Page 115 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
Raw. Staggering. Impossible.Alive.
And it’s written all over him.
He doesn’t rush it.
He doesn’t reach or speak or break the moment with anything as blunt as urgency.
He kneels.
Like he’s approaching something holy and dangerous all at once. One knee hits the floor with a thud soft enough to be reverent, and when he lowers his hands to his thighs, I see the fine tremble in them. Not fear. Not quite. More like... recalibration.
Clancy tilts his head and narrows his eyes, evaluating this new piece of reality like a puzzle box. He doesn’t step back. Doesn’t fidget. Just stands there, chest out, arms loose at his sides. Ready. He’s always been like that. Balanced between instinct and boldness, like the world’s just something to be walked straight into.
Kalev takes him in.
And I swear I can see it happen—fatherhood arriving not as a swell of sentiment but as orientation. A realignment. A hard reset. His whole frame shifts, just slightly, like his weight’s been redistributed around a new center of gravity.
Threat vectors.
Future vectors.
Permanence.
Everything in him refocuses like a lens snapped into place.
Clancy leans closer. “Do you have a scar on your back?”
Kalev blinks. “I… yeah. I do.”
“I saw it in a picture. Mama said it was from a bad mission.”
He nods once. “That’s right.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Yeah, kid. It hurt.”
Clancy hums like that satisfies something, then drops cross-legged onto the floor likeokay, good talk.
Kalev huffs a laugh through his nose, all the air still trapped somewhere behind his ribs.
I stay in the doorway.
Can’t make myself move.
My body’s buzzing with something I don’t want to name. Something jagged and bright and loud that isn’t relief, not really. More like terror in a new costume. Because here he is, this man I buried, standing in my house, building eye contact with our son—and all I can feel is the tight coil ofwhat if I lose you againtightening around my spine.
He looks up at me.
And I know he sees it.
Not the specifics.
But the fear.
He gestures, a small tilt of his head. “Come here.”
I shake my head.
