He found out about the Alehandra meeting from a hotel staff contact at 11am.
He didn't know the content.
He knew the duration.
Forty minutes.
He knew the outcome.
Alehandra left first.
Kendrick sat alone for twenty minutes after.
That was enough.
---
He had been working with Alehandra Peters as a partial ally for weeks.
Not a committed ally.
She had been careful about that — always adjacent to his campaign, never inside it.
Sharing information.
Maintaining distance.
The specific positioning of a woman who was gathering intelligence without committing to a direction.
He had understood it.
He had respected it, in the way he respected all well-executed strategy.
He had also relied on it more than he realized.
Because Alehandra's adjacency had given him something he hadn't fully named until it was gone.
Cover.
The implication that Kendrick's personal situation was destabilizing his professional one.
That the engagement was under pressure.
