The silence that followed was not empty. It was dense with the specific quality of a moment in which several people are simultaneously realizing that the architecture of the last hour has been built on a foundation they did not understand and that the foundation has just been revealed to be something entirely other than what they assumed.
Alexander Reed.
Ethan knew the name. Everyone in the financial district knew the name, the way they knew the names of buildings and weather systems and other things that shaped the landscape they moved through. Alexander Reed, who had built Reed Financial from a regional investment firm into one of the largest private equity entities in the country. Alexander Reed, whose portfolio touched more industries than most people could name, whose endorsement could launch a company and whose withdrawal could quietly end one. Alexander Reed, who owned—among many other things—the glass tower in whose thirty-first floor conference room they were currently sitting.