The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 818

For one heartbeat nobody in the great hall moved.

Then the doorway kept filling. Ten men. Twenty. Forty. Fifty of them in long dark coats, pouring in from the front doors and the kitchen passage and the terrace, until every wall of the hall was lined with them and there was no way out that did not have a man standing in it.

Every one of them had a gun in his hand.

"Down! Everybody down!"

"Hands on the table! Where I can see them!"

"Phones! On the floor! Now!"

A gun barrel cracked against a crystal glass and it burst across the cloth. A guest who reached for his pocket was slammed face first onto the table with a muzzle pressed into the back of his neck. The mayor had almost reached the side door. A man stepped out in front of him, put a pistol under his chin, and walked him backwards, step by step, to his chair.

"Sit, Mr. Mayor."

The mayor sat. His wife was crying without a sound.

A waiter dropped his tray. Two guns swung on him at once. "Down!" He knelt in the broken glass with his hands over his head.

Fifty guns. Fifty skull rings. Half the coast, who a minute ago had been laughing.

Only one man in the whole room was still smiling, and he was holding a tray of bread rolls.

Preston stood at the head of the table with his glass still raised and the idiot's finger still pointing at him.

The man who had asked the question walked down the length of the table and stopped in front of him. He was Curtis Bennett's right-hand man, and in the Brotherhood that meant his word was Curtis's word.

"Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Bennett would like a word."

Wine slopped over the rim of Preston's glass onto his white cuff.

"There's been a mistake," he said. "I don't know any Mr. Bennett."

"He knows you."

The Baroness rose with both hands on her cane, and three guns turned to her. She did not sit down.

"Sir, what is the meaning of this? My grandson is the hero of this coast. The Gazette says so."

"Your grandson killed Victor Russell," said the right-hand man. "The whole harbour says so."

"Then the whole harbour is wrong," said the Baroness. "We can all swear to it."

"That's right!" cried an aunt. "Preston was here! He was home with us!"

"We'll testify! Every one of us!"

A gun swung toward the aunts, and the testifying stopped.

"We'll find out who's wrong," the right-hand man said, "after Mr. Bennett has asked his question."

"You wouldn't dare touch him." Gideon was on his feet, pale to the lips. "You won't live to see the morning if you touch my family."

The man behind Gideon put a hand on his shoulder and pressed him back down into his chair, the way you press down a cork.

"Tonight Mr. Bennett's word is the only law in this house. Anyone who gets in the way of it comes with the rest." The right-hand man raised his voice to the whole hall. "Everyone named Tiffany comes with us. The rest of you go home, and forget what you saw. If one of you calls the police, we'll know your name by morning."

The men at the doors stepped aside. The guests ran, and nobody stopped them. In a few breaths there was nobody left but the family, the candles and fifty men in long coats.

Then the ring closed in. Two men to every Tiffany. They took the Baroness by both arms, cane and all. They lifted Preston out of his chair because his legs would not hold him. They took Gideon, and Marissa, and the aunts, and Patricia, who did not make a sound.

Serena stood up by herself. "Everyone, stay calm," she said. "Do what they say. It's a mistake. When they've asked their question, they'll let us go."

A man with a skull ring stepped past the idiot without looking at him, the way everyone always stepped past the idiot.

"Excuse me," Alex said politely. "I'm a Tiffany too. By marriage."

The man stopped.

"Nobody asked you," Patricia hissed.

"He said everyone named Tiffany," said Alex. "That's me. I have a paper."

The right-hand man studied the mild, pleased face for a long moment. "Then you come too."

"Can I bring the rolls?"

"Leave the rolls."

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

A line of black cars waited on the drive with their engines running. In the back of the third car Serena sat pressed against her husband's side, and under the coat on her lap her hand found his and held it hard.

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