Page 175 of Ruthless Knot

Maybe that's why my father is afraid of her.

The thought follows me down the hallway, through the maze of expensive rooms, back to the bedroom where she woke up earlier. The bed is still unmade—covers thrown back, pillows askew—evidence of her hasty departure.

I lay her down on the mattress.

Carefully.

Gently.

Arrange the covers around her, tucking them in with a precision that would probably embarrass me if anyone was watching. She makes a small sound as I pull the blankets up to her chin—not quite a word, not quite a protest, just a soft exhale that might be contentment.

Or might be another dream.

I step back.

Survey my work.

She looks... peaceful.

Small and pink and peaceful, like a sleeping princess from one of those fairytales she mentioned—the kind that never have happy endings, not really, not for people like us.

Movement catches my attention.

The robot.

Aphrodite, she called it.Ro.

The small sphere is hovering near the pillow, sensors blinking in that steady rhythm that probably means it's monitoring her vital signs. It's a strange contraption—clearly custom-built, the kind of thing you'd only create if you were desperate for companionship and skilled enough to engineer your own.

No friends, she said in her letter.

Just me... and Aphrodite... my robot companion.

The loneliness in those words was palpable.

I reach out and pluck the robot from the air.

It's lighter than I expected—compact, well-designed, with none of the rough edges or exposed wiring you'd expect from amateur construction. She built this herself, apparently, and she built itwell.

"So you heard those bastards' plan," I mutter, turning the sphere over in my hands. "Didn't make shit up."

The sensors blink.

"Unable to go against the commands of my owner," Ro responds, and there's something almost defensive in the synthesized voice. "Recording was authentic. No modifications or falsifications detected."

"Is she telling the truth?"

A pause.

The kind of pause that means the AI is processing, or maybe just deciding how much to reveal.

"Affirmative. Seraphine Eastman gains nothing from alliance with Kai James Lawson. No tactical advantage. No strategic benefit. No logical reason to offer assistance."

The words land harder than they should.

Gains nothing.

No logical reason.