Page 154 of Damsel in Disguise

Instead of answering negatively, I simply glare at him, which unfortunately solidifies his doubts.

The Crown understands how Ariella is affecting me. Which also means he’s already lived through this once himself.

“We’ll not replicate the flaw that resulted in your creation.”

Everything inside me stops. My mind reconstructs the sentence instantly.

Suddenly, dozens of fractured memories rearrange themselves into something hideous.

The clinical scrutiny throughout my childhood—especially after I was taken by the Triarch Dominion, after my mother was murdered.

The genetic testing.

The emotional conditioning.

The way the Crown always watched me was different from the others. Not like an asset but like ownership.

Impossible. And yet not impossible at all.

My pulse finally betrays me with one uneven beat.

“You’ll not make the same error, one that I did,” he rephrases.

In this moment, I genuinely understand something terrifying—why I was never allowed to be a Synthète. I was being engineered, conditioned for the succession of the Triarch Dominion long before I understood what I was being prepared for—the biological human with the qualities of a Synthète, except regeneration.

Every achievement.

Every psychological evaluation.

Every carefully controlled environment.

It was all cultivation. Not upbringing.

And standing before me is likely not just the founder of the Triarch Dominion but my biological father.

I say nothing. I only hold his unblinking obsidian gaze staring back at me with challenge. Challenge to defy him in this ultimate test of loyalty.

He studies me for several long seconds before finally turning away. “Prepare yourself, Alastor.”

Through it all, I smile. Like I always did. But he doesn’t see the grin stretching ear to ear, lighting up my face.

I think I know what to do, Dad.

45. CLASSIFIED

alistair

The denial message remains on the screen even after passing all sorts of verification—fingerprint, pin number, facial scan, retinal scan, you name it.

Most people would stop there.

Most people don’t know the architecture of Dominion systems because most people weren’t raised inside them.

I was.

So I take my time opening a command line hidden beneath the standard interface. The access restriction isn’t the problem—the location is.

There’s only one section of the archive capable of overriding my clearance. Even senior personnel, except for the other two Triarchs, aren’t permitted to access it without direct authorization from the Crown himself.