Page 147 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
He tells the truth.
“We are at war on seventeen fronts,” Dowron says. “We are losing five of them. If the civilian population ever fully understood what containment actually costs, the Alliance would collapse in under a year.”
“So you turned me into your monster.”
“Yes,” he says evenly. “And you were exceptional at it.”
I lean both hands on the desk again.
“You don’t get to call what I amyours.”
He swallows.
“What do you want?”
There it is.
The sound of a man recognizing checkmate.
I don’t hesitate.
“Permanent disengagement,” I say. “Me. Leah. Our son. All Alliance oversight terminated. No trackers. No observers. No assets embedded in our orbit. No contact. No files reopened later when someone decides they miss owning me.”
Dowron stares.
“You’re asking me to let you walk away with classified intelligence embedded in your head.”
“I’m telling you what happens if you don’t.”
He studies me now the way he used to study battlefield projections.
Cold.
Calculating.
“How do I know you won’t burn us anyway?”
“You don’t,” I say. “That’s what leverage feels like.”
His jaw works.
“And the handler?”
“Arrest,” I say. “Public. Trial. Full transparency. He answers for Leah and Clancy.”
Dowron rubs a hand down his face.
“You’re dismantling decades of operational doctrine.”
“I’m dismantlingyou.”
Another long silence.
Then he sits.
Slow.
Old.
