Page 74 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
He doesn’t turn around.
He lifts both hands slowly.
Empty.
Open.
A ripple of shouts echoes down the corridor.
“ON YOUR KNEES!”
“DROP TO THE FLOOR, NOW!”
“HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!”
My vision tunnels.
“No,” I say. “No, no, no—don’t youdare?—”
He glances back at them once.
Then he looks at me again.
And lowers himself to his knees.
The sound it makes—armor plating hitting metal deck—will live inside my skull forever.
I scream his name.
He flinches.
Just a little.
“Look at me,” he says quietly into the comm.
I’m sobbing now. Full-body, lungs tearing, snot-and-tears sobbing.
“I am,” I choke. “I’m looking at you.”
His eyes soften.
“Listen to me,” he says. “You live. You get out. You heal. You go somewhere they can’t touch you. You wait.”
“For what?” I scream. “For your execution broadcast?!”
He shakes his head, just barely.
“For me.”
My heart cracks.
The soldiers close in around him.
One of them kicks his rifle away.
Another yanks his hands behind his back and slams restraints around his wrists.
He doesn’t fight.
