Chapter 7 - The Poisoned Bite
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I picked up my silver knife and fork. I cut a very small, delicate piece of the chicken and slowly raised it toward my mouth.
Graham watched me intently, his eyes tracking the fork. Constance watched me, her hands folded neatly on the table. The heavy, expectant silence between them was far too coordinated, too breathless, to ignore.
I placed the meat in my mouth and took one bite.
At first, the taste was merely strange, a clash of citrus and savory flavors. But then, almost instantly, came the agonizing, familiar burn. A harsh, bitter, metallic edge scraped violently against the back of my tongue.
Sheer panic moved through my bloodstream before my brain could even assign a name to it.
I had a severe, well-documented allergy to a very specific, rare culinary ingredient. It was a fact that absolutely everyone in the Wycliffe family knew about. Graham used to carry a prescribed emergency epinephrine injector in his suit pocket whenever we went out to dinner. Early in our marriage, he had treated my allergy like something fragile and sacred. He interrogated chefs, checked menus meticulously, and once drove forty minutes back to a restaurant because he thought the server hadn't been careful enough with my plate.
That protective, loving version of Graham had either died a long time ago, or it had been a masterful illusion that never truly existed at all.
My throat began tightening within a matter of seconds. The airway swelled, rejecting the poison.
I dropped the silver fork. It clattered loudly against the china. I pushed my heavy dining chair back, the wooden legs scraping harshly against the floor.
The entire room violently tilted.
“Graham,” I tried to say, but my voice was already a strangled, wet rasp.
He did not move a single muscle. He remained perfectly frozen in his chair.
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Constance leaned forward, her elbows on the table, her hands folded calmly beneath her chin. She watched me struggle with a cold, detached fascination that turned my rising panic into absolute certainty.
“Is something wrong, dear?” Constance asked, a sick, satisfied smile playing on her lips.
