Page 21 of Broken Blades

She frowned slightly, beautiful even with confusion creasing her forehead. Her hand found the balustrade—steadying herself or putting something between us, I couldn't tell.

"Do you play for the team?" Her voice carried polite interest. Social script kicking in. "I'm sorry, I should recognize you, but the masks⁠—"

"Yeah," I said. "Something like that."

True enough. Close enough.

She nodded, accepting the deflection. "It's overwhelming. All this." She gestured vaguely toward the glass doors, the muffled music beyond. "I'm not usually…" She trailed off.

I studied her hands. The way her fingers tapped against stone. The way her thumb rubbed along her opposite palm—nervous gesture, unconscious.

"You don't look overwhelmed."

She huffed. Half-laugh, half-exhale. "That's because I was trained not to."

The admission landed hard.

Trained.

Not taught. Not encouraged.

Trained.

Like a show horse. Like performance mattered more than feeling. Like appearing perfect was more important than being real.

I heard Harrington's voice in those four words. Heard decades of expectation, pressure, control wrapped in parental pride.

Image. Optics. Legacy.

Don't embarrass me.

Something dark curled inside my chest. Not quite anger. Not quite satisfaction. Possessiveness. Again. Raw and immediate and completely fucking unwelcome.

She doesn't know what he is.

She trusts him.

Good. That made this work. That made the betrayal cut deeper when it came.

But also⁠—

Christ.

I'd expected Harrington's daughter to be like him. Calculated. Polished armor all the way down. Someone who deserved what was coming because she was complicit in his lies.

But she wasn't.

She was twenty-one years old, overwhelmed at a charity gala, eating chocolate in a dark garden because she needed five goddamn minutes away from performance.

Human. Vulnerable. Innocent.

That should've made this easier. It didn't.

"Training's overrated," I said.

She looked at me then—really looked, like she was trying to see past the mask, past the stranger making conversation in a hedge garden.

"Says the man who works with professional athletes."