Page 16 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
For a second, it almost feels like we’re just... people. Sitting. Talking. Not planning a semi-illegal op with high-value implications and enough risk to get us both spaced if anyone’s watching.
Then my wrist comm buzzes.
Low frequency. Encrypted.
I tap the interface.
A single line scrolls across the display:
OPERATIONAL SYNC: UNEXPECTEDLY EFFICIENT. MONITORING CONTINUES.
Alliance Oversight Node.
I don’t respond.
Leah notices. Her eyes narrow.
“Problem?”
“Just a reminder,” I say.
“That Big Brother’s always watching?”
“That even silence gets flagged if you speak it too well.”
She goes still.
“I’m a liability,” she says, voice flat.
“No.”
“You sure? ‘Cause that sounded like a warning.”
“It’s not you they’re worried about.”
She leans forward. “Then who?”
“Me.”
She studies me now, and I feel it.
Like pressure through a sealed bulkhead. Not immediate. But mounting. Like she’s gauging not just what I’ve said, but what Ididn’t.
We’re past the outlines now.
We’re in the unspoken space between trust and threat.
And still, I feel it building between us—that thing I won’t name.
Not desire. That’s too soft a word. It’stension. Like the space between two magnets trained to snap together but held inches apart. Every glance feels like a loaded weapon. Every silence stretches longer than it should.
I watch the way she brushes hair from her cheek.
The tilt of her head when she re-checks the schematic.
The way her fingers drum against the table in a rhythm I almost—but not quite—recognize.
I should be focusing.
