Chapter 8 Riley
EIGHT
RILEY
The safe house feels different at night.
Not scary exactly—Crewe has swept every corner and checked every lock like the cabin itself might sprout teeth—but quieter in a way that makes my thoughts sound louder. The wind scrapes at the windows. Snow ticks against the glass like impatient fingers.
Crewe builds a fire and pretends it’s just another task. Like the steady flicker of warmth in the hearth isn’t doing something to my nerves I didn’t realize I needed.
I can’t stop seeing my lab in pieces.
My desk overturned. My monitors smashed. My notes scattered like confetti at a party I didn’t want to attend.
Someone went through my work with intention. Not rage. Not random vandalism.
Hunger.
And now I’m sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the couch, surrounded by old notebooks and folders I grabbed in a blind panic before we left base.
My “go bag” looks less like an overnight bag and more like the panic suitcase of a woman who might be having a breakdown but is trying to make it productive.
Crewe hovers nearby. He’s pretending he isn’t hovering. But he totally is. He leans against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed, coffee mug in hand, watching me like I’m a mission he refuses to lose.
“You’re going to get a paper cut,” he says.
I don’t look up. “If I bleed out from a paper cut, I want you to know it’s Brenda’s fault.”
His mouth twitches, just barely. “Still blaming Finance.”
“Always.”
I flip through another notebook, handwriting slanting across the page. It’s messy in the way only my handwriting can be—like my thoughts were sprinting and my pen was trying to keep up.
I pause on a page titled: FAILSAFES + HUMAN ERROR = ALWAYS ASSUME THE HUMAN WILL RUIN IT.
My throat tightens.
I swallow and keep going.
Because this is what I do when I’m scared. I dig. I analyze. I find patterns. I make lists. I build logic ladders out of panic until I can climb out.
Except tonight, every page feels like proof that someone is inside my world.
Maybe inside my head.
I slide open a folder and a photograph slips out onto the rug.
Not a printed photo.
A Polaroid.
Old. Slightly bent at the corner. Two people in it—me, younger, smiling too big, face sunburned and happy. And him beside me, arm slung around my shoulders like he owns them.
Evan Bell.
My stomach drops so hard I swear it hits the floorboards.
Crewe’s gaze sharpens instantly. He doesn’t move closer, but the air around him changes. Tightens.
“Who’s that?” he asks, voice calm in the way a blade is calm.
I stare at the photo like it might burst into flames if I glare hard enough. “My ex.”
The word tastes bitter. Like old coffee left on a hot plate.
Crewe’s eyebrows lift a fraction. “Your ex.”
I don’t like the way he says it. Not accusing. Not judgmental. Just… alert.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “And before you ask—no, I don’t have a lot of old exes sniffing around.”
His mouth twitches again. “Wasn’t going to ask that.”
I flip the photo over. On the back, in my handwriting, there’s a date and a joke.
Evan + Riley / Test Range / Don’t let me crash the drone again lol
My chest tightens. The memory tries to rise—warm sun, laughter, that early feeling of being seen by someone who thinks your brain is the coolest thing about you.
Back when I didn’t know “being seen” could turn into being watched.
I push the memory down and keep flipping through the folder. There are old printed notes from an early project—back when my work was half-baked and hopeful and not yet important enough for anyone to break into a base lab over.
A sticky note is stuck to one page, curling at the edges. Evan’s handwriting—sharp, lean, too neat.
Your code is beautiful. Don’t ever let anyone “simplify” it. They won’t understand what it is. What YOU are.
My skin prickles.
Crewe sets his mug down. “Riley.”
Something about the way he says my name makes my spine straighten. Like my body knows to take him seriously even when my brain is in a spiral.
I swallow. “He went off-grid months ago.”
Crewe’s eyes narrow. “Explain.”
I exhale, rubbing my palm over my thigh like I can wipe the goosebumps away. “He was… talented. He worked drones like they were an extension of his hands. He always wanted to push things further. Faster. More autonomous.”
Crewe doesn’t blink.
“And,” I add quietly, “he always liked my coding. Too much.”
Crewe’s jaw clenches.
“He wasn’t violent,” I say quickly, because something about Crewe’s stillness makes me want to defend even the parts of my past I’m not proud of. “He was just… intense. He didn’t love that I chose Ridgeway over him. He said the base would swallow my work and spit it out as a weapon.”
Crewe’s voice drops. “Did he threaten you?”
“No,” I say, then hesitate. “Not directly. But he got weird when I pulled away. He’d show up at my apartment. He’d send long emails. He’d talk like my code belonged to him too because he ‘understood’ it.”
I realize my hands are shaking when the folder crackles under my grip.
