My heart is in my throat.
Then Crewe does something unfair.
He slams the brakes, whips the wheel, and floors it in the opposite direction.
The SUV overshoots.
“Got you,” he mutters.
He peels after them, adrenaline vibrating through the car. I catch a glimpse of two men inside—dark clothes, faces turned away. The SUV fishtails, recovers, then tears off toward the highway.
Crewe follows for a mile. Two.
Then he eases off.
“Why are you stopping?” I demand, panic spiking.
“Because chasing them into traffic without backup is how people get killed,” he says evenly. “And because they wanted us to chase.”
I sink back into my seat, shaking. “That was… intentional,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
“So they know where I live. They know where I work. They know my schedule.”
“Yes.”
“And they’re not even trying that hard to hide anymore.”
“No.”
My hands curl into fists. “This is worse than I thought.”
Crewe doesn’t argue.
When we pullup to my lab, my stomach drops before I even open the door.
The lights are on.
They shouldn’t be.
The door is bent inward, the lock destroyed like it never mattered. Crewe’s hand comes up instantly, stopping me.
“Stay behind me,” he murmurs.
I nod, numb.
Inside… it’s chaos.
Desks overturned. Screens smashed. Wires ripped from walls. My workstation—mysanctuary—is obliterated. Someone went through everything. Not a smash-and-grab. A search.
“They were looking for something specific,” I whisper, stepping around broken glass.
Crewe crouches near the server rack, eyes dark. “They didn’t take much.”
“They didn’t need to,” I say faintly. “They wanted access. Or confirmation.”
Military police arrive fast. Too fast for comfort. They photograph, ask questions, shake heads. No usable prints. Cameras disabled. Clean work.
