Chapter 11 Crewe
ELEVEN
CREWE
I wake up before the sun.
Habit. Training. The kind of wiring that doesn’t shut off just because I’m warm and there’s a woman tucked against my chest like she belongs there.
Riley is curled on her side, facing me, her soft-brown hair spilled across my arm. Her mouth is slightly parted in sleep, lashes resting on her cheeks.
My hand flexes at her waist, careful not to wake her. I don’t want to move.
I also don’t trust peace.
I slide out of bed slowly.
Riley makes a small sound—more protest than wakefulness—and my chest tightens like I’ve done something wrong. I pause, watching her. She doesn’t wake. She just burrows into the pillow, pulling the blanket closer like she’s chasing heat I left behind.
I stand there for a beat longer than necessary.
Then I grab my phone and step into the kitchen area.
The fire has burned down to coals. The cabin is cold at the edges. I check the cameras out of reflex—snow, trees, empty road, nothing moving.
Good.
My phone buzzes with unread messages from the brothers’ thread, but there’s only one person I want right now.
I hit Nash’s name and call.
It rings once.
Twice.
He answers like he’s been waiting.
“Crewe.”
His voice is low. Controlled. Awake.
“Talk,” I say, quieter than I mean to be.
Nash exhales. “You alone?”
“Riley’s asleep. I’m up.”
“Good.” A pause. “I needed to hear your voice.”
My jaw tightens. Nash doesn’t do sentiment unless it matters.
“What do you have?” I ask.
“Enough to make me sick,” he says. “And enough to make me sure.”
I lean against the kitchen counter, eyes on the dark window. “You said Dad might be alive.”
“He is.”
The words hit like a fist to the ribs.
I go still. “Don’t do that. Don’t say it like that unless you can prove it.”
“I can,” Nash says, and the steadiness in his tone is worse than panic would be. “We pulled a transmission. Encrypted. Old frequency. Not something that should’ve been active in years. Maddox has someone who knows how to find ghosts. They found one.”
My throat works. “A transmission from Dad?”
“Not a full voice file,” Nash says. “But a coded burst. A call-and-response pattern. Something only one person we know used to sign off with. It’s him, Crewe.”
I close my eyes for a second.
Seventeen years old again, standing on a porch in Valor Springs, listening to Mom cry in the kitchen while Nash stares out at the dark like he can see the truth hiding in it.
“They never found a body,” I say, more to myself than him.
“No,” Nash replies. “Because there wasn’t one.”
My chest tightens, sharp and painful. “Where is he?”
“We don’t know yet,” Nash says. “But we know he’s alive, and we know he’s in trouble.”
I grip the phone harder. “What kind of trouble?”
“The kind that makes a man disappear for years,” Nash says. “The kind that makes him go silent. The kind that makes people lie about a death.”
I stare at the floor like it might keep me upright.
A wild goose chase. That’s what this sounds like. A trap. A rumor. A hope that will wreck us all over again.
But Nash doesn’t chase rumors.
He chases truth like it’s oxygen.
“Why are you telling me now?” I ask.
“Because I need you,” he says simply. “And because you’re almost out.”
My jaw flexes. “My contract’s close to done.”
“I know,” Nash says. “You can take an honorable discharge if you want it. You can come on board.”
I swallow. “And if I do, I’m walking away from Ridgeway. From everything.”
From Riley.
The thought surfaces instantly, uninvited.
Her laugh. Her heat. The way she curled into my chest last night like she trusted me with her sleep.
And the way she kissed me like she wasn’t afraid to want.
My stomach twists.
“I’m not sure,” I admit, voice low. “I’ve got… something here.”
Nash is silent for a beat. Then his voice shifts, softer. “Her.”
I don’t answer.
Because if I say her name out loud, I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep pretending she’s not changing the shape of my decisions.
Nash exhales. “Crewe. I get it.”
“You don’t,” I say, rough.
“I do,” he insists. “Because I’ve watched you hold yourself back your whole life. You’re always the calm one. The controlled one. The one who doesn’t want anything unless he’s sure he can keep it.” He pauses. “And because I’ve got something too. Laney and me.”
I smile. “Congrats, brother. I know you’ve loved her for years.”
He laughs lightly. “I think I’ve loved her before I even knew what love was. She’s on board with this. Maybe Riley will be too.”
My throat tightens.
“And now you’re afraid to ask her,” Nash continues, matter-of-fact. “And you’re thinking if you leave, you’ll lose her.”
I stare out at the snow-choked trees, jaw locked.
Nash’s voice hardens. “But Dad might be out there.”
The words slice straight through me.
“He left us,” I say, even though I don’t believe it. Even though the anger is old and bitter and protective. “He—”
“He didn’t leave,” Nash cuts in. “He was taken. Or forced underground. Or protecting us by staying gone. I don’t know. But I know this—if he’s alive, he didn’t just decide he was done being our father.”
