Chapter 5
The camera angle held the medium wide shot, framing the escalating tension perfectly. The cinematic, slightly warm white balance of the lighting caught the fierce, unyielding resolve hardening on Gabriel’s angular face. The Mafia boss did not move his powerful shoulders. He simply stared at the housemaid, processing the stark, humiliating truth she had just delivered.
Before Gabriel could formulate his next question, Serena’s sharp survival instincts kicked in. She could not allow the guests to suspect her involvement. She needed to immediately reassert her control and paint the situation as a tragic, unavoidable symptom of age.
Serena quickly plastered a brittle, plastic smile back onto her face. She smoothed the front of her sculpted wine-red satin gown, projecting an aura of complete, unbothered calm.
Looking directly across the table, Serena met Gabriel’s cold, observant eyes.
“She loses everything these days.”
Serena’s voice was smooth, melodic, and gently indulgent. The American accent was perfectly pitched to sound like a concerned, loving daughter-in-law dealing with a difficult burden. She invited him to share her explanation, to write off the missing dentures as the pathetic fumble of a declining mind.
Her lips held the sympathetic, reassuring smile of a patient caretaker. However, above the curve of her smile, her eyes were intensely watchful. She carefully and frantically studied Gabriel’s sharply defined expression, searching for any sign of acceptance, any indication that he had bought the carefully constructed lie.
"Is that so, Serena?" Gabriel asked, his deep voice carrying a chilling, measured cadence.
Serena’s smile tightened slightly at the corners, but she maintained her posture. Only after finishing her sentence and attempting to solidify the narrative did she shift her gaze toward the housemaid.
Serena shot Lydia a brief, venomous warning glance. It was a silent, absolute promise of severe retaliation—a threat to destroy the young woman's life the moment the dinner was concluded if she dared to contradict her narrative any further.
Lydia saw the glare. Her hands settled firmly against her crisp white apron. She did not back down, but her heart raced as she realized the massive danger she was in.
"The mind is a fragile thing, darling," Serena continued, her voice lowering slightly, attempting to manage the situation before it escalated into a public spectacle. "She misplaced them before the guests arrived. I have had the staff searching the upper suites for an hour, but you know how she wanders. We must be patient with her."
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"Does patience require us to let her starve at a banquet in my own home?" Gabriel inquired, his perceptive eyes slicing through her false empathy with surgical precision.
The guests remained absolutely silent, paralyzed by the public interrogation of the future bride. The bright, luminous colors of the engagement dinner felt permanently stained by the exposure of such calculated, systemic neglect.
