The woman in the gold dress on Dio’s other side had not spoken to him at all. She was busy talking animatedly to the man across from her.
A young woman sat down at table seven about twenty minutes into the meal. Her name was Sera. She was twenty-six, a journalist working for a financial news outlet that had covered the Rexton Group gala for three consecutive years. She had come through the media entrance and been assigned to table seven for the evening.
She noticed Dio immediately. She noticed the shirt was too large. She noticed the way the guests at the table had arranged themselves with small, careful distances between themselves and him. She looked at the old man and felt something she could not immediately explain.
Sera poured water into Dio’s glass without being asked.
He looked at her and thanked her quietly.
She introduced herself, and he gave her his name. She asked how he was enjoying the evening. He looked at her with a directness that surprised her and said that the food was very good, and that the chandeliers reminded him of something he had once seen in a government building in Abuja when he was a young man working his first real job—before everything changed.
He said those last three words simply, without drama, then looked back at his plate.
Sera set her pen down slowly on the tablecloth.
Baron had noticed the journalist sitting beside Dio, but he was not worried. He had managed press relationships for fifteen years and knew which stories got written and which ones were quietly killed before they became problems.
His PR director, Nola, was in the room.