My pulse pounds.
I think about Riley’s destroyed lab. The way someone can erase a life and leave only questions.
I think about what that would do to a family.
“What do you need from me?” I ask finally.
Nash’s breath releases like he’s been holding it. “Come on board when you can. Start lining up your exit. We’ve got leads. We’re moving.”
“And if this is connected?” I ask, the thought flashing sharp. “What if whoever’s after Riley’s program is tied to whatever happened to Dad?”
Nash goes quiet. Then, he says, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
A chill creeps up my spine.
“Crewe,” Nash says, voice low, “if Dad’s still alive, someone has been controlling that truth for years. People with reach. Resources. Money.”
I swallow. “I can’t leave Riley right now.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Nash says. “I’m asking you to keep your eyes open. If this drone sabotage smells like something bigger… it probably is.”
The cabin creaks. The wind sighs. The world feels like it’s shifting under my feet.
“I’ll talk more when I’ve got her secured,” I say.
“Yeah,” Nash replies. “Do that. And Crewe?”
“Yeah.”
“If you love her…” Nash pauses like the word tastes unfamiliar. “Don’t let fear decide for you.”
My throat tightens.
“I’ll call you,” I say instead.
“Be careful,” Nash says.
“I’m always careful.”
“No, be careful with her,” he replies.
And then the line goes dead.
I stand there for a long moment, phone still pressed to my ear.
Dad is alive.
That sentence repeats in my skull like a gunshot echoing in a canyon.
I can’t accept it.
I can’t reject it.
I can only feel the way it cracks something open inside me.
Behind me, the floor creaks. I turn. Riley steps closer wrapped in the blanket like a cape, hair messy, eyes sleepy and soft.
She blinks at me, taking in my face. “What’s wrong?” she asks immediately. Her instincts are sharp.
I force my shoulders to drop. I can handle my own spiral later. “Nothing,” I lie.
Riley’s eyes narrow. “Crewe.”
I exhale. “It was Nash. My brother.”
“The one who called yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
She pads closer, bare feet silent on the wood floor. She stops in front of me, gaze searching mine like she can read every thought if she looks hard enough.
“You look like you saw a ghost,” she whispers.
I swallow. “Maybe I did.”
Before she can press, I move—because if I stand here and talk about my father possibly being alive, the floor might fall out from under me and I refuse to let her see me break.
I reach for the coffee pot. “Sit,” I tell her.
She blinks. “Are you ordering me?”
“Yes.”
Her mouth twitches. “Hot.”
I shoot her a look that should shut that down.
It doesn’t.
She wraps the blanket tighter and sits at the table, watching me like she’s not letting me off the hook.
I start cooking. Eggs. Toast. Something simple. Something normal.
My hands know what to do. My mind doesn’t.
Riley rests her chin in her palm. “Okay. So. The call.”
I crack an egg one-handed to distract myself. “Later.”
“Crewe,” she says, gentle but stubborn. “You can’t tell me you’re fine when you’re clearly not.”
I glance at her.
She’s awake now. Fully. Those blue eyes locked on mine, soft with concern in a way that makes my chest ache.
I don’t deserve that kind of care.
And yet she keeps giving it.
I set a plate in front of her when the eggs are done. Toast. Coffee. The basic building blocks of pretending the world isn’t falling apart.
Riley takes one look at the food and then at me. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“Yes.”
She picks up her fork anyway. “It’s working. Slightly.”
She takes a bite, chews, then exhales. “Okay. I had a thought.”
I still. “What kind of thought?”
“The kind I hate,” she says, setting her fork down. “The kind that shows up at 3 a.m. and won’t leave me alone.”
My gaze sharpens. “Talk.”
“There’s something at my lab,” she says quietly. “Something I didn’t grab yesterday because I wasn’t thinking straight.”
My stomach tightens. “What?”
She hesitates. “It’s a hardware key. Not the kind someone can just guess or hack with a password. It’s… it’s old-school. Physical. And it locks one of my offline backups.”
I watch her carefully. “And you need it.”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Because if someone is trying to steal my work, I need to know exactly what they have. And what they don’t.”
I nod once. “We’ll go.”
Relief flashes in her face. “Really?”
“After breakfast,” I say, firm. “Then we go back on base.”
Riley studies me like she’s trying to see what else I’m not saying.
But she nods. “Okay,” she murmurs. “After breakfast.”
I turn back to the stove, jaw clenched.
Because going back to base means stepping into the lion’s den again. It means walking her into a place where someone already proved they can get to her. And it means I’m going to have to keep two impossible truths in my head at the same time:
Someone wants Riley’s program badly enough to destroy her life.
And my father might be alive.
I set another plate down, force my breathing steady, and remind myself of the only thing I can control right now.
Riley is sitting at the table.
Eating the breakfast I made.
Looking at me like I’m the safest place she’s ever been.
And I will not let the world take her from me.