Page 108 of Fate, Interrupted

I’ve been saying it to myself, in various forms, since I walked into The Last Chapter and walked out with War and Peace, a book I didn’t need and the beginning of a problem I didn’t want to solve.

What’s different now is that I’ve stopped calling it a problem.

She’s mine and I’m hers, and the city can believe whatever it wants about that. Tonight I made sure two people in it understand the cost of acting on those opinions.

Tomorrow I’ll figure out the rest.

Chapter twenty-nine

Silas

The back room of Coulter Cleaners on Ninth Street smells like steam and sizing compound and the stillness of a space that has been cleared quickly of its usual activity. The sorting tables are pushed against the walls. Three chairs have been arranged around the worktable in the center—not a conference setup, nothing that formal, just chairs. Its own kind of statement. We are having a conversation. We are not having a meeting.

My father’s idea.

The positioning is almost identical to the Waldon pack meeting. Elias stands near the window when I arrive, his back to the room in his usual dark jacket, no tie. His posture is that of a man who agreed to a conversation on someone else’s terms and is making sure everyone in the room understands he is doing them a courtesy.

Logan is already seated, his expression giving nothing away. He glances at me when I come in. I take a position near the wall, not at the table. I’m not quite in the room—the exact placing on the periphery says I am present but not a principal. Window dressing, as Greer once put it, with the affectionate bluntness he reserves for things that are true and uncomfortable.

Greer himself stands near the door, hands loose at his sides. He catches my eye briefly and looks away. I know behind the lack of expression, his brain is keeping up with my father’s, which is saying quite a lot.

Chief Whittier arrives four minutes late, which I suspect is calculated. Late enough to establish that his time is the most valuable in the room. He’s broad through the shoulders, silver-haired, with a craggy face that photographs well at city events and on campaign posters. The face of a man the public finds reassuring. He comes alone, either as a gesture of good faith or a reminder that he doesn’t need backup for this conversation.

He shakes Elias’s hand first. Then Logan’s.

His eyes move to Greer and then to me, and he nods at both of us with the easy acknowledgment of a man noting the furniture.

“Appreciate you making time,” he says, settling into the chair across from Elias. He looks around the room with the appreciative expression of someone admiring what they’ve been brought into. “Good operation you run here. I drove past the main facility on the way over. Impressive.”

“We’ve been fortunate,” Elias says.

“Hard work,” Whittier says. “Don’t sell it short.” He sets his hands flat on his knees, the gesture of a man arranging his thoughts. “I’ll get to it. You know why I’m here.”

“Tell me anyway,” Elias says. “I prefer to hear things directly.”

Whittier smiles at that, as if he appreciates the style of another man even when they’re on opposite sides of an issue. “Fair enough. The incidents. The vandalism on Clement, the one before it in the north corridor. We’ve got footage showing groups of young men, property damage in the tens of thousands. Business owners are angry, the press is running with it, and city council is...” He pauses, choosing the word. “Energized.”

“Energized,” Logan says.

“That’s the word I’d use,” Whittier says pleasantly.

“The perpetrators,” Elias says. “You have leads?”

His face moves, brief and controlled—the micro-expression of a man deciding how much to give. “We’re pursuing several lines of inquiry.”

“But you’re here,” Elias says.

“I’m here,” Whittier agrees, “because the optics of the situation are becoming difficult to manage, and I think we both understand that difficult optics have a way of creating their own momentum regardless of the underlying facts.”

There it is.

I watch Greer from across the room. His jaw tightens by a fraction, the only visible reaction he’ll allow himself. I see it only because I know what to look for.

“The underlying facts,” Elias says, “are that neither this operation nor any pack-affiliated business had anything to do with what happened on Clement Avenue or any of the other incidents.”

“I believe you,” Whittier says. And he sounds like he means it, making this the most dangerous version of the conversation. A man who believes can’t be argued with.

“But belief and optics are two different animals,” he says. “Right now, the optics aren’t helping anyone.”