He paused, searching Oliver's face for any flicker of mercy.
Oliver watched him for a heartbeat, the room heavy with expectation. He had not come for apologies. He had come for leverage, for restitution, for quieting a voice that had been used to wound people he loved. Yet the man standing now was not wily or sinister; he was simply a man cracked open by what he'd seen in a mirror he didn't like.
"Do you understand what that means?" Oliver asked, not unkindly, which only made the moment more terrible for the family.
"Yes," Abigail's father said, voice low and raw. "I understand."
He swallowed and took another breath, steadying himself like a soldier bracing for an order he had no right to question.
"Then do it," Oliver said. "And remember: obedience now is the only currency you have to keep your family from burning."
Abigail's father dropped to his knees once more not in the theatrics of pleading but in the posture of a man wholly intent on correcting his course.
