Ballot of Blood

Few months ago, President Adrian Cross was shot dead on a public stage and Velmora called it political violence. It wasn't.

Ethan Cole rose from nothing to fill the silence - a reform candidate from the slums, promising a country his opponents call naive and its outer districts call the first real hope in a generation. He doesn't know that his own bodyguard was sent to kill him.

Special Tactical Officer Sera Vane has never failed an assignment. She has also never had a reason to hesitate - until the first time she has Ethan Cole in her sights and finds she can't pull the trigger. Somewhere behind her conditioning is a person she was never allowed to become, and he's the one who keeps finding her.

As a shadow network three decades deep pulls every string in the capital, a detective who doesn't believe in coincidence starts connecting them anyway - and discovers that the president's assassination, the operative's buried past, and the candidate everyone is calling the nation's last hope are all the same conspiracy, wearing three different faces.

Some elections are won at the ballot box. This one will be paid for in blood.

A political conspiracy thriller about the ones the system builds to serve it - and what happens when they stop.