Page 3 of Black Reign

No society pages.

No month of ridiculous planning.

They disappeared, got married, and informed everyone after the damage was done.

I wasn't particularly close to either of them back then.

Drew and I became better friends later, mostly because when my friends gravitated to California, it had a strange way of shoving people into each other's lives whether you ask for it or not.

Then came Vale and Stella Cortez.

That was less a wedding and more an international summit with flowers.

European royalty arrived on private jets.

Old Newport money flew west.

Security teams multiplied overnight.

There were titles I had to look up, which irritated me enough that I memorized every one before the ceremony.

They married in California beneath an obscene amount of imported flowers while half the guests pretended not to notice Stella wanted to kick off her shoes and escape.

She hated the spectacle.

Her father adored it. Tristan’s mom was over the moon.

Vale barely noticed any of it.

He only watched her.

That part I understood.

For all the theater surrounding them, Tristan looked at Stella like the rest of us had been removed from the room.

And now Haverhill.

I glance down at the invitation again.

Kane Haverhill has already survived Stanford, been drafted into the NBA, become one of professional basketball's newest obsessions, and somehow decided the best use of his remaining sanity is marrying the one woman capable of correcting his game in front of millions of people.

Hannah Goodwin.

The footnote who became the whole story.

There's something annoyingly poetic about that.

I take another drink.

The invitation reads:

Kane Haverhill and Hannah Goodwin request the pleasure of your company⁠—

I look down.

Then I notice the line beneath my name.

Xavier Blackwell + Guest