The courthouse steps rose behind Adrian Blackwood Hale like the backbone of the law itself—cold, immutable, carved from stone that had witnessed a century of judgments. He stood at the podium with the easy posture of a man who had never once doubted which side of those judgments he would occupy.
Cameras lined the perimeter like artillery. Reporters jostled for position, phones extended like offerings to the gods of breaking news. Behind them, a crowd had gathered—the curious, the invested, the professionally outraged—all waiting to see how the latest chapter in the Sterling-Harrington saga would unfold.
Adrian smiled into the lenses.
It was a pleasant smile. Reasonable. The expression of a man about to explain something so fundamentally logical that opposition would seem not just futile, but foolish.
