Page 35 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We sit like that for a while. Close enough to breathe the same air, far enough to pretend we aren’t.
Eventually, I say, “Velos Drift. Seven years ago. That’s the last time I built a cell like this.”
She glances up. “Did it work?”
“For a while.”
“And then?”
I hesitate. “One of ours sold intel for safe passage. Led an Ataxian crew right into the perimeter. We lost thirteen people in nineteen seconds.”
Her face doesn’t flinch. “You make it out?”
“Barely. Dragged one survivor. She coded out three hours later in an evac rig that never left the bay.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to know what happens when you trust someone who doesn’t know what they’re carrying.”
Her brow furrows. “You think I’m a risk.”
“No,” I say, and mean it. “I think you’re something else.”
She watches me for a beat too long. “What’s that mean?”
“It means I’m used to watching for traitors. You make me watch for something I don’t have a name for yet.”
She sets the pad down. Crosses one leg over the other, slow, deliberate.
“You’re not great at metaphors, Thorne.”
I huff. “I wasn’t trained for poetry.”
“Clearly.”
The silence stretches. But it’s not empty.
It’s loaded. Tight. Teetering.
And maybe I should pull back. Maybe I should shift gears. Talk mission parameters or sensor drift. But instead, I say:
“Gahl Three.”
She tilts her head.
“Another mission?”
“Yeah. Infiltration op. Local insurgent cell. I posed as a weapons broker. Had to stay embedded for six months.”
Her eyes narrow. “How’d it end?”
“I gave a kid a ration bar. Just one. His father flagged it. Called in the cell. They dragged me into a vent shaft and took turns trying to break my spine with a rebar pipe.”
She doesn’t react. Just waits.
“I killed all seven,” I finish. “Didn’t stop until I couldn’t feel my hands.”
