Strand: Upheaval

1765. The King is coming to Boston. And Sean Gunn plans to kill him.

For three years, Sean Gunn has played the perfect merchant in Boston—prosperous, respectable, and deeply in love with Suzanne, the French courtesan who abandoned espionage to build a real life with him. Their success isn't a cover anymore. It's genuine. And it's everything Gunn never thought he could have.

King George III announces a colonial visit to implement reforms that could reshape the empire. Gunn's handlers see opportunity. The colonies are growing comfortable under British rule. Revolutionary sentiment is dying. One bullet could reignite the cause and spark the uprising that never happened.

But Gunn discovers the King isn't coming as a conqueror—he's coming with genuine concessions that might actually help the colonies. Suzanne begs him to abandon the mission and keep the life they've built. And the King's security chief, the formidable Harrington, is already hunting for threats with access to the alien farclanger network and resources Gunn can't match.

Gunn must choose: kill a King who might be the colonies' best hope for peaceful change, or betray the revolutionary cause he's served his entire life. Pull the trigger, and he loses Suzanne and everything they've built. Walk away, and he becomes the traitor who let history's greatest opportunity slip through his fingers.

One assassin. One shot. And the choice that will determine whether empires fall through blood—or reform through reason.