“I thought he’d eventually move on,” I whisper. “But then he disappeared. Ghosted. No social media. No contact. Just… gone. I was relieved.”
Crewe’s eyes stay on my face, not the papers. Like he’s trying to measure how deep the fear is under my words.
“And now,” I say, voice thin, “my lab is destroyed, my code is being used like a weapon, and someone is sending me messages like they know me. Like they’ve been in my life the whole time.”
Crewe doesn’t hesitate. He reaches for his phone.
“Crewe—”
“I’m calling Chen,” he says, already moving.
I scramble to my feet, clutching the photo. “It’s just a thought. I don’t know if it means anything.”
“It means something,” he says, tone firm. “We don’t ignore possibilities.”
He steps a few feet away, still within my line of sight. His shoulders square the moment the call connects, like his spine locks into duty.
“Major Chen,” he says. “Hawthorne. We may have a name.”
I hug my arms around myself, suddenly aware of how cold the cabin feels even with the fire going.
I hear his side of the conversation—short, clipped phrases.
“Riley’s ex. Evan Bell… yes… former drone operator… off-grid for months… possible obsession with her work… I want a full background pull and any contractor ties… and I want eyes on any old contacts or known associates… yes, ma’am.”
He hangs up and turns back to me.
His expression is unreadable, but his eyes are dark with something I can feel from across the room.
“What?” I ask, defensive without meaning to be. “I told you he was intense, not evil.”
Crewe takes one slow step closer. “I don’t like him.”
I blink. “You don’t even know him.”
“I know enough.”
That shouldn’t make my chest warm.
It does.
And the worst part is—some stupid piece of me likes that he doesn’t like the idea of another man tied to me. Not because it’s logical. Not because it’s fair.
Because it makes me feel… chosen.
Protected.
Wanted.
Which is ridiculous.
This is not the time to be emotionally feral.
I clear my throat and shove the folder back into the pile like it’s guilty. “Okay. Well. He’s on Chen’s radar now.”
Crewe nods once. “Good.”
The air between us holds.
Then my stomach growls, loud enough to ruin the tension.
I stare at the ceiling like it personally betrayed me.
Crewe’s mouth tilts. “Dinner.”
“Please,” I mutter. “My body would like to remind me that survival requires food, not just anxiety.”
He moves around the kitchen like he belongs in it, pulling ingredients out of the stocked fridge.
Then he pauses. Slowly holds up a package of cheese like it’s evidence in a trial.
He looks at me.
I glare. “Don’t.”
“Just checking,” he says, deadpan. “You still hate cheddar?”
“With my whole soul.”
He sets it back like it offended him. “Why, though?”
“Because it tastes fake,” I say, grabbing plates from a cabinet. “It’s too sharp but also weirdly bland. It’s orange for no reason. It squeaks sometimes. It’s the haunted house of dairy.”
Crewe hums, amused, and starts cooking something simple—pasta, I think, with whatever he can find that doesn’t involve my mortal enemy. The domesticity of it hits me unexpectedly.
This man jumped into a blizzard for a stranger. Took down a rogue drone. Threatened invisible enemies on my behalf.
Now he’s boiling water like this is normal.
It makes my heart do something stupid.
We eat at the small table near the window while the storm presses in on the world outside. The cabin light makes everything softer—the wood grain, the steam from the food, Crewe’s face.
He eats like he does everything else—calm, efficient, but not rushed. Like he’s built for patience.
I poke at my pasta. “Thank you,” I say quietly.
He looks up. “For what?”
“For… not treating me like I’m fragile,” I admit. “For letting me dig through my notes like a lunatic. For calling Chen without making me feel crazy.”
His gaze holds mine. “You’re not crazy.”
That simple certainty hits harder than it should.
I swallow. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
I tap my fork against the plate, nerves making me fidget. “That phone call earlier. You looked… different after.”
His posture shifts slightly, but he doesn’t shut down. He just watches me like he’s deciding how much truth I can hold.
“It was my brother,” he says.
“You have a brother?” I ask before I can stop myself. Then I realize how dumb that sounds. “I mean—obviously you have family. You just… you give off only child energy.”
“Really?” His mouth twitches. “I have brothers. I have a lot of brothers.”
“How many?”
He leans back in his chair, eyes drifting to the fire like it’s easier to talk when he’s not looking at me too directly. “Six.”
My eyes widen. “Six brothers? Were your parents okay? Did anyone check on them?”
A low chuckle rumbles out of him. It’s not loud, but it’s real. “We grew up in a small Texas town,” he says. “Valor Springs.”
“Of course you did,” I murmur. “That sounds like a place where people ride horses to school and drink sweet tea as a personality trait.”