Red wine spilled across the white tablecloth.
The glass rolled to the edge of the table, struck the back of Carmine Falcone's hand, and stopped.
Sofia steadied her father.
"Doctor."
The person outside the door immediately ran off.
No one shouted in the dining room. The people at Falcone Manor knew when to keep their mouths shut. Every door, every stretch of stairs, every person standing by a wall here had been schooled in the rules for years.
The Roman disliked panic.
But Carmine's hand was shaking.
He tried to grip the edge of the table. His fingers hooked at it twice and failed to catch hold.
That hand had once shut down the docks, opened banks, and made judges put documents back in their drawers. Many people in Gotham only needed to see him raise it to know which side they should stand on.
Now that hand could not hold on to a dining table.
The private physician rushed in with his medical bag.
He checked Carmine's pulse, pulled his eyelids open, then told his assistant to hook up the oxygen.
"What did he drink?"
Sofia looked at the wine bottle on the table.
"Wine with lunch."
"Where was it sent from?"
The butler stood by the wall, his voice very low.
"The Iceberg Lounge."
The doctor's hand paused.
He did not ask again.
Doctors in Gotham learned a few names they could not casually say aloud if they lived long enough.
The Cobblepots had a compound poison that was almost tasteless when concealed in wine. Once it entered the bloodstream, it suppressed breathing first, then the heart.
Ordinary antidotes could buy a few minutes, but not a life.
The doctor administered the first injection.
The numbers on the monitor did not rise.
He switched to a second.
Carmine's