Chapter 3 - THE POSITIVE TEST
Dr. Harris—a distinguished, silver-haired man in his late fifties wearing a dark suit—immediately set his glass down. He reached into his leather medical jacket, pulled out a compact, black mil-spec emergency chemical testing kit, and walked briskly across the marble floor.
He dropped to his knees beside the shattered porcelain, opening the compact kit. Using a sterile swab, Harris carefully scraped a sample of the blue frosting from the center of the ruined cake, swirling it inside a small glass vial containing a clear reaction fluid.
The entire ballroom remained dead quiet. No one moved. No one dared to take a sip of their drink or offer a whisper. Dominic stood like a statue, his broad left arm wrapped firmly around his son Ethan, holding the seven-year-old tight against his side. Across the floor, four broad-shouldered security guards quietly shifted their positions, unbuttoning their suit jackets to allow free access to their holstered sidearms, their eyes scanning the crowd of guests.
Dr. Harris held the small vial up to the light of the crystal chandelier.
Within four seconds, the clear liquid inside the glass turned a dark, violent shade of crimson—indicating a high-density concentration of concentrated peanut protein extract, a lethal, invisible allergen that would induce immediate, total airway closure within seconds of ingestion.
Dr. Harris slowly looked up from the floorboards, his face grave and completely devoid of color.
"Positive," Harris reported, his voice shaking slightly.
Dominic’s jaw locked into a line of iron. "How much?"
"A lethal dose, Don Dominic," Dr. Harris answered, standing up slowly. "One bite... one single bite would have closed his airway in less than thirty seconds. Epinephrine wouldn't have cleared a concentration this high in time."
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A collective, horrified gasp echoed across the vast ballroom. Several female guests covered their mouths, while male lieutenants looked at one another with sudden, dark paranoia.
Dominic looked down at his seven-year-old son, his chest heaving as a terrifying wave of fatherly horror and murderous rage crashed through his veins. He squeezed Ethan’s shoulder, pulling the boy flush against his hip, realizing how close he had come to watching his only child die in front of a hundred people.
