Page 7 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
“Yeah,” I say. “Terminal's got gremlins. I’m gonna run a full cold wipe from the dorm.”
“You need backup?”
I smile. “Please. If I needed backup, I’d call your mom.”
He flips me off without looking offended. Ritual.
I trudge on home, hands thrust in my pockets while I hum some electronic pop song I can’t get out of my head. When I arrive, my dorm room is as depressing as it was yesterday: metal walls, narrow cot, light flicker that no one will fix until the roof collapses.
I triple-lock the door. Check the hidden latch under the heater. Pull out the go-bag I swore I’d never use.
Everything’s still there.
Burner creds. Route jumpers. My backup pad with the codes etched into the casing like they’re prayers.
And at the very bottom, wrapped in cloth?
A photo I haven’t looked at in months.
I touch it with my fingertips. Don’t open it. Just… remember that it’s there. That he’s there. That this isn’t just survival.
It’s strategy.
I sit back on the bed and let my head fall against the wall. Cold steel meets tired skull.
Someone’s watching.
And I’m going to find out who before they decide to stop watching and start knocking.
Because if this goes bad, I won’t have time to pack again.
CHAPTER 3
KALEV
Spuel is just how I remember it. As in, I wish I didn’t, but I digress.
The access logs don’t lie.
They never do. People lie. Systems can be made to. But the logs—the real ones, the ones buried three layers beneath the clearance you think is enough—those are honest in the way that dying men are. Blunt. Ugly. Unavoidable.
And what they’re telling me now, as I sit alone in the crawlspace of Spuel’s off-grid surveillance node, knee-deep in heat exhaust and static noise, is that the leak’s been whispering from inside the Earthling enclave for weeks. Maybe longer.
One terminal. Human enclave. ID tag rerouting with just enough finesse to avoid red flags but just enough sloppiness to leave a trail, like a kid covering their eyes and pretending no one can see them.
But I see you.
I highlight the signature fragment again. Trace its staggered rhythm. It doesn’t behave like enemy ops—there’s no greed in the data being funneled out. No coordinates sold. No military pings. It’s dust. Shipping anomalies. Door access codes. Stuff even smugglers would call boring.
This isn’t sabotage.
It’s protection.
I lean back on my heels, shoulder scraping the cold panel behind me, and exhale slow. The smell in here’s a cocktail of fried circuits and synthetic lubricant, bitter and biting like the inside of a burned-out mech suit. It fits. Everything here’s on the edge of collapse, but held together by stubborn will.
Just like her.
I start tailing her two days later.
