He had known his son.

He had known that an appeal to my conscience would accomplish nothing, because he had spent my whole childhood training the conscience out of me.

So he had not appealed to my conscience.

He had done the one thing he knew would work on a man like the one he had made me — he had made virtue the only move left on the board.

He had arranged the world so that the sole path by which I could keep everything I valued ran directly through becoming a better man than he had raised me to be.