Page 132 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir

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“He wanted to see if you’d choose the asset or the liability,” Thale says. “You chose wrong.”

Kalev makes a sound.

It is not a word.

It is the sound of a man watching his world die.

Clancy is screaming.

I can’t move.

The war stops being abstract.

It becomesus.

CHAPTER 37

KALEV

The cuffs are too tight.

Not because they bite into my skin. They’re built not to bruise, engineered for compliance and plausible deniability. It’s the message they send that rubs raw—the arrogance of thinking they can contain me. That after everything, I’d go quietly. That Iwouldn’tcome unmade for the people they just ripped out of my life.

My back rests against the transport wall. Not slumped. Waiting.

The rhythm of the wheels grinding against the track is steady, smooth. But that’s surface-level. I listen deeper—to the slight over-rev in the power core, the flutter of nerves in the younger guard’s breath, the static tic in the comm relay cycling a secure channel.

They’re not just relocating me.

They’re moving me into a final position.

For erasure. Or leverage. Or worse.

I crack my neck. Then my knuckles. Slow. Deliberate.

I wait until the second turn.

Because I know this route.I built it.Back when I was still “useful.”

The moment the transport hits the incline tunnel—one of only two spots without a surveillance relay—I move.

I twist my hands outward, break the skin on my left thumb dislocating it to slide the cuff just far enough to get the leverage I need. My shoulder screams. I scream with it, but not in surrender. In purpose.

My foot hooks the restraint column. I yank. Hard.

The bolt gives.

So does the lock.

The cuffs fall.

The guards notice a half-second too late.

One swings his baton. I duck, grab his arm mid-swing, and use his momentum to throw him face-first into the wall. He crumples with a wet crack.

The other pulls his sidearm.

Bad move.

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