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“I would destroy him,” Luke said, the thought of a man who preyed as Stemmons did on young girls sickening him. “If I could find him for you, I would gladly destroy the beast.”
“You’d kill him,” she said, her voice flat.
“I would,” he admitted. “With no hesitation, and no regrets. Does that offend you?”
Once again, she licked her lips. “It offends the law,” she said simply.
“Your system isn’t a panacea, Sara. Sometimes the law is insufficient to render justice.”
She tilted her head, looking at him with grave intensity. “Is that why you killed Braddock?”
“What? Have I so quickly been tried and convicted?”
“Luke.” Her voice was hard.
He looked pointedly at the security box in her hand. “I would not deny you the pleasure of doing your job.”
She met his eyes. “I heard that laundry list of kills Leviathan rattled off today. Do you think I don’t know the truth?”
“The truth,” he repeated. “Shall I tell you the truth? Yes,” he said, as her eyes widened with shock, “those men died by my hand.”
“You shouldn’t tell me that. You can’t expect me to just stay silent.”
“You are not naive, Sara. You know how governments work, how intelligence systems work.”
Her brows rose. “Now you’re James Bond? License to Kill for this Shadow Alliance?”
“Something like that.”
Her expression was flat. “I want to believe you,” she said. “I want to believe it more than I should. But even if you’re some secret agent guy who does sanctioned kills for the vampire leader—Tiberius, right?—that has nothing to do with Braddock.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Is that why you came? To tell me that Braddock was a player in Alliance intelligence games? I may be new to this world, but I’m not stupid.”
“You most definitely are not. Am I?”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I am not a fool, Sara. If I killed Judge Braddock, there must have been a reason.”
“That doesn’t matter in the eyes of the law.”
“Perhaps it should.”
“That’s not our call to make. There are lines, Luke. And someone has to draw those lines. The courts do that. Not me. Not you.”
On the contrary, he had drawn that line on many occasions, and still believed himself justified in doing so. That wasn’t a debate for tonight. He came here to gain her support. To make her an ally in his case and an asset for his continued work as kyne. And, yes, to undermine her case if need be in order to allow him to go free.
That had been his plan.
And now he found that he could not do it. He wanted no such duplicity between him and Sara. She deserved the truth.
“Luke?” Her brow furrowed as she studied his face. “What is it?”
“There are things I must tell you, Sara. I don’t have much time. Will you let me speak?” He nodded at the security box. “Will you put that down?”
She eyed him warily, but put the box on the bedside table. “Talk.”
