Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 203

Simon adjusted the data. That signal disappeared, and the remaining zones snapped into a sharper configuration.

“That cleaned up the quadrant, Simon said, half to himself.

“I’ve been trying to solve that loop for forty-eight hours.”

Richard’s voice came low and fast. “She just started recovering. I’m not going to let her lose herself again so you can debug your system.”

Simon looked up, his tone measured but not unkind. “This isn’t about testing her. She changes the room. The resonance shifts when she’s here. The others, when exposed, don’t spiral as far. We’ve measured it.”

“She’s not a stabilizer,” Richard snapped. “She’s a person who almost didn’t come back.”

Simon hesitated, then softened. “I know. But she’s already doing more than we expected. We’re not pushing. We’re responding.”

I kept my hand on the table. “This isn’t just for you. It’s for me. I need to understand what they did and how much damage they’ve already done.”

Simon expanded the projection again. The display extended past the known borders of the kingdom, illuminating obsolete towers, dormant relays, and aging municipal structures. These weren’t just old systems.They were hiding something new inside something forgotten.

“They didn’t hide this in darkness,” I said. “They buried it in routines no one questions.”

Richard cursed softly, his eyes following a jagged trail of signals that snaked eastward.

Simon leaned forward, his hands braced on the console.

You’re the one who made any of this visible. Without your readings, we’d still be guessing.”

I reached for one of the central pulses and let the vibration wash through my fingers. Just for a second, I was back in the corridor, the white, light, the noise in my skull, the empty feeling of being nowhere at all.

My chest tightened. Richard was there immediately, covering my hand with his.

Richard stepped closer, brushing a kiss against my temple as his voice dropped to something quieter. “Let’s get you somewhere safe. You’ve done more than enough today.”

I stayed still for another moment, eyes locked on the projection. “Does any of it matter now? They’ve already built so much.”

He turned me gently, his hand steady on my shoulder, his voice unshakable. “It matters because we see it now. You made that possible. And that means we can do something about it.”

I let him lead me away from the console. Even as the lights dimmed and the map flickered into stillness, I felt the low thrum of the signal still echoing somewhere deep inside my chest.

They had built it stowly, hidden in repetition and noise, counting on no one ever noticing.

And now that I could hear it clearly, I wasn’t going to let them finish the song.