Page 121 of Main Event

This morning, a cream envelope arrived at Andi’s office at MaxMorgan.

She called me at seven-thirty. She read me the three lines. Then she said, “I’m getting ready.”

That was the conversation. Not, “Should we postpone?” Not, “Should we tell Bill first?” Not, “What does this mean?” She read it, she sat with it for whatever the silence between us was, and then she said she was getting ready.

And I said, “I’ll see you soon.”

Because Evelyn Carrington sending a note today is not a reason to stop. It might be the opposite. It’s a woman watching us get married and choosing to make sure we know she’s watching. And the answer to that, the only answer, is to get married anyway. In the house my parents decorated. In front of the people we’ve been protecting this whole time. Today, specifically, which belongs to us and not to her.

Bill has the envelope. The FBI will have it by the end of the day. That’s all that needed doing. The rest of today is ours.

Mack tells me to breathe.

He says it the way he says everything—not as a suggestion, but as an observation that functions as a command. We’re in the hallway outside the living room, which my mother has spent three weeks transforming into something that looks like it was always meant to host a wedding. White and green, candles everywhere, the gathered warmth of a December house prepared for something important.

“I’m breathing,” I say.

“Deeper,” he says.

I breathe deeper.

He looks at me the way he has before fights—the final assessment, the last read. Then he nods once, the same nod he gave me in the Vegas locker room and in the gym when he decided I was ready.

“She’s good for you,” he says.

“I agree.”

“And you’re good for her.” He says it like a correction—like I might not know that part. “Don’t forget the second half.”

Brandon appears at the end of the hallway. He’s in the suit he wore to his first serious governance council meeting, which I know because he told me. That’s very Brandon—using something significant for something more significant. He looks at Mack, then at me.

“Ready?” he says.

I look at him. The broken nose is mostly healed, and the hand is fully healed. I admire this man who has been through the worst version of a year and has come out of it with his integrity intact and his family closer than before.

“Ready,” I say.

We walk in.

The room is small by design.

Thirty people, maybe fewer. My parents in the front row—my mother already crying, as she announced she would and has done with full commitment. My father is beside her, his hand over hers. Alicia, Greg, Jacob, and Callie are beside my parents. Shane, Will, Katie, Christina, and Tania fill the middle rows. Shane is managing his expression with visible effort. Will is not managing his at all.

Bill is here. Daniel’s attorney sent flowers. Daniel is not yet in a place where rooms full of people are comfortable, which Andi understood completely and told him so.

Kelly is in the second-to-last row, wearing the dress she chose herself, sitting beside Deja, who has understood for months that she is part of this family, whether or not the paperwork has caught up. The members of Sound Bar and Fireflies take up the last row.

Mrs. Alvarez is there. She sits with the quiet dignity of someone who has earned their place in a room and knows it.

Travis is at the front with his guitar.

He looks at me as I take my place beside Brandon. Gives me the slight nod of a man who has left something unfinished for a long time and has decided today is the day to finish it.

The room settles.

And then Mack appears in the doorway.

And Andi is beside him.