Page 43 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir

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“I already did,” she says. “Twice.”

“Right.”

I turn, head toward the back hatch.

But her voice stops me.

“You’re avoiding me.”

I freeze.

Half-step from the ladder.

“No I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

I don’t turn around.

“If you’ve got a problem,” I say quietly, “say it now.”

There’s a pause.

Then: “I don’t have a problem, Kalev. I just think maybe you’re scared to admit you do.”

My grip tightens on the ladder rung.

I hear her sigh behind me. Not dramatic. Just tired.

“I’m still here,” she says. “Still working the same mission. Still giving everything I’ve got. You think you’re protecting me by pulling back, but all you’re doing is making the walls louder.”

That one hits.

Because it’s true.

And I don’t have an answer for it.

So I climb the hatch.

And don’t look back.

But even as I adjust the thermal trace alignments and prep the dampeners for a deeper scan run, I feel her voice in my chest like it never left.

You’re scared to admit you have a problem.

She’s right.

Because the problem is this:

I can’t tell the difference anymore between what I want and what Ishouldn’twant.

She’s in my head.

She’s in mystrategy.

And worse—she’s in my blind spots.

Because every second I let myself want her is a second I’m not watching the perimeter close enough.

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