POV: Jasmine
The showcase was at a converted warehouse in the Meatpacking District — three floors, forty acts, the kind of industry event where everyone watches the room more than the stage.
I was there for one specific meeting: Callum Reeves, twenty minutes, questions about the Delray project sequence.
I arrived early, ordered water, positioned myself near the second-floor landing where I could see both staircases.
I had started my recording app before I walked in — not because I expected Webb, but because I had stopped believing in events where nothing happened. That habit had cost me nothing yet. I intended to keep it.
Webb found me before Reeves did.
He came from the right, unhurried, drink in hand, wearing the same settled authority he had worn at the conference. No trace in his approach that our last conversation had involved a phone screen and my Virtue Exchange listing.
He moved toward me the way colleagues move at unremarkable industry events — like he had simply noticed me in passing and adjusted his path.
"Jasmine." Warm and calibrated.
"Marcus." I kept my register even and brief — a professional smile that gave him nothing.
"Good panel this morning."
"Fernandez is always worth watching." He tilted his head with practiced ease. "Did you catch the second half? He went off-script after the break and actually said something for once."
"Missed it. Side conversation."
"You missed the best seven minutes." A deliberate pause — the pause of someone shifting terrain.
"I wanted to follow up on our conference conversation. Make sure the proposition was clear. Those corridor exchanges can lose context."
I watched his hands the entire time.
Still. Loose at his sides, not adjusting, not moving. The same stillness as before. A man who had learned to hold his body like a neutral surface while everything he wanted moved through his voice alone.
"It was clear."
"Good. I don't want ambiguity about what I'm offering." He let a beat pass. "Do you know Daria Voss? Produced the Kellerman record — remarkable work. We've collaborated three times. I think you two would have a great deal to say to each other."
Name-dropping as social proof. A network he was positioning himself at the center of, offering access as currency.
The Daria Voss introduction was never going to happen — it was a reason to seek him out later, to owe him a small social debt, to be the one who initiated contact next time. I filed it. I filed all of it.
"I know her work. Not her directly."
"I'll make the introduction." He said it the way people say things already decided. "She's here tonight. Come and find me later."
"I'll look for you."
I had no intention of looking for him, and he almost certainly knew it. That was part of the method — establish a fiction of normal professional exchange, build familiarity on top of everything else, keep the register so clean that the pressure underneath had nowhere to be named.
Before I could redirect further, Reeves appeared at my shoulder with an apology about the time.
I turned to greet him. When I looked back Webb was already threading through the crowd — unhurried, hands loose at his sides, completely still even in motion.
I watched him go.
The meeting with Reeves took nineteen minutes. I answered his questions, gave him a clear read on the Delray sequence, declined the drink he offered, and left at nine forty-two.
I called Nora from the parking structure, engine off, door closed.
"He was there."
"Which event?"
"Kellerman showcase. He approached me inside twenty minutes of my arriving."
"He knew you'd be there."
"He knew I'd be there." I pressed my thumb against the steering wheel.
"Same register as the conference — warm, professionally appropriate, no acknowledgment of the previous conversation. Comment about a panel, question about a producer, offer to introduce me to Daria Voss."
Silence on Nora's end. Then: "He's running a longer approach than you initially read."
"Considerably. He's not making a move yet — he's building a relationship. Wants me to feel connected to him before he applies any real pressure." A pause. "He has a method. He's used it before."
"Then let it continue." Nora's voice shifted, thinking ahead. "Don't cut him off. Don't give him a reason to accelerate. Document every interaction — what he said, what he offered, how he positioned himself. You want the full picture before you decide what you're holding."
"I'm already doing it."
"Good." A beat. "Are you all right?"
"Yes. He didn't do anything tonight except be pleasant."
"That's exactly what concerns me."
"Me too."
I drove home through the Wednesday traffic — not frightened, not rattled. Doing the thing I had always been good at: reading the exact shape of what someone wanted before they asked for it.
Webb's approach was legible. Legible didn't mean harmless. It meant I could stay ahead of it, provided I was careful and fast.
What tonight had confirmed: he was patient. Patient men were more dangerous than urgent ones.
They planned further ahead and they didn't spook. They waited until the ground felt solid beneath them before they applied any weight.
I intended to be both careful and fast.
Liam was in the kitchen when I got back. I dropped my bag and stood across the counter from him.
"I ran into an industry contact tonight. I'm keeping an eye on a developing situation."
He set down what he was holding and gave me his full attention. "Do you need anything from me?"
"Not yet."
He held my gaze for a moment — reading the not yet as a shape rather than a refusal — then nodded once.
I poured myself water, stood at the counter drinking it while he moved around the kitchen. Neither of us pushed. He had learned not to, and I had learned to let that be enough.
The situation was documented. The contact was ongoing. I had a clear eye on what was moving and why.
When Webb decided to make his actual move — and he would, once the relationship he was building felt solid enough to support whatever pressure he intended to apply — I would be ready.
I had been careful before. I intended to stay that way.