Oliver reaches us before anyone can pretend this is only strategy. He takes Luca's left hand with both of his and holds it under the light. His expression opens first in delight, then something softer that makes Luca's smile tremble.
"Oh, sweetheart," Oliver says, thumb brushing carefully near the new band without touching it. "Look at you."
Luca's cheeks go pink. "It's a band, Oliver."
"It's never just a band." Oliver looks at Blake over Luca's hand, eyes bright. "You did well."
Blake's mouth curves, tired and pleased despite himself. "Grayson helped."
"Of course he did," Oliver says, as if that explains why the ring looks right. Then he bends and kisses Luca's knuckles above the band before letting him go.
Lorenzo gives them exactly ten seconds before the practical part of his brain wins. "Congratulations on deciding to make the wedding everyone else’s problem," he says, and there's real warmth in it before his gaze shifts to Blake's cane and the careful way Luca's hand remains close to Blake's knee. "Before we discuss the mess you brought us, I need to know whether Quentin cleared you to sit here and be difficult."
Blake exhales through his nose. "He cleared me for two hours, no alcohol, no stairs, no direct confrontation, and no reading full documents on my own."
Maceo's hand settles on the table beside Blake's. "Which is why I've got the documents."
Blake looks like he wants to object on principle, but Luca's ring flashes when Luca rests his hand on Blake's wrist, and the objection never forms.
Nicholas opens his folder. "I started with the property holdings because Lorenzo said the language around affiliated charitable arms looked too broad. The structure's spread across enough entities that it looks like normal investor insulation at first, but the same names keep appearing around media rights, event access, and philanthropic promotion."
Wilson leans forward. "Aegis Philanthropic. Veritas Media Group. Three smaller impact channels that've changed names twice in four years."
I feel Blake still across from me.
Wilson notices too, but keeps his voice even. "I recognize the pattern. It's not the front-facing company that worries me. It's what sits behind it. They brush against vulnerable spaces through funding, promotion, documentary access, donor cultivation. By the time someone realizes what's been granted, the story's already left the people it belongs to."
Luca's hand tightens on Blake's wrist. He doesn't shrink. That matters. His fear's there, but so is his anger, and the ring on his hand turns when he curls his fingers.
Lorenzo turns the tablet so the clause faces us. "This is the language that matters. Exclusive access to historical and narrative data associated with charitable arms for global philanthropic promotion. It's buried behind definitions that make it sound like annual reports and donor brochures. It's notwritten like a media-rights grab, but that's what it becomes when paired with the appendices."
Maceo reads silently, his face giving away nothing. Then he slides the tablet toward Blake, stopping it before Blake has to reach too far. Blake looks at the highlighted lines, only those lines, and I can see the moment he understands what exhaustion and crisis kept him from catching sooner.
"They were never looking at Keller Industries first," Luca says.
No one interrupts him.
He looks at the table, then at Wilson, then at me. His voice stays quiet, but it carries. "They were looking for a way to make Ember House useful to them. The company was the door. Blake was the person they needed manageable enough to open it."
Nicholas's fingers tighten around the folder in his lap. He's not a loud man. His gentleness makes the next words worse. "It's not a partnership. It's a leash."
The table goes still.
I look at Luca's ring because if I look at his face too long, the fear in me will try to become something less useful. The ring's a small thing. A band on a hand. A promise made in a hospital room by a man who almost didn't live long enough to ask. It sits there now while strangers try to tell us which parts of Luca's life can be packaged, which parts of our children's origins can be converted into donor language, which parts of a sanctuary can be opened under the word promotion.
Grayson's fingers slide along the back of my neck, firm enough to bring me back into my body.
Wilson studies me. "They've been brushing Ember House through affiliated channels for a while. Requests for public impact summaries. Donor story inquiries. Third-party media interest that looked disconnected until Nicholas mapped the ownership. None of it's enough alone. Together, it shows intent."
Blake's hand closes around the head of his cane. His knuckles go white before he makes himself loosen them. Luca sees it and shifts closer, not to stop him from feeling it, only to remind him he's not the only one at the table anymore.
"What do you need from us?" Maceo asks.
Lorenzo's eyes flicker with approval. "Documents. All correspondence involving affiliated charitable language, public-facing impact reports, donor access requests, brand partnership pitches, and anything Dorian sent that uses narrative, survivor, sanctuary, or legacy."
"I can have it to you tonight," Maceo says.
Blake inhales like the answer's trying to leave his mouth first. Luca's hand presses once at his wrist. Blake's jaw tightens, but he lets Maceo's answer stand.
