Chapter 13 Crewe
THIRTEEN
CREWE
I push through the lab door, expecting to see Riley where I left her—messy hair, determined eyes, hands already tearing through drawers like a woman on a mission.
Instead, I get silence.
The room feels… wrong.
Not quiet-wrong. Not empty.
Wrong like a chair that’s been moved in your house when you live alone. Wrong like the air got disturbed and never settled back.
My eyes sweep the space in one fast pass.
Riley’s bag is still here.
Her notebook pile is half-shoved to the side like she was interrupted mid-search.
A chair is tipped at an angle that doesn’t match “I stood up.” It matches “I stumbled.”
My pulse spikes.
“Riley?” I call, already crossing the room.
No answer.
I cut left—back room. Storage nook. Desk area. The place where she’d go if she wanted privacy. The place Hammond said he wanted to show her something.
My jaw clenches.
Hammond.
I turn hard, scanning for him.
He’s not here either.
The pieces click together so fast it’s almost clean.
Riley missing.
Hammond missing.
A request for privacy.
Me pulled into the hallway by Chen’s call.
A perfect little window of time.
My chest goes cold. My vision narrows.
I move to Riley’s abandoned pile like it’s a body and I’m checking for signs of life. I don’t touch anything at first—just look.
Then I see it.
A faint smear on the floor where someone’s boot dragged.
Not a scuff.
A drag.
And beside it, the tiniest dark dot—like a spilled pen, like a fleck of oil—
Like blood.
My teeth grind together.
I spin toward the door and step into the hall, eyes cutting down both directions.
People pass. A couple of airmen in conversation. A maintenance guy pushing a cart. Everyone’s normal.
No one’s alarmed.
No one’s even looking twice.
That’s the part that makes me want to break something.
Because if she was taken, it was done the way professionals do it—quick, controlled, quiet. Like it wasn’t a kidnapping.
Like it was a transfer.
I grab my phone. I thumb it on. “Chen,” I snap.
Static, then her voice—tight, immediate. “Hawthorne?”
“Riley’s gone.”
A beat of silence.
Then Lexi Chen’s tone sharpens into steel. “Confirm.”
“Confirmed. She’s not in the lab. Hammond’s not in the lab. I think he took her.”
I hear movement on her end—boots, voices, the clipped cadence of someone switching from administrative to war.
“Lock down the sector,” she orders someone off-mic. “Now. Seal gates. I want Security Forces on every exit and every camera feed pulled in real time.”
I move back into the lab as I talk, forcing my hands to stay steady while my blood tries to boil through my veins.
“I need security footage,” I say. “Now. Every corridor cam outside this lab. Every exterior door. Service exits. All of it.”
“Already pulling,” Chen says. “Hawthorne—listen to me. Do not go solo.”
I laugh once, sharp and humorless. “Ma’am, with respect,” I say, “I’m going.”
“Crewe.” She uses my first name like a command. “You will not compromise the base response.”
“I’m not compromising anything,” I say, voice low and lethal. “I’m retrieving my asset.”
There’s a pause on the line.
Then her voice softens by half a degree—not kinder, just… more human. “She isn’t an asset.”
I close my eyes for a second, breathing once, hard. “No,” I say quietly. “She’s not.”
That’s the problem.
Because if she were just an asset, I could do the math. I could do the job. I could accept the risk.
But she’s Riley.
Riley who hates cheddar cheese like it personally insulted her.
Riley who held my hand like she wasn’t afraid of what she saw in me.
Riley who kissed me like she meant it.
Riley who fell asleep with her face tucked against my chest like she trusted my heartbeat more than her own thoughts.
My throat tightens.
“Crewe,” Chen says again, controlled. “We are mobilizing. We will find her. We will bring her back.”
“You can find her,” I say. “But I’m the one who brings her home.”
Silence.
Then, clipped and resigned: “Copy. Stand by. We’re getting eyes.”
I cut the call and move.
Not aimless—focused.
