Page 72 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
I see it in his face before he says anything else. That decision. The one I wasn’t supposed to notice.
“You bastard—don’t you dare.”
We break into the final corridor—a straight shot lined with evac pods. One remains undamaged, open, humming with low power. The others are charred out husks.
He drags me toward it.
I start to fight for real now. Elbows and fists and curses. He absorbs every hit like it means nothing. Like I mean everything.
The console bleeps. His fingers fly across it. Coordinates. Clearance codes. Automated trajectory.
“Kalev, stop!”
He doesn’t.
“STOP!”
I scream it, but the pod is powering up.
He spins, hauls me against his chest.
“I’m buying you time,” he whispers. “Don’t waste it.”
And before I can breathe, before I can scream again, he shoves me inside and slams the hatch shut.
“Kalev—!”
My voice hits the inside of the pod and comes back wrong. Tinny. Too small. The interior lights stutter on, washing everything in a sterile blue that makes my hands look like they belong to someone else. The harness snaps tight around my chest and thighs before I can rip it loose.
“No. No, no, no?—”
I slam my palms against the viewport. My injured leg screams, a white-hot lance of pain shooting up my spine, but Idon’t even feel it properly. Not compared to this. Not compared to watching him on the other side of reinforced glass.
Kalev stands just outside the pod, one hand braced on the hull like he’s steadying himself.
Like he’s steadyingme.
His chest is heaving. Blood still runs down his arm in slow, sticky lines, dripping onto the deck plates. His eyes are locked on mine.
And he’s calm.
Too calm.
“Open it!” I scream, clawing at the emergency release. “Open the fucking hatch, Kalev, I swear to God?—”
He shakes his head once.
Slow. Final.
My throat closes around a sound that isn’t a word.
“You don’t get to decide this alone!” I shout. “You don’t get to?—”
He leans forward, presses his palm flat to the viewport.
I mirror it without thinking.
Glass between us.
