Before anyone could stop her, she grabbed the edge of Gabriel’s heavy porcelain plate and pulled it against her chest. Lemon butter sloshed onto the white tablecloth, staining it yellow.
“You can’t have it,” she whispered.
The room gasped.
Gabriel stood. The hall went cold.
“Annie,” he said, his voice low, dangerous. “Give me the plate.”
“No.”
Nora began to cry at the kitchen door. “Mr. Moretti, please. She’s a child. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
Gabriel reached out. He did not yank the plate. He waited until Annie’s small fingers loosened, exhausted by fear. Then he took it back.
Lucia’s rosary stopped moving. “Gabriel.”
He looked at his mother once. Then he looked at the room. At the senators. The judges. The men who watched him like hawks.
“To prove there is nothing wrong with the food,” Gabriel said, his voice carrying to the back of the room.
Adrienne’s face softened with relief. She thought she had won. She thought the child was just a nuisance to be dismissed.
Gabriel cut a small piece of salmon. He lifted it. He ate.
Five seconds passed.
Ten.
Twenty.
Nothing happened.
A nervous laugh broke from someone near the fireplace. Then another. The senator raised his glass.
Gabriel turned to Adrienne and lifted her hand to his lips. “Forgive the interruption,” he said.
Then the wineglass slipped from his fingers.
It shattered on the marble.
Gabriel’s face drained white. One hand clutched the edge of the table. His knees buckled. A dark thread of blood slid from the corner of his mouth.
This time, the scream came from every corner of the room.
PART 2
Ray Donovan, Gabriel’s chief of security, moved before Gabriel hit the floor. He caught him under the arms and shouted, “Doctor!”
Dr. Michael Santoro, the family physician, dropped beside Gabriel with a medical bag already open. Two guards sealed the doors. A senator tried to stand, saw Lucia Moretti’s face, and sat back down.