I check the lab door lock. I scan the floor. I track the smear again and follow it out into the corridor, one step at a time, keeping my head down like I’m just another man walking.
But my senses are on fire.
I find the second scuff at the corner.
Then a third.
Then a syringe. Fuck me.
My jaw locks.
Sedation.
My hands curl into fists.
If Hammond touched her—if he scared her—if she’s awake enough to know what’s happening— I shove the thought away before it shatters my control.
Control is what gets her back.
I reach the hallway junction where the lab corridor opens toward a side exit.
And there—half-hidden behind a base directory sign—is a tiny smudge of glittering plastic.
A broken piece of her keychain. I recognize it because I noticed it last night when she dropped her bag.
A stupid little charm shaped like a tiny wrench.
My pulse slams.
Direction confirmed.
I take a photo, send it to Chen with one sentence:
FOUND TRACE. SIDE EXIT.
Then I move faster.
I reach the side exit and push through—cold air hits my face, sharp and clean. The service area outside is active enough to hide movement.
There are tire tracks in the thin layer of snow—fresh. A van-size tread pattern leading out.
My nostrils flare.
I grip my phone so hard the edges bite into my palm. Chen calls me. I answer in a hurry. “Go for Crewe.”
“We have a visual.”
“Show me,” I say.
“I’m sending stills,” she replies.
My phone pings.
A grainy frame loads: the side exit door, captured from a cam mounted above the service bay. A white van angled just enough to block the view from the main walkways.
Another still: two men in civilian jackets, moving quickly.
Another: Hammond.
And then—
Riley.
Her head down, her body slack in that way that makes rage go white-hot. A man has her under the arms, guiding her like she can’t stand on her own.
My vision goes sharp and cold. “She’s drugged,” I say.
“Agreed,” Chen snaps. “We have the plate.”
“Run it,” I say.
“Already did.” Chen’s voice is clipped, vicious. “It’s a contractor vehicle. Stanton Dynamics.”
My blood turns to ice.
“You were right about the contractor angle,” Chen says. “Hammond has a consulting history with Stanton. It was disclosed, but—”
“Stop,” I cut in. “He’s dirty. He’s been dirty. He used my call to get her alone.”
“Copy,” Chen says, voice hard. “We’re issuing an immediate BOLO and coordinating with local law enforcement outside the gate. Ridgeway Security is sweeping Hammond’s quarters. NCIS has been notified.”
NCIS. Law enforcement. Procedures.
All I hear is time.
I stare at the still image of Riley being carried like she’s nothing, like she doesn’t matter, like she isn’t the brightest damn thing in that whole base.
My throat burns.
“Where’s the van heading?” I ask.
“We’re tracking through external cams,” Chen says. “They exited the service gate before the lockdown fully hit. We have a line-of-travel. They’re heading into the foothills. West.”
Toward the mountains.
Toward the same kind of terrain I’ve spent my whole career jumping into to bring people back.
My mouth goes dry.
“Why would Hammond take her?” I ask, even though I already know.
Chen answers anyway, and her words are as sharp as the wind outside. “He needs her access. He needs her to unlock what he can’t unlock.”
The hardware key.
Riley couldn’t find it because Hammond already took it—or knew where it was.
He doesn’t just want the program.
He wants it alive. He wants her hands and her brain and her compliance.
Rage threatens to pull me under.
I force it into a single point.
A mission.
“Find the location,” I say. “Now.”
Chen’s voice tightens. “We’re triangulating with traffic cams. There’s limited coverage in the mountains.”
“Then use what you have,” I snap. “Phone pings. Contractor GPS. Anything.”
A beat.
Then, she says, “We might have something.”
My heart stops for half a second.
Chen continues, fast. “Stanton’s fleet vehicles have a telemetry unit. We’ve got legal clearance and a tech pulling the data—”
“I don’t care how,” I say. “Get it.”
Another pause. “Coordinates inbound.”
My phone buzzes again. A pin drops onto my map. A location high in the mountains, off a service road that leads into older training land Ridgeway uses sometimes for cold-weather exercises. It’s remote. Secluded. The kind of place you go when you don’t want to be found.
