Page 67 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
He knows something’s off.
I catch him watching me. In the moments between action. In the stillness. His gaze lingers, and I know he’s reading more than I want him to.
He doesn’t press.
Not yet.
“Your timing’s off,” he says, two days before the drop.
I blink, pretending not to understand. “What do you mean?”
“In the sim. You hesitated. Just for a second.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
He’s right. I did.
But it wasn’t the mission. It was the breath that didn’t come when the pressure on my bladder made me want to hurl.
I shrug. “We all glitch sometimes.”
He narrows his eyes. “Not you.”
The silence stretches.
I break it. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I said I’mfine, Kalev.”
His jaw works, but he lets it go.
That night,I sit outside the outpost under a stretch of false stars—projected sky shielding the satellite uplink arrays from detection. The air is too dry, the wind too thin, and every inch of me feels like it’s holding in a scream.
I imagine what the baby will look like.
Sharp eyes. Big hands. Stubborn chin.
Maybe a temper that flares and dies just as fast.
Maybe soft feet, too—quiet like mine.
Maybe a laugh I’ll never get to hear if this goes wrong.
The thought wraps around my lungs and squeezes.
I go back inside and check the mission plan one last time.
I harden every line. Tighten every parameter. Set fail-safes in triplicate.
Kalev thinks I’m prepping for him.
He doesn’t know I’m prepping for us.
Or what we might lose.
