Page 110 of Alien War Daddy's Got Rizz

---

Not celebration.

Survival.

My pad lights up again.

A message from Grau. One word.

“Done.”

I stare at it for a long time.

I type.

Delete.

Type again.

Are you okay?

Delete.

I settle on nothing. Because what is there to say?

Thank you for ruining men in my name?

Thank you for bleeding so I could feel whole again?

Thank you for showing me how far I’d let myself fall just to stay standing?

There’s no gratitude that doesn’t feel filthy.

No relief that doesn’t taste like iron.

And yet, I’m glad.

That’s the worst part.

Because beneath the guilt, beneath the ache in my chest that whisperssomeone died for this, I’m relieved. I’m glad he did it. That someone saw me—reallysaw me—and decided I was worth burning an empire down for.

I press my palms flat to the kitchen counter.

“I didn’t ask for this,” I whisper.

The words feel hollow in the silence. A lie. Or maybe just half of one.

Because maybe I didn’t say the words out loud.

But somewhere, deep in the marrow of me, Ididask.

I wanted it back.

And now I have it.

Tidball’s fall was quiet. Surgical. I heard through a contact—one of the few who didn’t run when the walls started crumbling—that the moment Grau dropped the last thread, Tidball folded like wet paper. No defiance. No theatrics. Just signatures. Transfer protocols. A trembling hand.

He was done before he even realized he’d lost.

And now, the empire he tried to claim in my father’s name is gone.

---