Kaiden looked at her and grinned.
"Alexandra," he said. "I’ve co to realize that you wield the strongest weapon in the universe."
She blinked. "Huh?"
"Truly." He nodded with the grave authority of a man delivering a battlefield assessnt. "Nothing rivals the tears of won."
Alexandra’s red eyes narrowed.
"How dare you," she said, and her voice carried the quiet fury of a woman who had just ugly-cried on live broadcast and was now being complinted on it like a strategic asset.
Then she moved.
It was fast and uncoordinated, the kind of movent that happened before the brain could talk the body out of it. She closed the distance in a burst that was more stumble than dash, her arms coming up and wrapping around his torso with a grip that squeezed the air out of his lungs.
Kaiden parted his arms and let her in.
His hands ca to rest on her back, one between her shoulder blades and the other at the small of her spine, and he held her the way he’d held her once before, firm and steady.
"Thank you," she whispered into his shirt. Her voice was muffled and shaking. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
He hugged her back without hesitating.
"Are you not angry at ?" he asked.
Alexandra’s grip loosened just enough for her to tilt her head up. "Angry?"
"You just beca my mouthpiece, Alexandra." His voice stayed casual. The words landed heavier. "We took your sad past, your trauma, everything you went through with that creature, and we put it on a screen next to two won with a different problem so the audience would connect the dots. We’re weaponizing your pain for internet brownie points."
The studio was quiet. Several of his girls had gone still.
Alexandra pressed her face back into his shirt and squeezed harder.
"You’re a dummy," she said.
Kaiden blinked.
"A big dummy who thinks too much and always tries to take on too much weight." Her voice was steady now, buried against him but clear. "You didn’t force to do anything, Kaiden. You didn’t even ask. I heard what happened to those two, and I offered. That was my choice."
"Is that so?"
"That is so." She pulled back just enough to look up at him, and her eyes were still red but her jaw was set. "My trauma and my past won’t change no matter what anyone does. I’ve accepted that. So the only thing I can do is make the most of it."
Her fingers tightened on the fabric of his shirt. "You better believe that if so cruel bastard cos along and tries to antagonize you, I’ll appear on cara or do whatever is needed to sway the public. As you so rudely pointed out, I appear to be quite good at weaponizing my tears, so... That’s the least I can do for the people who gave a ho."
Kaiden looked at her.
He didn’t speak for a long mont, and in that silence he saw what this woman actually was.
A girl who’d been broken by a monster and rebuilt herself one morning at a ti, who flinched at the re sight of n and struggled to visit her own parents, and who had just walked into a recording studio and torn herself open in front of millions of strangers because two won she barely knew needed soone to believe them. Unreasonably brave, in the way that only people who understood real suffering could be.
"You’re a dummy too," he spoke up finally. "Taking on too much weight for the sake of others."
Alexandra giggled against him. The sound was small and wet but warm. "Then I guess we’re both big dummies. Because I certainly won’t change my ways." She tilted her head. "And neither will you, right?"
"Two big dummies," Kaiden chuckled.
He held her for another mont, and his voice ca out softer than he intended. "Thank you, Alexandra."
"No." Her grip tightened one final ti. "Don’t even say that."
Kaiden nodded against the top of her head and left it there.
He looked down at the girl in his arms and let the appreciation settle in. The whole thing worked because Alexandra was genuine. Every tear she’d shed was earned, every reaction honest, and the audience could feel it because she was the internet’s darling, the girl millions of people wanted to see smile again. Her sadness at what Ashbound had done to those won was real, her horror at the predatory callers. All of it, genuine.
"Blondie Bestie," ca a voice from nearby. "Are you vying for the fourth Valkyrie spot?"
"Kya!!" Alexandra yelped as she realized that she initiated a hug with a guy - and this was a guy with many lovers - for the first ti in her life and was still nestled against him.
She tried to jump back but didn’t make it far.
Nyx was already there, crossing the distance from her wall in a few quick strides and wrapping both of them in a hug from the side. Her arms went around Kaiden’s back and Alexandra’s shoulders at the sa ti, pulling them together.
Kaiden felt the impact imdiately. Nyx’s chest pushed against his arm with the kind of soft, heavy warmth that rearranged his awareness of the room, and Alexandra’s pressed into his ribs from the other side, and for a mont he was sandwiched between two very generous figures and two very honest hearts and the combination was almost unfair.
"You were amazing, Alex," Nyx murmured against Alexandra’s hair. "Thank you."
Alexandra’s face was pink and her composure was in shambles, but a smile broke through anyway. "Hehe... I’m getting too much gratitude today!"
Kaiden wrapped an arm around each of them and held on. Nyx’s hair slled faintly of lavender and Alexandra’s maid outfit was still damp from tears, and between the two of them he rembered why any of this mattered.
Then he caught movent over Nyx’s shoulder and realized they had an audience.
Tessa and Talia stood side by side with the expressions of won who’d found front-row seats to the best show in the building and had no intention of looking away. Tessa’s grin was enormous. Talia’s face was composed, but her eyes were bright with amusent. His girls watched from behind them with expressions ranging from amused to predatory.
Every single one of them was watching.
Kaiden patted both girls’ backs twice, gentle and firm, and let go.
Nyx released them with a satisfied hum and stepped back. Alexandra smoothed the front of her skirt and touched her cheeks as if checking whether her blush was visible from space. Then her cheeks reddened even further when she realized that, in fact, it probably was visible from space.
She was burning.
Quiet footsteps followed.
Brittany and Trisha approached from the far side of the studio. They walked close together, shoulders nearly touching, with the careful gait of people entering a room where they weren’t sure they belonged. Brittany’s face was still puffy and her arms were folded across her stomach. Trisha’s hands were clasped in front of her so tightly that the knuckles had gone pale.
"Are we..." Brittany started, and her voice was small. "Are we interrupting anything?"
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