Page 124 of Alien War Daddy's Got Rizz
He lets me take it.
Then I turn to the room, drink raised slightly, eyes sweeping across every person who doubted me, undermined me, smiled to my face while waiting for me to fail.
“This,” I say, voice cool and clear, “is my partner.”
Not security.
Not protection detail.
Not a bodyguard or a political accessory.
Partner.
And the weight of that word ripples through the room like a dropped grenade.
Some freeze.
Some blink.
Some stare too long and too obviously.
He’s the Reaper.
He’s death in engineered flesh.
And he’smine.
And I chose him.
Whispers start. Someone takes a picture. Someone else mutters about scandal. One of the Combine councilors actually chokes on his drink.
I sip my champagne, unbothered.
“Are we still being polite?” Grau murmurs beside me, tone deceptively casual.
“For now,” I say. “But let’s keep our options open.”
He chuckles. And that’s what breaks the spell.
The crowd resumes motion, like a system rebooting after a software glitch. I can feel the recalibration in real time—the mental scrambling, the power plays being redrawn around me. No one will say it outright, not here, but the message has landed.
I’m no longer a pawn.
I’m a queen with a blade for a consort.
Later, after two more interviews, a deal struck over bourbon, and a handful of handshakes that might as well be legally binding curses, I catch sight of myself in a mirrored pillar.
I don’t recognize the woman looking back at me.
But I don’t flinch either.
CHAPTER 23
YARA
Tidball resurfaces like a roach that’s learned how to crawl beneath a different kind of skin—alive, somehow, but ruined. The shadow of who he once was, stripped of polish and posture, now a specter with nothing left to barter but stories and a twitching, desperate smile.
He doesn’t come quietly, of course. He slinks into the press circuit first, waving half-truths and gaslighting like a goddamn flag, swearing he was the victim. That I betrayed him. That CY8’s change in direction is a hostile, illegal power grab by an unqualified heiress. He releases carefully clipped files, manipulates internal memos, leans on his old press allies—but it’s too late. Too obvious.
