#Chapter 196 – Family Ties

“I had to do it, Fay,” Daniel says, looking at me evenly, his voice serious and heavy with the weight of the life he just took. “He couldn’t live – you know that. You’ve read enough Machiavelli to know that if he lived he’d have come for vengeance. He had to be destroyed -” “Daniel,” I say, trying to interrupt and moving around the table now. “I’m serious!” Daniel continues, stepping away from my father’s corpse and facing me as I come around, the bloody knife still clutched in his hand. “This is the only way we survive this, Fay – any of us. He had to die – and I – I know you’re too gentle to be able to do it – I wanted to take the blood on my hands so you didn’t have to –“ “Daniel -” I say, stepping close to him now and looking up into his eyes – reaching out a hand to place against his heaving chest. “I’m right about this, Fay!” he protests, insistent, needing me to see it. “Men ought to be indulged or utterly destroyed – if you –“ “Daniel!” I interrupt again, wrapping my hand