Page 7 of Anchor
“Don’t what?” Heather’s smile adjusted a tiny fraction of an inch.
“Start matchmaking.”
“I’m thinking,” Heather murmured, “you haven’t looked at anyone like that since Prague.”
“He was an operative.”
“Exactly, and so is he. One of Ian’s boys.” Heather measured the space for other things.
Claire catalogued all the angles, reflections, the blind corner near the second-tier bar where the staging design carved a momentary dead zone. There was a four-second loop on the visible camera sweeps. Security was planted near the southeast pillar in a posture that saidat ease, which meant ready.
Her eyes moved precisely before they found him again. Not the kind of pass you give a man in a tux. The kind of look you give a variable that might change the equation.
A man in midnight black stepped into the golden wash of the stage, making silence happen without music. “Good evening. I’mKillian Moynihan, chief executive of this branch. Tonight isn’t about architecture. It isn’t about money.” He let the quiet center itself. “It’s about trust and the people you don’t notice until you need them. Welcome to Chase International Ann Arbor.”
Ian Chase crossed into the center without collecting the attention so much as accepting what came with the place. He wore black on black—no performative calm, but actual calm.
“Most of you think I only sign checks.” He drew a dry ripple that never reached eyes. “I sign outcomes. When everything fails, this house doesn’t.”
His brother, Kieran, followed, his tie a hair looser. “If Ian’s the spine, I’m the nerves. This branch is reflex. When a call hits, it moves.”
Martin Bailey, CEO of Chase Security, kept it lean. “Late help looks like damage. We built this place to beat the clock.”
Then dress blues cut the black sea, with ribbons neat and posture a straight line: Pete Walter, president of Chase Medical. “I’ve carried kids out of smoke. We built what we built because time is a fight, not a theory.”
The applause was real when Casey Reynolds stepped into the light, collar open and hands still. “I’ve worked trauma bays with six minutes to make the call,” he said. “That’s how I’ll lead. Not with status. With outcomes.”
The applause landed more honestly than most monied rooms allowed. But Claire didn’t clap. She watched Ian’s face for the absence of need. The part of her that was all angles and count clicked: this was not an act but a vector.
A stray memory slid in sideways: a doorway with bad air where a man asked if she was okay. A night where she was seen.
The music returned with low strings and polished brass. The room recalibrated to its preferred sound of soft laughter, clinks of glass, and the small triangles of power carved by bodies in proximity.
Claire’s senses kept throwing her. She noticed them at once. Three men stood around a statue, wearing casual like a bad disguise. Their shoulders were too stiff, their laughter was off a beat, and, most importantly, their eyes were on exits, not art.
Then her gaze fell lower. Their shoes betrayed them. The creases cut deep, heels chewed and uneven, with city grit packed in the seams. Claire adjusted her smile and recalculated her exits.
Across the room,Reid’s spine loosened—the adjustment wasn’t release but preparation. A voice buzzed in his ear: “Trio by polyglass. No drinks. Staged posture.”
The three by the glass sculpture had the wrong stillness. Their suits were correct. Their shoes were used.
“Confirm invitations.” Reid let a pair of donors drift between him and the cluster, using their reflection to complete the angles. “Facial rec?”
“Pinging,” Wire said. “One matches a pharmaceutical lobbyist who declined the invite. The other two are ghosts.”
Out on the terrace, Ian cut toward a figure by the glass—Terry Fields, a man whose name sounded like a cover even when it wasn’t. Their greeting was quiet and warm.
You look tired, Reid read when Terry’s lips lined up with the light.
Building your city out of bones, Ian said.
These men were not ghosts. They were survivors. Reid had spent the last two nights studying the briefs. Terry Fields was Langley’s history in a fine suit, Chase Ann Arbor’s strategic brainnow. He smiled like a man who’d seen the other end of a long tunnel.
Terry said,You always hated the big donors.
I hate when money talks louder than the plan.Ian grabbed his shoulder before moving on. Two tuxedoed men followed—his security.
None of the conversation triggered more than a note. The way Terry nodded half a beat late did. Reid thumbed his wrist display and flagged the file for a gentle, invisible re-vet in forty-eight hours. Not suspicion. Care.
