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)
“Help—” I try to say.
It comes out as breath.
They turn a corner.
And then another.
The base is busy enough that people pass—someone in fatigues, someone carrying a clipboard, someone laughing at a phone screen.
No one looks closely.
No one sees the way I’m being held up.
No one sees the terror in my eyes.
I want to claw at the walls. I want to scream until my throat bleeds.
But my body is betraying me.
My head lolls slightly, and Hammond’s hand tightens in my hair near the nape of my neck—subtle, controlling, keeping my face angled down.
“Almost there,” he murmurs.
The words scrape over my skin.
We push through a side exit.
Cold air slaps my face, and it helps—just a little. My brain clears by a fraction, enough for the fear to turn sharp instead of foggy.
I try to plant my feet again.
I try to resist.
One of the men grips me harder. “Move.”
I stumble forward, forcing my legs to work.
A white van is parked near the service area, positioned like it belongs there.
Like it’s always belonged there.
The side door slides open.
A dark mouth waiting to swallow me whole.
“No,” I whisper, the word trembling.
Hammond meets my gaze, close enough now that I can see the tightness around his eyes.
“This isn’t personal,” he says softly. “It’s business. And survival.”
My stomach lurches.
He actually believes that.
They lift me into the van.
My shoulder hits the metal interior. I twist, trying to kick, trying to bite—something—anything—
A hand clamps over my mouth.
My pulse is a roar in my ears.
The door slides shut with a final, sickening thud.
Darkness.
Engine noise.
Movement.
We’re moving.
We’re leaving.
My vision blurs with panic and rage.
Crewe.
Crewe is going to come back into the lab and I won’t be there.
He’s going to see the space where I was standing and feel the air of it—gone, wrong, stolen.
And I can’t even warn him.
I can’t even—
The van turns sharply.
My head bumps the wall, and stars burst behind my eyes.
Hands keep me pinned.
I try to breathe.
Try to stay awake.
Try to fight through whatever Hammond used on me.
Because the only thought I can hold onto—the only one that keeps me from shattering completely—is this:
Crewe Hawthorne does not lose what he’s protecting.
And I am still his.
Even if I’m being stolen.
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.”