Chapter 48: The Test

ADAN

“I’m eating crow,” Kerr said, raising a glass to Adan in toast. “You knew exactly what you were doing. I’ll never doubt your strategic mind again.”

They were in Kerr’s home office, meeting with Clarice and another politician she had recruited to Adan’s cause. The woman, called Fianna, was a close ally of Clarice, and she had pledged her allegiance to the uprising eagerly as soon as Clarice told her of the opportunity.

Adan gave Kerr a little nod of acknowledgement and sipped his drink.

The four of them were seated around a big circular table that held trays and plates and platters of all kinds of breakfast foods.

So far, only Kerr had touched any of it. “And now we enter the next stage,” he continued, leaning over the table to spear a gigantic sausage link with a steak knife. He took a bite, eating it right off the knife.

Adan stood and paced over to the fireplace.

He let the heat cling to his suit and his skin, breathing in the smell of smoke,