Page 68 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
When he touches my shoulder that night, all I do is nod. I don’t lean into him. I don’t speak.
Focus over comfort.
That’s the choice.
CHAPTER 23
KALEV
The metal under our boots vibrates with the distant hum of machinery buried deeper than the city’s current map layers allow. Each step sends a faint echo ricocheting off ancient conduit ribs overhead, like ghosts whispering in a language I half remember. The air tastes like forgotten storms—damp, mineral-rich, and laced with the tang of oxidized metal, a far cry from the artificial precision of Alliance compounds.
I keep Leah tight on my six, her shadow flickering against tunnel walls as we thread through the underbelly of Yareth Prime’s industrial sector. Coalition tech isn’t just crawling this zone—it’s embedded, watching. Layered counter-surveillance loops feed false signals to surface drones, but I can feel their gaze brushing the back of my neck anyway.
“Clear for the next junction,” Leah murmurs, voice low but sharp.
“ETA?”
“Three minutes, maybe less. The drainage chute’s where we breach vertical. Then we scale.”
“Copy. Stay loose.”
I don’t have to look to know she’s rolling her eyes.
We duck under a bent grate, old insulation hanging like ghost-vines, and I catch a flicker of heat signature ahead—small, erratic. Civilian? Or bait?
We both freeze.
I raise two fingers—wait. One breath. Another.
Then we move again, fast and low, slipping past like shadows under pressure.
Up ahead, the corridor narrows, stone damp with runoff and old soot. The flickering amber of an old maintenance beacon sets everything on edge. The League safehouse is close now. Too close.
The hair at my nape stands up a second before the first pulse round hits.
“Down!”
We hit the deck as the wall behind us explodes in shards of ferrocrete and static. The smell of burnt circuitry floods the space—plastic, hot copper, ozone. Leah’s already rolling into position, pulse pistol drawn, trajectory mapped. I pivot, tagging hostiles on HUD.
“Four,” I grit out. “Two elevation, two forward flank.”
“Too tight,” she hisses. “They’re corralling us.”
“Exactly.”
I ping Command. Dead air. No fallback channel. No extraction confirmations.
“This isn’t a mission,” I say, low, cold. “It’s a cull.”
Leah swears under her breath. “And we’re the goats.”
We move.
The plan dissolves—there’s no elegance to this, no grace. Just brute movement and the roar of gunfire. The underpass shudders with each detonation. Leah leads the break, vaulting acollapsed beam with a lithe power I shouldn’t be watching right now, but I do—just a second too long.
A pulse slug kisses my shoulder.
Pain blooms hot, sharp.
