Page 229 of Damsel in Disguise

The medical staff had finally stabilized him, but the constant, rhythmic beep of his heart monitor still echoes.

I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours. Every logical instinct I possess—the cold, calculating Keinston blood running through my veins—told me I should leave him bleeding in that bed.

He lied to me from the very beginning. He monitored me, drugged me, fabricated my entire existence to keep me contained within his perimeter.

But logic has a funny way of fracturing when you look at the person who threw himself into the line of fire to keep you breathing.

Alistair surrendered his equations to keep me alive.

So yes, I’m not forgiving him because it’s the safer choice. I’m forgiving him because I don’t want a safe life.

I want the demon who looks at my darkness and calls it a puzzle.

The heavy door to the waiting room swings open, cutting through my thoughts.

Asher steps inside, his sleeves rolled up, a faint smear of grease and carbon on his forearm from breaching the Dominion’s local server array. There are a few bandages covering his arms and forehead, but thankfully those are all minor cuts, nothing as serious as Alistair’s.

His face is set in a tight, grim expression as he holds out his phone. “Dad is on a secure satellite link,” Asher says, his voice dropping into a rough, exhausted register. “He’s been calling your personal device for hours, Ari. He’s completely losing his mind. You need to talk to him right now.”

I take a slow, stabilizing breath, smoothing down my jacket before taking the device. The dynamic encryption banners of CynoTech are spinning rapidly across the display before the screen splits, connecting me directly into a high-level corporate conference.

My father’s face materialized first—his expression an absolute storm of protective fury and cold corporate authority.

Beside him, my mother looks entirely pale, her hands trembling from clutching a glass of water from our estate in Sydney.

“Ariella!” my father barks, his voice vibrating with a terrifying, heavy weight that made the speaker rattle. “The tracking tethers on your primary device spiked a localized combat advisory in England hours ago. What the hell happened? Your mother and I are at the private hangar right now. The corporate jet is warming up. We are flying to England.”

“No, Dad, stay in Sydney,” I interrupt smoothly, forcing my voice to maintain a level of calm precision that mirror their own corporate operations. “No need to fly to England. It’s all handled.”

“Handled?” my mother echoes, her voice thick with panic. “Asher sent an encrypted diagnostic report stating a rogue shadow organization breached your grid! You were nearly killed, Ariella!”

“I’m fine, Mom. I swear,” I exhale, showing my middle finger to Asher, and lean back against the chair. “Asher and Adrian are right here with me. They’ve the local network entirely locked down, and the threat has been permanently neutralized.”

To prove it, I casually turn the phone’s camera toward the side of the room, framing both Asher and Adrian in the shot—who thankfully is here too, even though I didn’t notice him coming after Asher.

I gave them a sharp, demanding look—a silent order to back up my lie.

Sensing the absolute leverage I have over them in this moment, Adrian and Asher exchange a brief, suffering look before facing the screen, trying their best to cover the bandages. Asher nearly jumps away from the screen, considering he’s got a white cloth wrapped around his forehead.

“Yeah, Dad. We got it completely handled,” Asher chirps, raising his hand to give the screen a mock, completely sarcastic thumbs up.

“Perimeter is secure, Uncle,” Adrian chimes in with a perfectly practiced, professional nod.

I turn the camera back to face me, blocking them from my parents’ view, and silently mouthed a ‘thank you’ to both of them.

Then with a triumphant, sweet smile plastered across my face for my parents to see, I continue smoothly to the camera. “See? If you fly out here right now, it creates an international data trail that the local authorities might flag. Give me until the end of the week. I’ll fly back to Sydney and explain everyyything in the boardroom.”

My father’s sharp eyes searches my face through the screen for any sign of deception while my mom tries to make small talk with me.

Eventually, against the united front of the three of us, even his corporate authority yields.

“Two days, Ariella,” my father delivers coldly. “One second delay and I’m deploying our security assets to drag you back home.”

“You got this! Love you both, mwah,” with a flying kiss I end the connection.

I hand the phone back to Asher, who’s glaring at me like he wants to toss me out the window.

“Don’t tell me you’re planning to fly back to Aussie with that smiling freak currently tied to a life-support monitor,” his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register.