The mafia boss stared at the weapon as though Genevieve had placed a ghost on the table.
Black steel.
Mother-of-pearl grip.
A small silver raven worked into the metal beneath the trigger guard.
Six months earlier, that pistol had vanished during an ambush near the Brooklyn waterfront.
Its disappearance had been more than a theft.
It had been a declaration.
The Calabresi faction had circulated photographs of the empty holster afterward.
They wanted the city to know that the supposedly untouchable man had been disarmed, humiliated, and marked for death.
Rumor claimed the weapon had been melted down.
Genevieve had learned long ago that rumors were often advertisements written by liars.
“Where did you get this?” the boss asked.
His voice was low, but the shock beneath it was unmistakable.
“Later,” Genevieve said.
The crowned man was three tables away now.
His confident stride slowed when he saw the exposed grip.
For the first time since entering the restaurant, he looked uncertain.
The boss followed Genevieve’s gaze.
“Loaded?”
“Six rounds,” she replied.
“I checked them myself.”
He looked at her again, more carefully this time.
Most people in the restaurant saw an elegant woman in a black silk dress sitting beside a wounded criminal.
They saw a victim trapped in the wrong booth on the wrong night.
The boss saw her steady breathing.
He saw the appraisal gloves folded beside the weapon.
He saw that her hands were relaxed while everyone else’s trembled.
“You handle firearms often at the auction house?”
“I handle objects with complicated ownership histories.”
The crowned man stopped on the opposite side of the table.
His two companions remained near the exits.
Around them, diners sat perfectly still.
A waiter had lowered his silver tray to the floor.
Somewhere near the kitchen, someone was quietly crying.
Richard stood pinned against the wall by the side exit.
His face had lost all color.
The crowned man looked from the boss to Genevieve and then to the pistol.
“That isn’t possible,” he said.
Genevieve tilted her head.
“And yet.”
The crowned man’s hand moved beneath his coat.
The boss’s hand closed around the pistol.
The movement was not fast.
It did not need to be.
The sound of the weapon leaving the velvet seemed louder than the conversations that had vanished from the room.
The crowned man froze.
“You’re injured,” he said.
The boss rested the pistol beneath the edge of the table, its barrel hidden from most of the room.
“You came here believing that mattered.”
One of the men near the kitchen shifted his weight.
Genevieve noticed his right shoulder dip.
“Second man is drawing,” she said.
The boss turned and fired once.
The shot shattered the silver service stand beside the man’s hand.
Plates crashed across the carpet.
The Calabresi gunman recoiled, his weapon slipping beneath a table as diners finally ducked.
