Chapter 2 - THE FIFTH VOTE
Edmund did not hear the vibration beneath my sleeve.
He only heard Adrian breathing hard behind me.
“Never?” he repeated.
His voice was almost conversational.
That frightened me more than shouting would have.
Edmund lowered the rifle by an inch.
“You would surrender your inheritance for her?”
Adrian pulled against the guards.
“I’d surrender every penny before I became you.”
For the first time that night, Edmund’s face changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
A tiny tightening beside his mouth.
A flicker of something beneath the contempt.
Pain.
Then it vanished.
He turned the rifle toward Adrian.
My pulse kicked.
The directors were watching, but watching did not make us bulletproof.
I stepped sideways.
Edmund noticed.
His eyes dropped to my movement.
“You still think you can protect him?”
“I think somebody should.”
He laughed.
Behind the laughter, my watch vibrated once.
A coded signal.
One vote cast.
I had arranged the signals with Miriam Shaw, the board’s independent vice chair.
One vibration for the first vote.
Two for the second.
Three for the third.
Four meant the resolution had enough support to trigger immediate suspension.
But there was a problem.
The board technically had nine voting members.
Four independents were attending the emergency session.
Adrian held one seat but had been prevented from joining.
Edmund held one.
Three others had spent years voting exactly as Edmund instructed.
We needed a fifth vote to make removal legally secure.
The emergency clause allowed the independents to suspend him temporarily if they proved immediate danger.
Permanent removal required five.
Edmund walked closer.
“You know what your mistake was?” he asked me.
I tasted blood.
“Assuming you could count?”
His jaw hardened.
“You thought intelligence made you equal.”
“No. I thought being human did.”
That landed harder.
He shoved the rifle into my broken shoulder again.
My vision went gray around the edges.
Adrian shouted my name.
One of the guards restraining him looked away.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
So did Adrian.
Edmund leaned close enough that I could smell cigar smoke on his jacket.
“My father built this family from coal yards and mud,” he said softly. “Men spat on him because he had no title then. No education. No polished manners.”
That surprised me.
Edmund had never spoken of poverty without disgust.
“He taught me one thing,” Edmund continued. “The world only respects power after it fears losing something.”
My watch vibrated twice.
Second vote.
I forced myself to stay upright.
“And what are you afraid of losing tonight?”
His eyes sharpened.
“Everything my grandson is too foolish to protect.”
Then the guard on Adrian’s left spoke.
“Sir.”
Edmund did not turn.
The guard swallowed.
“The lady needs medical attention.”
Silence filled the room.
Edmund slowly faced him.
“What did you say?”
The man was perhaps forty-five, broad-shouldered, with silver beginning at his temples.
His name was Lewis.
I remembered him from Christmas dinners and summer receptions.
Always invisible.
Always standing near doors.
Lewis released Adrian’s arm.
“She’s bleeding badly.”
The second guard stared at him.
“Lewis.”
“I know.”
Edmund’s expression went still.
“You work for me.”
Lewis shook his head.
“I work security for the estate.”
“That estate is mine.”
“No, sir. It belongs to the Blackwood trust.”
Something cold passed through Edmund’s eyes.
Adrian moved instantly.
He drove an elbow into the second guard’s ribs, twisted free, and rushed toward me.
The guard could have stopped him.
He didn’t.
That told me enough.
Adrian caught me before my knees gave out.
His hand went to my waist.
“Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
It was a lie.
He knew it.
But he stayed beside me anyway.
Edmund lifted the rifle.
Lewis stepped directly into the line of fire.
That was the moment the room changed.
Until then, Edmund had controlled everyone inside it through fear.
Now one man had stopped obeying.
And everyone could see it.
Edmund’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“Move.”
Lewis did not.
“You paid me well for eighteen years,” he said. “But I won’t help you murder someone.”
Edmund’s finger tightened around the trigger.
My watch vibrated three times.
Third vote.
Then Edmund’s eyes dropped.
Not to my injury.
To my wrist.
He had felt it.
Or heard it.
The room became silent.
His gaze moved slowly from my watch to the small black brooch pinned to my dress.
His face emptied.
“Take that off.”
I said nothing.
“Take it off.”
Adrian looked at me.
He understood.
Edmund lunged.
I stepped backward, pain tearing through my shoulder.
He grabbed for the brooch.
Adrian caught his wrist.
For one strange second, grandfather and grandson stood face-to-face, fighting over a tiny piece of jewelry.
Then Edmund saw the faint green light beneath the stone.
His pupils widened.
“What have you done?”
I breathed through the pain.
“Shown them who you are.”
He froze.
“Who?”
My watch vibrated four times.
Suspension threshold reached.
My eyes filled, not with relief exactly, but with exhaustion.
“The board.”
Edmund stared at me.
Then he laughed.
It was not the laugh from before.
This one sounded brittle.
Almost relieved.
“You think the board will save you?”
His reaction confused me.
He should have been furious.
Instead, he looked toward the portrait above the fireplace.
A severe woman in pearls stared down at us.
Adrian’s late grandmother, Lady Margaret Blackwood.
Edmund’s wife.
The woman had died eleven years earlier.
Edmund lowered the rifle.
“Call Miriam Shaw,” I said.
He looked back at me.
“Do it yourself.”
“The board has suspended you.”
His smile returned.
“You still don’t understand the company you’re trying to rescue.”
He reached into his jacket slowly.
Lewis tensed.
Edmund removed no weapon.
Only an old silver pocket watch.
Its case was scratched badly across the front.
He opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
A little boy stood beside a younger Margaret Blackwood.
The boy looked about six.
Dark hair.
Serious eyes.
A distinctive crescent-shaped birthmark beside his left ear.
Adrian went completely still.
I looked at him.
Then at the photograph.
Because Adrian had the same birthmark.
“Who is that?” Adrian whispered.
Edmund’s face changed again.
Not anger.
Grief.
“That,” he said, “is the reason your grandmother made me promise I would never allow you to control Blackwood Industries.”
My watch vibrated once more.
Not part of our code.
Then Miriam Shaw’s voice burst from the tiny speaker.
“Edmund, stop. The fifth director has joined the vote.”
Edmund closed the pocket watch.
He looked directly into my hidden camera.
“No,” he said.
A notification flashed across my watch face.
DIRECTOR FIVE: ADRIAN BLACKWOOD.
VOTE SUBMITTED.
I looked at Adrian.
His hands were empty.
May you like
He had not voted.
And somewhere inside the company network, someone was pretending to be him.
