Page 21 of Anchor
Vos’s final words were quiet, almost intimate. “Better she finds one we choose.”
The line clicked dead.
Heather stood motionless, the silence loud around her. Finally, she poured a scotch, sat down, and for the first time all night, admitted, if only to herself, her daughter outmaneuvered her.
SEVEN
CLAIRE’S APARTMENT – KERRYTOWN – 0340 HOURS
The blinds cut thin ribbons of light from the outside alley across the dark bedroom. Claire lay against him, her cheek to his chest, the warmth of his skin and the steady beat beneath it keeping her centered. “You never stop watching, do you?”
Reid’s chest lifted with a slow breath. “No, I can’t.”
She tilted her head enough to see him in the dim light. “Started in the Navy?”
“SEALs.” His voice carried no boast, only fact. “But it started before that. My dad died when I was young. My mom… she drowned herself in a bottle. By the time I was old enough to know what was happening, she was already gone in every way that mattered.”
Her hand slid across his chest, fingers brushing lightly, inviting him to continue.
“My uncle Tuck stepped in. He’s the one who raised me and my sister, Samantha. He was a PJ—Air Force pararescue. Hard man, but good. He’s the reason I’m still standing. Four yearsago, my mom finally drank herself into the grave. Tuck was the one who kept us steady when it could’ve broken us.”
His throat worked, then his mouth curved in the faintest ghost of a smile. “Now he runs the whole medical side at Chase—clinical facility director. When I got out of the Teams, I did some private contractor work. I guess he had enough of me being stupid. He told me there was a door open at Chase Security. Said all I had to do was walk through it. So, I did.”
Claire’s chest tightened at the simplicity of it, the burden hidden inside those words.
She drew a breath. “I went the other way. MIT at fifteen, out at seventeen. Straight into the NSA. Thought if I was smart enough, valuable enough, I could… matter. Project Emberline taught me different.”
Reid’s hand traced slow lines along her back, steady, patient.
“I flagged it,” she said, voice low. “Told them what it was going to be. No one listened. When it ended, civilians, including four children, were dead. And they handed me the files. Told me to clean it up. Make it… neat.” Her laugh was thin, sharp. “The NDA, the debrief. I still wake up at night thinking about the way they made me sanitize it. Make blood sound like protocol.”
His arm tightened around her. He didn’t offer platitudes. He just listened. The room was quiet but not empty. The hum of the radiator and the faint buzz of the city outside filled the spaces between their words. Claire lay tucked against Reid, the sheet pulled loosely around her, his hand steady at the curve of her hip.
She drew a slow breath. “Sometimes Emberline doesn’t stay in the past. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and I’m back in that room. The language, the briefings, the way they told me to sign… it plays over like a tape I can’t erase. I dream I’m writing the words down again, making the blood vanish onpaper. And every time I sign the NDA in the dream, it feels like I’m erasing myself too.”
Reid’s arm tightened around her, his thumb tracing calm arcs against her skin. He didn’t tell her to stop. Didn’t tell her to forget.
“You’re not erased,” he said quietly. “Not here. Not now.”
“That’s why I left,” she whispered. “And why I know Ian won’t leave me alone. I keep wondering what he’s going to do.”
Reid’s jaw flexed. “You seem to know him more than as a guest at the gala.”
Her eyes burned as she stared at the ceiling. “I do. The first real person I ever met in my mother’s orbit was Ian. Fundraiser, years ago. I was twenty-three. He found me hiding in a corner and stood with me like he had all the time in the world. Told me he knew my dad.” Her breath hitched. “He knew about a sketch I drew for him once. And the nickname he gave me—Firefly. He wasn’t bluffing. My dad died in an IED explosion in Afghanistan, 2005. And Ian… he just… he knew.”
Reid’s thumb swept along her jaw, urging her to meet his eyes. “He made himself real, when you were still bleeding from the loss.”
Claire’s throat tightened, a hot sting behind her eyes. “Yes. And I hate that part of me still listens for his voice.”
“Then don’t,” Reid said softly. His hand cradled her cheek. “Listen to mine instead.”
Her throat closed, a sharp ache in her chest. “You make it sound like it’s that simple.”
“It isn’t,” he said, the honesty in his tone steadying her. “Chase doesn’t pretend scars vanish. I think that’s what makes Chase different from other private contractors. That philosophy also came from my uncle, and Pete Walter, his rescue partner and the president of Chase Medical. They don’t polish them out like they never happened. They track them. They treat them.We adapt around them. That’s what survival is. It’s carrying the burden and still moving forward.”
She turned to look at him, his face shadowed in the dim glow from the blinds. “And what if they’re too deep?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “Then we carry them together. That’s what I learned in the Teams. And what Tuck drilled into me every day after I came home. Alone, you don’t last. But with someone in your corner? Even the worst scars don’t stop you.”
