“Technically, no. An android did.”
Gunner. How could she have called him for help? She remembered the bullseye on its face. Janet looked away. “Why?”
“Zeph was a liability.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to commit murder.”
“It is not by right that I had him killed, it was my duty according to the code our kind live by. When you think in terms of hundreds, instead of billions when it comes to how much of your kind roam the universe, you can’t have one rogue. One rogue among my kind could ruin everything for the rest of us.”
“Then you’d think keeping every one of your species alive is a higher priority. You didn’t even give him a trial.”
Nightheart cocked his head. “Did Zeph put Raphael and his henchmen through a trial before he shot at them?”
Janet frowned and hugged her middle before shaking her head. “No.”
“There you have it.”
She hated the slight know-it-all smugness in his tone. Hector was dead and Lily lay asleep unprotected in the room behind her. They were at the mercy of a powerful organization, and if she knew anything about power, it was that you couldn’t place your trust in anyone with too much of it.
Janet met his eyes. “What do you plan to do with us?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Did you love him?”
His question made her pause. “Yes. Yes I did.”
“Did he love you?”
“Why?” she asked, narrowing her gaze.
“Do you know who he really was?”
“Yes—” she said before catching herself. She had no idea how much Nightheart knew or if he was trying to glean information from her. Janet had done it so much herself in the past that any conversation with a strange man—or even woman—made her paranoid.Keep your cards close. “Zeph helped save my family’s agri-lot. He was a monster hunter for you, but he was also an ass who was misunderstood.”
Nightheart stared at her uncomfortably for a little too long. Each second she spent in his presence made her spine melt under his withering, sharp eyes. The Cyborg had the look of somebody who ate entire empires for breakfast.
Janet gritted her teeth and uncrossed her arms. “And despite all of that, I really loved him. Now, tell me what you’re going to do to my sister and me, because the last time I told a Cyborg I was going to be the death of him,” she swallowed, her throat constricting on the words, “he died.”
Nightheart’s lips slowly lifted up into a smile, and the need to slam her fist into his face grew tenfold.
“Come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
Janet’s fists tightened. “I’m not stepping one more foot away from my sister. Whatever you need to get across, you can do so right here.”
His lips twitched, and his smile grew, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, I was going to show you the dozens of commercial ships trailing the EPED vessel we’re currently on. The scourge of the media is what I call them. They follow me around like little gnats, the kind that you never seem to ever get rid of. Your face is all over the known universe as the female kidnapped and abused by a renegade Cyborg, one with a pristine reputation that worked for me. It’s really quite a sight.”
“I don’t understand.”
“As long as you’re a victim in their eyes, now an interstellar sweetheart for the human race, nothing can touch you. Not even me.”
“So, you won’t hurt us?” she asked, almost afraid of feeling hope.
“No. Not unless I want to explain to literally everyone waiting and watching why you’re suddenly dead. While in my custody, I won’t harm you.”
“Will you let us go home?”Hope.There it was.
