mother.”
Tuck turned slowly. “I’m sorry, honey.”
Claire shook her head once. “She was exiled. Ian removed her from Chase affairs. She was to have no contact. She disappeared off-grid after leaving Ann Arbor. We assumed she’d remain buried somewhere in failure or shame. We were wrong. I was wrong.”
Seth’s voice was level. “Do we have any understanding that Reid remembers what Vos did?”
Claire exhaled. “No. He hasn’t mentioned it. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t remember.”
Tuck lowered himself into the nearest chair. “That’s a problem.”
Patrick stayed standing. “What do you want us to do?”
“I want your read,” Claire said. “Reid has to be told. We can’t let him overhear something or feel it in a briefing. He needs to hear it directly from someone he trusts.”
Tuck rubbed his jaw. “If you’re asking me whether he can take it? Maybe. But you don’t hit a healing brain with two traumas back-to-back without a plan. We need to give him ground to stand on first.”
Patrick nodded. “Agreed. Anchor him before you detonate the truth.”
Seth looked thoughtful. “Does he know your mother’s situation?”
Claire shook her head. “I never told him. He has no idea what she did.”
Seth leaned forward. “You’re telling him she was horribly cruel and removed for all her actions. He’s going to see that as a second betrayal if you don’t handle it exactly right.”
Claire’s jaw tightened. “I know.”
Tuck looked at her gently. “We’ll help you figure out how to say it.”
