Page 20 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
Kalev meets me outside a derelict freight lift, still wearing that neutral expression like he’s just waiting for someone to challenge him so he can destroy them with good manners.
“How’d it go?” he asks.
I hold up the data wafer between two fingers.
“Like butter.”
His mouth twitches. Not quite a smile.
“Nice work.”
That’s it.
No praise. No applause. No long-winded monologue about how I “proved myself.”
Just two words.
Nice work.
And weirdly?
That hits harder than anything else would’ve.
We stand there for a second.
Just existing in the same air.
I should say something. Joke, maybe. Break the tension.
But the tension’s not bad.
It’s... charged. Like a cable that hasn’t been plugged in yet but knows it’s close.
He looks at me like he’s seeing something he didn’t expect.
And I look at him like I can’t decide if I want to punch him or kiss him.
Which is annoying.
I hate when men are useful and hot. It’s unfair.
“I’ll process the data and send a dummy confirmation to your terminal by morning,” he says.
I nod. “You still planning to keep Oversight off our backs?”
“Working on it.”
“If you need help, I can forge a sensor de-sync report. Make it look like they glitched on their last tap.”
He tilts his head.
“Clever.”
“I’m not just a pretty face.”
“No,” he says, eyes lingering for a beat too long. “You’re really not.”
The air tightens.
