Chapter 2 - The Secret Inside Table Seven
The first gunshot shattered a glass near the bar.
Screams erupted across the Gilded Rose.
Guests dropped beneath tables. Chairs overturned. The pianist ducked behind the grand piano as Marcus and Gabriel’s guards drew weapons and moved toward the kitchen corridor.
Gabriel’s hand closed around Ava’s wrist.
“Stay behind me.”
Ava pulled back. “I’m not one of your people.”
“No,” he said. “That is why you are exposed.”
Jennifer stood frozen beside the table, her face drained of color.
“Gabriel,” she whispered, “what is happening?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know anything!”
Another shot cracked through the restaurant.
This time, it came from the rear hallway.
Marcus shouted instructions into his radio. Two guards escorted guests toward the private emergency exit while others formed a wall around Gabriel.
Ava saw Mr. Strauss, the nervous floor manager, crouched beside the hostess stand. His hands shook as he clutched his phone.
Then she noticed something strange.
He was not calling the police.
He was typing.
Ava moved closer without thinking.
On his screen was a message:
REED IS STILL INSIDE. MOVE TO PLAN B.
Her stomach dropped.
“Mr. Strauss,” she said.
He looked up.
His face went white.
Ava pointed to the phone.
Before he could answer, Gabriel turned.
“What did she see?”
Mr. Strauss ran.
He shoved through the side service door toward the kitchen, but Marcus caught him before he reached the hallway. The manager fought wildly, knocking over trays and silverware before one of Gabriel’s men forced him to the floor.
Gabriel approached slowly.
The restaurant had become silent again, but it was no longer the shocked silence from Jennifer’s slap.
It was fear.
“Who are you working for?” Gabriel asked.
Mr. Strauss laughed nervously. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Gabriel crouched in front of him.
“Someone planted a device on my jacket. Someone fired into a room full of witnesses. And now my floor manager is sending messages about me.”
“I’m just a manager.”
“No,” Ava said.
Everyone looked at her.
She stared at Mr. Strauss’s hands.
“You are not just a manager.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”
Ava stepped closer.
“His shoes.”
Mr. Strauss looked down instinctively.
“They’re wrong,” Ava said. “Restaurant managers walk the floor all night. Their shoes get scuffed. Those are new. Expensive. And his hands…”
She pointed at the pale skin around his fingers.
“He doesn’t carry trays, open wine, or lift boxes. No kitchen burns. No cuts. No calluses.”
Mr. Strauss’s face tightened.
Ava swallowed.
“My father worked security before he died. He taught me to notice people who wear uniforms they do not belong in.”
Gabriel watched her differently now.
Not as a waitress.
As a threat to anyone hiding behind appearances.
Marcus took Mr. Strauss’s phone and scanned the messages.
His face changed.
“Sir,” he said. “The messages are going to an encrypted number. But there is a name in the contact history.”
Gabriel held out his hand.
Marcus showed him the screen.
Gabriel read it once.
Then looked at Jennifer.
“Your father,” he said quietly.
Jennifer stared at him.
“What?”
“Judge Robert Kelly.”
“No.” Jennifer shook her head. “My father would never—”
“He has been investigating my businesses for years,” Gabriel said. “Or pretending to.”
Jennifer backed away. “He hates you, yes. But he would not send gunmen into a restaurant.”
Gabriel’s expression remained unreadable.
“Would he send someone to destroy me before your wedding?”
Ava looked at Jennifer.
For the first time, the powerful fiancée did not look cruel.
She looked frightened.
Then Mr. Strauss laughed again.
“You think this is about the judge?” he said.
Gabriel turned slowly.
“It isn’t?”
“No. Judge Kelly is just another man being used.”
Marcus grabbed Strauss by the collar.
“Who?”
But the manager suddenly bit down on something hidden in his mouth.
Ava recognized the movement too late.
A capsule.
Foam appeared at the corner of his lips.
Marcus forced his mouth open, but Mr. Strauss was already collapsing.
Within seconds, he was unconscious.
The dining room filled with horrified gasps.
Gabriel rose.
His face had become perfectly calm.
That was worse than rage.
“Clear the building,” he said.
Then he turned to Ava.
“You are coming with me.”
Ava stared at him. “Why?”
“Because you saw what my security team missed.”
“I only noticed a phone.”
“You noticed the man.”
“I want to go home.”
Gabriel looked toward the rain-darkened windows.
“Someone started a shooting in a room full of powerful people to reach me. They planted evidence to frame Jennifer. They had an insider in this restaurant.”
He looked back at Ava.
“And the moment you stepped into this story, they began watching you too.”
Ava’s phone vibrated in her apron.
She pulled it out.
A message from an unknown number appeared.
TELL REED NOTHING ABOUT YOUR BROTHER.
Then a photograph loaded.
Dylan.
He was sitting in a car, frightened, his wrists tied with tape.
Ava stopped breathing.
Gabriel saw the screen.
His expression changed.
“Your brother has been taken.”
Ava looked at him, every ounce of fear finally breaking loose.
“Please,” she whispered. “Help me.”
May you like
Gabriel Reed’s eyes hardened.
“Now,” he said, “we have the same enemy.”
