THE NINTH BALLOT

I stared at the silver cufflink gleaming on the floorboards. Victor Bellandi.

My mind raced. Victor had argued against the recount. Victor had demanded Adrian’s immediate removal. And now, Victor’s cufflink lay exactly where the family secretary had just been violently dragged into the shadows.

I scooped up the heavy piece of silver, dropping it into the same apron pocket that held the matchbook. I couldn't go to the police. You didn't call the police in this house; you called the head of the family.

I found Adrian in his father’s old study. The heavy mahogany door was cracked open. He was pouring a glass of scotch, his shoulders slumped, looking more like a man who had lost a war than one who had just survived a coup.

I knocked softly.

He looked up, his dark eyes exhausted. “Anna. Thank you. For what you did in there.”

“I didn’t do it for you, sir,” I said honestly, stepping into the room and closing the door behind me. “I did it because the count was wrong.”

A faint, bitter smile touched his lips. “At least someone in this house still cares about the math. What is it?”

I pulled the matchbook and the cufflink from my pocket and set them on his desk.

Adrian’s expression shifted instantly. The exhaustion vanished, replaced by the sharp, predatory focus of a Bellandi boss. He read the note inside the matchbook. Then he picked up the cufflink.

“Where did you get this?” he asked, his voice dangerously low.

“Mr. Ellis was just taken from the hallway outside the butler’s pantry,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady. “Two men. They pulled him into the dark. He dropped that.”

Adrian closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. “The archive box,” he murmured. He opened his top desk drawer and withdrew a heavy, matte-black pistol, racking the slide with a terrifying efficiency. He didn't tuck it into his waistband; he held it at his side. “Show me.”

I led him down the back stairs. We bypassed the kitchen and moved toward the subterranean level of the estate. The anniversary archive—where Ellis claimed he found the old ballots—was kept in a climate-controlled vault in the sub-basement.

The heavy steel door of the archive was already ajar.

Adrian pushed me gently behind him as he kicked the door wide.

The room was a disaster. Stacks of old family ledgers, photographs, and leather-bound contracts had been swept off the metal shelves. The air smelled of musty paper and something metallic. Blood.

“Ellis didn’t mix the supplies,” Adrian said quietly, his eyes scanning the wreckage. “Someone forced him to bring that specific box up so they could toss this room while we were all trapped at the dinner table.”

“The note said they are looking for the East River deed,” I whispered.

Adrian stepped over a pile of scattered tax returns. “The East River warehouse is worthless now. It’s a condemned collapse site. Why would anyone want the deed?”

“Because of what’s underneath it,” a voice said from the doorway.

We both spun around.

Victor stood there. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows. But he wasn't holding a gun. He was holding Mr. Ellis’s shattered wire-rimmed glasses.

Adrian raised his weapon, aiming it squarely at his cousin's chest. “Where is he, Victor? Where is Ellis?”

Victor looked from the gun to the glasses in his hand. “I didn’t take him, Adrian. I came down here to find him. He sent me a text right after the vote failed. He told me to come to the archive.”

“He dropped your cufflink,” Adrian countered, his finger tightening on the trigger.

Victor looked at his wrist. Both of his silver cufflinks were perfectly in place.

I pulled the cufflink from my pocket and held it up. Victor squinted at it, then his face went pale.

“That’s not mine,” Victor breathed. “That’s my father’s. The old V.B. monogram. I haven’t seen that since the day he died.”

My breath caught in my throat. Victor’s father had died twenty years ago.

“If it’s not yours,” Adrian said, slowly lowering the gun, “who just planted it outside my kitchen?”

Before Victor could answer, the heavy steel door of the archive slammed shut on its own. The electronic deadbolt slid into place with a sickening, final clack.

We were locked in.