Logan Ford drew in a long, shuddering breath, the air rasping past his teeth. He understood, with the awful clarity that comes only at the edge of a cliff, that if Lance Ford and Lily Ford did not die tonight, then none of them would walk out of this hall breathing. There was no third road. There was only a choice between two graves, and he had to pick the smaller one.
"Put Lily Ford in the kennel," he said.
The words tore out of him as if they had hooks. He did not look at his daughter. He could not. The hollow, pleading horror in her eyes was something he already knew he would carry for the rest of his life, and he did not need to see it twice.
Something inside Lily Ford snapped clean through. The last taut thread of her sanity gave way with an almost audible c***k, and the world she
