The collective gasp that erupted from the gathered members of the Lacy family and their guests was a physical thing, a sudden vacuum of air that seemed to suck the oxygen right out of the night. Eyes bulged in sockets, threatening to pop, as the impossible tableau burned itself into their retinas.
Franklin Steele—the man who held the leash of every journalist, editor, and broadcaster in Valor City—was on his knees. And he was kneeling before Sarah Lacy, the pariah, the outcast, the family disgrace.
Sarah stood frozen, her mind struggling to process the visual data. For a moment, time seemed to suspend. Then, her innate kindness, which years of a***e by her family had failed to extinguish, kicked in. She flinched as if she had been burned, hurriedly bending down to grasp the Director’s tr