My vision tunnels. “There,” I breathe.
Chen’s voice is clipped, urgent. “That land isn’t officially active right now, but there are structures—old cabins, an equipment shed, a disused comms tower from a previous range project.”
A comms tower.
My mind snaps through possibilities.
If Hammond is coordinating with Stanton—or worse—he might use that tower to transmit data out.
Or to stage something bigger.
Or to disappear again.
“We’re mobilizing a response team,” Chen says. “Security Forces and a tactical element. You are not going alone.”
I don’t argue.
Not because I agree.
Because I’m already moving.
“I’m gearing up,” I say. “You want Riley alive? You want her out fast? You use me.”
Chen’s voice goes still. “Hawthorne.”
“I’m pararescue,” I say, voice low, steady. “I do recoveries. In storms. In hostile terrain. In bad visibility. Whatever Hammond thinks he’s done, he picked the wrong mountain.”
A beat of silence on the line, then: “Copy. Meet at the ready bay. Ten minutes.”
I’m already running.
The ready bay smells like oil and cold metal and men who don’t ask questions because they don’t need to.
I strap into gear like my body is on autopilot: harness, comms, gloves, the tools I’ve carried into hell and back. My team moves around me, faces grim, eyes sharp. Nobody cracks jokes.
They can see it on me.
They can feel it in the air.
Chen meets me at the edge of the bay, tablet in hand, jaw set. “We have probable cause for Hammond’s involvement with Stanton. Financial transfers. Off-book accounts. He’s been feeding them pieces of the program.”
My vision blurs at the edges. “Pieces,” I repeat, voice tight.
Chen nods. “But he needed the full offline backup. He couldn’t access it without Riley’s physical key and her cooperation. So he took both.”
I swallow hard.
Riley in a van with men.
Riley drugged.
Riley waking up to Hammond telling her this isn’t personal.
My hands tighten on the straps until they creak.
Chen’s voice lowers. “We think Stanton planned to use the rescue platform to hijack drones for targeted sabotage—false-flag attacks. Make it look like Ridgeway assets went rogue.”
Riley’s worst fear.
Weaponizing her work. Turning rescue into harm.
My jaw locks so hard it aches.
Chen studies my face. “Hawthorne, this is an order. You go in with the team. You do not deviate.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
Then I add, quieter, the truth I can’t swallow back anymore.
“I’m bringing her home.”
Chen’s gaze holds mine, and for a second the hard Major is gone and it’s just Lexi—someone who’s seen too much loss and doesn’t want another name added to the list.
“I know,” she says softly. Then the steel returns. “You’ll have an insertion option. Terrain is rough. Weather’s still unstable. A ground approach risks being spotted.”
I nod once. “We go in fast. Quiet. Recover and extract.”
“Exactly.” She lifts the tablet. “We’ll stage at the edge of the training land. You’re our best chance of getting to her without them moving her.”
My heart hammers.
Because she isn’t a casualty.
She’s my girl.
And that thought hits me with terrifying clarity.
Not mine like property.
Mine like… love.
I didn’t plan it. I didn’t choose it. It just happened—somewhere between her laughter and her fear, between her hand on my chest and her mouth on mine.
I love her.
And I’m not willing to let her go.
Chen steps closer. “Hawthorne.”
“Ma’am.”
“She’s smart,” Chen says. “She’ll fight. She’ll look for openings. But Hammond has men. He has planning. You stay focused.”
I nod. “Always.”
The team gathers. Radios check. Route brief. The kind of calm organization that keeps people alive.
But my mind is locked on one thing:
Riley’s eyes when she realizes I’m there.
The relief.
The trust.
The way she’ll breathe again.
I slide my helmet on and glance at the map one last time.
The location pin sits like a target.
“Let’s go,” I say.
And as we move—boots hitting concrete, gear clinking, engines starting—one thought beats louder than the storm outside:
Hang on, sweetheart.
I’m coming.