“Hello?Kaci?”
“Yeah. It’sme.”
“I hear you’re having a bit of anadventure.”
For a second, I thought he was being condescending. Then I realized it was probably perfectly reasonable to characterize a trip that includes two stolen cars and being chased through the lobby of Caesar’s Palace as an adventure. “Yeah, I guess. I just wanted a vacation, but you gotta roll with the punches, youknow?”
He laughed. “Is Justus there withyou?”
“Yeah. That’s actually why I’mcalling.”
“Tell him he’s eighteen hours late for his appointment. If I didn’t already have today off, I wouldn’t be free for what I assume is an emergency phoneconsultation?”
“How’d youguess?”
“I remember falling in love with Holly. If I’d had to choose between standing trial for my life or running off with her, I might have done the samething.”
Fallingin…
I glanced across the table at Justus, and he only smiled at me. Unflinchingly. Totally not denying that he was falling in love with me. Which usually happensbeforeanyone buys aring.
“Okay. Anyway…” I put my phone on speaker mode and set it on the table between us. “Justus is kind of considering actually showing up for histrial—”
Michael snorted. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hearthat.”
“—and we have a few questions. So, the randomly drawn tribunal members are Blackwell, Di Carlo, and Taylor. You know more about them than I do. How do you feel about that draw? How tough will this actuallybe?”
“It’s a decent draw. Blackwell’s a lost cause, but Bert Di Carlo will be a pretty friendly face. Taylor’s your realchallenge.”
“That’s what Kaci said,” Justus told him with a wink atme.
“She’s a smartgirl.”
“Not that I don’t love the flattery, but we’re kind of in a time crunch here. The trial’s in five days—I assume you’ve heard—and two sets of enforcers are looking for us. So, what we really need to know is, how can we get Taylor to find Justusinnocent?”
“Well, he’s not innocent, strictly speaking,” Michael said. “From what I understand, he’s already admitted to what he did, and there are witnesses, at least in Drew’sdeath.”
“Robyn and Titus,” Justus said. “But they’ll both testify on my behalf.” Yet I could tell from his frown that he still didn’t want to involve hisbrother.
“Yes, but unless they’re willing to lie, that won’t help. And if theyarewilling to lie, we can’t use them. An Alpha lying under oath will do way more harm than good. To both of you. The goal here is to find a way to present the truth—always the truth—in a way that will exonerate Justus. Absolve him of blame for what he admits hedid.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Iasked.
“We need to give the tribunal a reason to find Justus’s actionsjustified. Then he can be found innocent by reason of…something. Traumatic stress. Temporary mental incapacity. Whatever the circumstance actuallywas.”
“I’mnotmentally incapacitated,” Justusgrowled.
“That just means that in the moment you committed the crime, your understanding of right and wrong was overruled by some other factor that was beyond your control,” Michael explained. “But it has to be something sympathetic. It can’t just be that you were so mad your anger overtook your ability to reason. That, we just callmurder.”
“Drew deserved what he got,” I told Michael. “If they’ll just listen to Justus, they’ll understandthat.”
“Maybe so. But that doesn’t mean no crime was committed. The problem is that even if the council would undeniably have voted to execute Drew, Justus didn’t have the authority to do that on his own. Not only did he commit murder, he deprived the council of the opportunity to do its job. He essentially usurped their authority, and that’s probably going to stick in their collectivecraw.”
“That wasn’t my intent,” Justus said. “I wasn’t thinking about the council when I killed Drew. I didn’t even know itexisted.”
“I know. Fortunately, there’s another way this could work out. They could find you guilty, but have a justifiable reason to go easy on you. Which would give them a chance to save face, without ignoring the relevant extenuatingcircumstances.”
Justus exhaled, staring at my phone. “How easy on me are wetalking?”
