“Leslie Kantor did not give you the Premier’s data cube so you could save Claire. She gave it to you so you would grow to hate the man whose corpse lies between us... She gave it to you so you would grow to love her in his place.”

Leslie had warned him not to look into the files, and of course it was the first thing Corday had done. Every Senator had a secret, some of them monstrous.

“What he did to Rebecca...” Leslie’s ploy had worked. Once Corday had read the file, seen horrific video footage, he had begun to despise the old man. “His dead wife was the reason Senator Kantor would not let us enter the Premier’s Sector. Knowledge of his crime would have been uncovered, he would have been exposed.”

“Boy, Premier Callas had something on everyone, and everyone had something to hide. But when Rebecca died, I saw the change in Kantor myself.” The hard woman looked down at the wrapped corpse; she frowned. “For the first time in his life, when he spoke of the people under the Dome, when he spoke of bettering ourselves, he meant it.”

“I cannot forgive him for what he did to that poor woman, her husband, and their children. The footage of those boys’ murder burns me every time I close my eyes.”

“Leslie was shrewd in her dissection of your”—Brigadier Dane smirked again—“ethics.”

Grinding his teeth, caught in the riptide of all the bullshit around them, Corday hissed, “How else do we stop Shepherd?”

“We don’t.”

“What?” His patience, his understanding of the woman before him, was worn out.

“You’ve left us with no options. Lady Kantor’s attack on the Citadel will take place. You will be at her side as it burns.”

Corday knew what she was driving at. “You want me to kill her...”

“After the bombs go off, right as the citizens rally.” Brigadier Dane, nodded.

“I’ll be busy searching for Claire!”

“No, you won’t. The only member of our resistance who can truly search for the Omega is myself. If this is what it takes, I will give you my word I will find her or die in the flames trying. So accept the fact that Leslie is not going to spare you, a known figurehead of the old rebellion, when she might have you at her side to inspire our troops to follow her into war. You have value, and unlike me, she trusts you. You’ll be in position. One bullet to the head will take only seconds, then you can kill Shepherd, or you can waste your life searching for Claire while the Citadel crumbles around you.”

Absolutely not. “I would be killed the second I pulled the trigger. You are asking me to risk my life, to fail my friend? For what?”