Chapter 99 The Serpent Stirs

• The private estate was cloaked in silence, the kind that warned of danger long before it arrived.
• Cormac Carter stood before the large fireplace, the flames low as shadows moved along the stone walls. Under his fitted suit, his broad shoulders were stiff; his silver-streaked hair slid back precisely. From his fingers, unbroken, a crystal glass of aged bourbon hung. One of his guys stopped at the threshold behind him and started to shift uneasily.
• “Say it again”, Cormac said, his voice low and icy, slanted with poison.