Chapter 2
The heavy pall of white plaster dust settled slowly over the ruined banquet hall, coating the elegant marble floor in a ghostly film. Guests began coughing and shifting nervously, breaking the stunned paralysis that had gripped the room since the chandelier’s catastrophic descent. Jax remained kneeling on one knee amid the sticky ruins of buttercream frosting and spun sugar, his arms still firmly wrapped around the toddler in the yellow dress. His heart hammered a violent, erratic rhythm against his ribs, a sensation he had not experienced since his days running protection details in the city's unforgiving underbelly. He looked down at the little girl, whose innocent brown eyes blinked back at him with total serenity, completely oblivious to the tragedy that had missed her by mere inches.
A few yards away, the seven-year-old boy in the miniature black suit began to tremble, his small hands clutching the lapels of his jacket as the reality of the situation crashed down upon him. He took a hesitant step forward through the settling debris, his sneakers crunching softly against broken crystal. Jax rose slowly to his feet, keeping the toddler secure against his hip, and gestured gently for the boy to approach. The boy’s father—a man named Julian whom Jax had known through superficial business circles—pushed his way frantically through the crowd of onlookers, his face drained of all color, sweat beading heavily on his forehead. Julian dropped to his knees beside his son, pulling the boy into a crushing, desperate embrace, whispering fierce, incoherent words of gratitude into the child’s neatly combed hair.
Jax watched the emotional reunion with hooded, contemplative eyes. His gaze then drifted toward the perimeter of the room, where a waitress in a crisp maid uniform stood frozen against the mahogany wall. Her posture was rigidly unnatural, her fingers digging deeply into the fabric of her apron, and her eyes darted nervously toward the shattered ceiling mount rather than the weeping father and son. Jax noticed a subtle, chilling detail: her left hand was bandaged beneath a white cotton glove, and a faint smear of dark
