Page 101 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
Same rhythm.
Same weight.
I place a hand against the panel beside the door and trigger the scanner.
It hums—longer than usual.
Then a soft green light pulses, and a name flashes on the readout.
Kalev.
My body forgets how to move.
A cold flood slams through my chest, and I stare at the panel like it’s playing some kind of sick joke. The name burns there, carved out of memory, untouched by time.
The screen flickers. Then goes blank.
Stillness.
I feel my breath catch on the edge of a sob and clamp down on it.
It can’t be. Itcan’t.
But my hand is already unlocking the door.
The latch disengages.
And when I open it?—
There he is.
Kalev.
He stands framed in the doorway, tall and still, like some goddamn storybook revenant come to collect on old promises.
The wind dies behind him. Everything goes still.
He doesn’t speak. Not yet.
And I just stare.
The first thing that hits me is the silhouette. Bigger than memory—like the years stretched him out, hardened him into something less human. His shoulders are broader, or maybe the coat just makes him look that way, but he’shere, solid, taking up space I thought I’d long since buried.
He’s gaunt, though. Not starving, but worn. Like a man who stopped sleeping and never started again. There’s a scar above his eyebrow I’ve never seen before, a thin silver groove that disappears into his hairline. Another one creeps down his jaw, tight and white.
His mouth opens like he’s going to speak—but doesn’t.
And then he does.
“Leah,” he says, voice like gravel soaked in rain.
That one word tears the floor out from under me.
For a heartbeat, my brain flinches. Refuses him. My eyes replace him with the version I used to know—cleaner, warmer, always half a second from smiling. I see that version standing in the shadows behind this one, flickering like a glitch.
But the one here now? He’s real.
Too real.
