The Table That Went Quiet

And the restaurant changed.

Not loudly. Not dramatically.

Just enough that men like Dominic notice it instantly.

“You’re dead when we get home.”

The words were not said for strangers.

That was the first mistake.

The second was the grip—tight, controlling, practiced. The kind of grip that said this wasn’t the first time Alice Fitzgerald had been handled like something owned.

Dominic set his wine glass down with slow precision.