Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 31866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 159(@200wpm)___ 127(@250wpm)___ 106(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 159(@200wpm)___ 127(@250wpm)___ 106(@300wpm)
“You’re quiet,” I finally say.
He glances at me, eyes sharp. “You’re thinking.”
“I’m always thinking.”
“I know.”
Something about the way he says it—like he’s learned me already—sends a strange flutter through my chest. Not helpful. Focus, Riley.
We round a bend, and that’s when I feel it.
Not see it. Feel it.
“Crewe,” I say slowly, keeping my voice light even as my pulse kicks up. “Do you usually get that black SUV as part of the scenic route?”
His jaw tightens. He checks the rearview mirror without moving his head. “Yeah,” he says calmly. “That’s not coincidence.”
The SUV drops back when we slow. Closes the distance when we speed up.
My mouth goes dry. “They’re following us.”
“Yep.”
“And you’re… very calm about that.”
“I’m deciding how much rope to give them.”
That’s when he guns it.
The engine roars. The SUV reacts a second too late, and suddenly we’re flying down the road like we’re in some spy movie. My hand slams against the door as the tires bite into the asphalt.
“Crewe!”
“Hold on.” He takes a turn I would’ve sworn wasn’t a turn, cuts hard onto a side road, then another. The SUV stays with us—whoever’s driving knows what they’re doing.
My heart is in my throat.
Then Crewe does something unfair.
He slams the brakes, whips the wheel, and floors it in the opposite direction.
The SUV overshoots.
“Got you,” he mutters.
He peels after them, adrenaline vibrating through the car. I catch a glimpse of two men inside—dark clothes, faces turned away. The SUV fishtails, recovers, then tears off toward the highway.
Crewe follows for a mile. Two.
Then he eases off.
“Why are you stopping?” I demand, panic spiking.
“Because chasing them into traffic without backup is how people get killed,” he says evenly. “And because they wanted us to chase.”
I sink back into my seat, shaking. “That was… intentional,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
“So they know where I live. They know where I work. They know my schedule.”
“Yes.”
“And they’re not even trying that hard to hide anymore.”
“No.”
My hands curl into fists. “This is worse than I thought.”
Crewe doesn’t argue.
When we pull up to my lab, my stomach drops before I even open the door.
The lights are on.
They shouldn’t be.
The door is bent inward, the lock destroyed like it never mattered. Crewe’s hand comes up instantly, stopping me.
“Stay behind me,” he murmurs.
I nod, numb.
Inside… it’s chaos.
Desks overturned. Screens smashed. Wires ripped from walls. My workstation—my sanctuary—is obliterated. Someone went through everything. Not a smash-and-grab. A search.
“They were looking for something specific,” I whisper, stepping around broken glass.
Crewe crouches near the server rack, eyes dark. “They didn’t take much.”
“They didn’t need to,” I say faintly. “They wanted access. Or confirmation.”
Military police arrive fast. Too fast for comfort. They photograph, ask questions, shake heads. No usable prints. Cameras disabled. Clean work.
“No suspects,” one of them finally says. “Whoever did this knew the base. Knew where to hit.”
I hug myself, suddenly very aware of how exposed I feel. My work—my life—laid bare like this.
Major Chen arrives next, expression grim as she surveys the damage.
“This isn’t about one drone,” she says quietly, pulling me aside with Crewe hovering close. “This is bigger.”
“How much bigger?” I ask.
She exhales. “Your system isn’t just rescue-capable. In the wrong hands, it’s scalable. Remote. Hard to trace.”
My blood turns cold.
“You think they want to hijack all of them,” I say.
“Yes,” she confirms. “Use them for covert operations. Sabotage. Attacks that look like accidents.”
I shake my head. “I built failsafes. Overrides. Layers—”
“And someone found a way around them,” Chen says gently. “Which means they either want you… or they want what’s in your head.”
I swallow.
“So I’m not just a target,” I whisper. “I’m a key.”
Crewe’s hand lands on my back. Solid. Anchoring.
“You’re not alone,” he says, low and certain.
I look at the wreckage of my lab, at the broken screens and torn wires, at the proof that someone wants my work badly enough to destroy everything else.
And for the first time, the question hits me full force:
What happens if they decide taking my code isn’t enough?
I lean into Crewe’s touch, heart pounding.
Because whatever this is…
It’s no longer just about drones.
It’s about me.
SEVEN
CREWE
The lab doesn’t look like a lab anymore.
It looks like a crime scene dressed up in fluorescent lighting—yellow tape, boot prints, broken screens, and Riley’s life scattered across the floor like someone shook her world until all the pieces fell out.
She stands in the middle of it with her arms wrapped around herself, eyes tracking every smashed corner like she’s trying to reassemble the room by force of will. Her face is calm, but her body gives her away—shoulders tight, breaths shallow, the kind of stillness that comes right before a person either breaks or burns the whole place down.
I stay close.
Not hovering. Not smothering.
Just… there. Between her and the door. Between her and anyone who thinks they can step into her space and take another piece.
Military police finish up their photos and questions and leave us with the worst kind of answer—no leads, no suspects, no clean direction. Just a hard truth: whoever did this knew what they were doing.