Chapter 1 - Give Me Back My Pocket Square
“Apologize to her.”
Jennifer Kelly stared at Gabriel as if he had spoken another language.
The Gilded Rose had fallen completely silent. Forks hovered over plates. A waiter near the bar froze with a bottle of wine in his hand. Even the pianist, who had been playing soft jazz near the windows, stopped in the middle of a note.
Jennifer’s fingers pressed harder against her burning cheek.
“Gabriel,” she said, her voice trembling with outrage, “she slapped me.”
“I saw,” he replied.
“She attacked me.”
“No.” Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “She responded to you.”
Ava stood beside the table, chest rising too quickly beneath her stiff black uniform. She knew she should be terrified. She had just hit the daughter of the most powerful judge in the state while standing in front of the man everyone feared.
But fear had already ruled too much of her life.
Jennifer had tripped her on purpose.
Ava had been carrying a tray of wine toward the table when Jennifer extended one silk-covered foot into the aisle. Ava had stumbled, caught herself against the edge of the table, and somehow kept every glass from falling.
Jennifer had laughed.
Then she had looked at Ava’s worn shoes and said, loudly enough for nearby guests to hear, “Careful, sweetheart. If you break anything, your entire yearly salary probably won’t cover it.”
The guests around her had laughed too.
Ava did not remember deciding to slap Jennifer.
She only remembered the sound.
And the strange relief that followed.
Now Gabriel Reed looked at Jennifer with a cold expression that made her expensive confidence begin to crack.
“Apologize,” he repeated.
Jennifer blinked rapidly. “You are taking her side?”
“I am taking the side of what happened.”
“She is staff.”
Gabriel’s gaze became still.
“That sentence explains why you should apologize.”
Jennifer’s face flushed scarlet.
For years, she had been praised, protected, and obeyed. Her father was Judge Robert Kelly. Her name opened doors. Her beauty filled magazine pages. Her engagement to Gabriel Reed was supposed to place her above everyone in the room.
Instead, she was standing in front of three hundred people being ordered to apologize to a waitress.
Ava expected Jennifer to refuse.
She expected Gabriel to call security, to have her removed, to make an example out of her.
Instead, Jennifer looked toward the guests, saw their phones raised, and realized there was no graceful way out.
“I’m sorry,” she said through clenched teeth.
Ava said nothing.
Gabriel turned to Ava.
“And you?”
Ava looked directly at Jennifer.
“I accept the apology,” she said. “But I will not pretend it fixes what she did.”
The room inhaled.
Gabriel’s mouth moved almost imperceptibly, as though he was trying not to smile.
Then he looked down at the white silk pocket square tucked into the breast pocket of his midnight suit.
It was gone.
Ava frowned.
She had not noticed it during the confrontation.
Gabriel held out his hand.
“Give me back my pocket square.”
Jennifer stared at him.
“What?”
But Ava understood.
When Jennifer tripped her, Ava had fallen against Gabriel’s chair. Her hand had caught his jacket for balance.
The pocket square must have slipped into her palm.
Ava reached into the pocket of her apron and found the folded white silk.
She held it out.
Gabriel did not take it immediately.
His eyes settled on the embroidered corner.
A small symbol was stitched into the fabric: a black raven inside a gold circle.
Then Ava noticed something else.
There was blood on it.
Not from Jennifer’s cheek.
A thin streak of blood had marked the silk before Ava ever touched it.
Gabriel saw it too.
His expression changed.
“Where did this come from?” Ava asked quietly.
Jennifer’s face lost color.
Gabriel looked at her.
“Excellent question.”
Jennifer stepped backward. “I don’t know.”
“You were holding my jacket before we sat down.”
“I adjusted your collar.”
“And now there is blood on my pocket square.”
Gabriel’s security chief, Marcus Vale, moved forward from the edge of the dining room. He was a broad man with close-cropped hair and a scar near his jaw. Until that moment, Ava had assumed he was only another silent bodyguard.
Now she realized he watched everything.
“Lock the exits,” Gabriel said.
Panic moved through the room.
Several guests began protesting. A senator’s assistant demanded to know why he was being detained. A socialite near the bar tried to slip toward the hallway, but Marcus stopped her with one calm look.
“No one leaves,” Gabriel said. “Not until we understand why someone brought blood into my private dinner.”
Jennifer shook her head. “This is insane.”
Gabriel took the pocket square from Ava’s hand.
Then he unfolded it.
Inside the fold was a tiny metal object.
A listening device.
The room became colder.
Gabriel held it up between two fingers.
Jennifer’s breath caught.
Ava stared at the device.
Someone had planted a bug on Gabriel’s jacket.
And Jennifer had been close enough to do it.
“I didn’t put that there,” Jennifer whispered.
Gabriel looked at her for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
It was not a warm smile.
It was the kind of smile a man wore when he finally understood why an enemy had been acting so confident.
“Perhaps not,” he said. “But someone wanted me to think you did.”
Marcus leaned close and whispered something in Gabriel’s ear.
Gabriel’s eyes moved toward Ava.
“You saw Jennifer trip you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You saw her touch my jacket?”
“Yes.”
“And you still slapped her.”
Ava lifted her chin. “I was tired of being treated like I wasn’t human.”
For the first time, Gabriel’s face softened.
Only slightly.
Then a loud crash came from the kitchen.
Every person in the restaurant turned.
May you like
Ava knew instantly that it was not an accident.
Because the sound was followed by a gunshot.
