Page 61 of The Marriage Blunder

Miles Cranston’s legal pad was squared at a mathematically perfect ninety to a decanter of scotch nobody had poured from. Fred, Jake D’Amato’s head of security, had staked out a position near the refrigerator with both hands loose and flat at his sides, eyes sweeping the room for exits, entries, and, possibly, threats to the sanctity of the snack drawer.

Adams had vanished somewhere, probably to reinforce the security perimeter or, knowing Adams, to run background checks on the entire guest list for the evening.

I clocked this in three seconds flat, along with the following:

- Kyue and Lucas, both in dark suits, occupying the nearest end of the island like royalty at the world’s most fraught family dinner. Kyue’s posture was precise, hands stacked one atop the other on a tablet, but his leg bounced with nervous energy visible only if you were looking for it.

- Alejandro Díaz, of the Brooklyn Díaz, in a navy three-piece that made the rest of us look like interns, standing at the window with a glass of water and a facial expression that said: I’ve survived more dangerous meetings than this, and in at least two of them someone lost a finger.

- Delancy Díaz, hair cropped sharp and face unreadable, seated at the island before a three-monitor rig set up in a shallow arc, each screen running a different operation in parallel. He typed without looking down, fingers so fast I wondered if he’d had them mechanically upgraded.

Kenneth, of course, owned the room. He was at the head of the island, sleeves rolled, tie off, every inch the CEO even in the absence of a board. He scanned the room and said, “Let’s get started.”

He turned to me as I entered and, with a hand at my back, steered me into the only open seat. The motion was casual enough for plausible deniability, but not so subtle that anyone missed the signal.

I was not to be side-lined tonight.

“Most of you know Jude Thomas,” Kenneth said. “If not, you’re about to.”

I could see Miles’s pen twitch on the legal pad, a tiny tell of anticipation. Fred gave me the same look he gave investors that tried to get close to his boss: neutral until proven otherwise.

Kenneth went around the room, dispensing names, credentials, and, in one case, an abbreviated criminal history. “Lucas Kincaid, strategy. Kyue Panich Kincaid, numbers and risk. Miles Cranston, legal. Fred, logistics.”

Fred’s nod in my direction was the physical equivalent of, “I’ve been briefed, and you don’t scare me.”

He continued: “Alejandro Díaz, our external, and Delancy, cyber and intel.” Alejandro raised his glass a quarter-inch, eyes scanning me from hair to shoes and back. Delancy didn’t look up from the monitors but, without breaking rhythm, said, “Hey, Jude,” in a way that was both literal and a challenge.

The room held the expectation of a bomb threat, and for a second, I wanted to ask if someone should sweep for actual bombs. Instead, I folded my hands and said, “Thank you for making time.”

Kyue, seated directly left of me, made contact first, a brief squeeze at my shoulder, a pressure that lasted no more than a second but communicated years of friendship, loyalty, and something else I could not name.

Lucas’s acknowledgment was a single up-nod, barely a movement, but in the world of boardroom politics, it was an all-in endorsement.

Fred’s gaze hit me, appraised, then moved on—something I decided to interpret as a compliment.

Delancy, finally looking up, met my eyes for a four-count. It was not warm, but it was not hostile, either. He held the look, then said, “You’re shorter than I expected,” and went back to typing.

Alejandro watched this with the faintest hint of amusement. “He is effective,” Alejandro said, and the compliment, such as it was, landed with the weight of a notarized affidavit.

Kenneth’s hand, still at my back, stayed for another two seconds before letting go.

I did a mental roll-call: one hacker, one mob boss, a tech billionaire’s head of security, an attorney, two of my best friends, and the man I accidentally married. I color-coded my grocery lists for comfort, and yet here I was in the center of a war room, and not the least competent person in it.

Kenneth caught my eye from across the table, and the look was grounding. For a fraction of a second, all the noise went out of the room, and it was just the two of us, exactly as it had been in Las Vegas, with the world spinning outside the window and none of it mattering if we were both alive to see it.

He finally said, “Delancy, you’re up.”

The room pivoted. Every head turned.

Delancy cleared his throat. His voice was the opposite of suspenseful. He spoke the way a search engine might if it was given a soul, but told to keep it strictly professional.

“Unknown number was a burner,” he said. The main monitor behind him loaded an image of a basic Samsung with the last four digits highlighted in acid yellow. “Purchased at a bodega on West 55th. Activation date was six weeks ago, two weeks before the Vegas event. That’s before the wedding, before any official announcements.”

He let the numbers hang. Nobody interrupted.

“Location data is dirty. Calls and texts were made exclusively from Midtown, no triangulation possible. All payment was cash. But—” here he clicked, and the next image loaded, a scanned receipt with a timestamp, “—the phone was bought two blocks from the office of Diane Mercer.”

A low ripple went around the table, the kind of collective exhale that suggested everyone else had gotten here just ahead of the evidence but were waiting for confirmation.