Chapter 14 Riley
FOURTEEN
RILEY
I wake up groggy. My mouth tastes like cotton, my limbs heavy, head fogged like I’ve been drugged. There’s the faint scent of antiseptic and something else—gasoline?
Fluorescent lights flicker overhead as I blink into consciousness, realizing I’m tied to a metal chair in a room that looks like a makeshift ops center. Monitors line one wall, each with blinking readouts and live feeds from drone cameras.
Then I see him.
Dr. Lyle Hammond.
Standing across the room, arms crossed, brows furrowed like he’s the one in distress.
“You’re awake,” he says, like we’re just catching up over coffee in the breakroom.
My heart breaks in the same moment my stomach turns. “How could you?”
“It wasn’t personal,” he replies, hands splayed in some twisted form of apology. “You know I always respected your work.”
“Then why are you stealing it?” My voice is raspy, but the anger gives it edge. “Why are you using it like this?”
He sighs. “Because the people funding this operation needed results. I gave them access, but only someone with your root key could initiate full override protocol.”
“You brought me here to finish what you couldn’t?” I bite out. “No. Hell no.”
He glances to the side. “I didn’t bring you here alone.”
That’s when the other man steps into view.
Older, dressed in a pristine suit like he walked off a Capitol Hill dossier. Cold, assessing eyes. Sharp jaw. Power practically oozes off him.
“Riley Willow,” he says smoothly, as if he’s been waiting to meet me. “I’m Mr. Stanton. We’ve read your file. Very impressive.”
I try to pull free of the zip ties, but they’re cinched tight. “What do you want?”
“We want to make history,” he replies. “Tonight, you’ll help us take full control of three military-grade drones. A test run. Just a taste of what your program can do in the right hands.”
Horror blooms in my chest. “You’re talking about attacks.”
“Correct.” He says it like it’s no more controversial than ordering lunch. “A few well-placed disruptions to certain political infrastructures. Regime changes. Controlled chaos. And no one to trace it back.”
“You’re using rescue code to launch coordinated drone strikes.” My voice trembles. “That code was meant to save lives.”
Hammond avoids my eyes.
Stanton smiles. “That’s what makes it poetic. Every tool is just that—a tool. We decide what it becomes.”
I look at Hammond, the man who mentored me. Trusted me. Who stood beside me when I launched my first prototype. “You said it wasn’t personal. But it is. You needed me. You needed my mind. And now you’re forcing me to watch while you turn it into a weapon.”
He looks away like a coward.
Stanton approaches, crouching in front of me like I’m a child. “Whether you help us or not, this test run happens tonight. But if you cooperate, maybe we let you live long enough to see what a legacy your work leaves behind.”
“You’ll never get away with this.”
He grins. “By the time your team finds you—if they do—it’ll already be done.”
I’ve been trained to solve impossible problems. I’ve been underestimated before.
But they made one mistake.
They left me breathing.
And I know one thing for damn sure… Crewe Hawthorne is coming for me.