Chapter 1 - The Boy Beneath the Chandeliers
The rich woman kicked the chair away from my six-year-old nephew, and the sound of his knees hitting marble stopped a room full of music.
I saw it from the ballroom doors. Noah's white shirt was drenched in brown sauce. A silver serving tray spun beside him, scattering potatoes across the floor. Above him stood Beatrice Kessler, the woman whose charity had invited us to its glittering Philadelphia fundraiser. She wore diamonds worth more than my yearly salary and looked annoyed that a frightened child was crying.
"Don't touch that," she snapped when Noah reached for the chair. "You already ruined the evening."
I ran. My heels slid on the polished floor as I lifted him. He curled into my chest, hot tears wetting my neck. I had seen wealth excuse cruelty, but never this.
"Get behind me, buddy," I whispered.
"He shouted during my speech," Beatrice told the guests. "Children need discipline."
"You poured food over him." My voice shook. "And you knocked him down."
Her open hand struck my face. My ears rang. A violinist lowered her bow.
"Apologize," Beatrice ordered.
"To him," I said. "You apologize to him."
Her expression changed. She opened a black evening clutch and drew a compact handgun. Someone screamed. Noah clung to the back of my dress, and I knew that if I ducked, the muzzle would point straight at him.
I caught her wrist with both hands, pushed it away from his head, and drove my shoulder against her. We stumbled into a towering wall of champagne flutes. Glass burst around us. A wine cart rolled into an arrangement of white roses. The gun slipped from her hand and skidded under the cart.
"Holly!" Noah cried.
I pulled him against the base of a table, shielding him from falling crystal. Beatrice rose slowly, looking not at me but at the gun. For one terrible second she seemed ready to crawl after it.
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Then a security guard stepped through the wreckage, drew his own weapon, and aimed it directly at my chest.
"Put the boy down," he said.
