Page 115 of DFF: Delicate Freakin' Flower

My eyes found Gabby through the crowd, almost like they were pulled there by instinct. She was sitting at the edge of the clearing, her body slouched in the chair Ira had wheeled out, but her face was steady. Pale and drawn, yeah, but strong in that quiet, unshakeable way only Gabby knew how to be. Her eyes were locked onto mine, unreadable but full. I didn’t need to hear her voice to know she was already thinking the same thing we all were.

She already knew what they were asking of her—had known before anyone opened their mouth. It was in the looks they gave her, the silence that stretched too long, the way no onecould quite meet her eyes. There was no clear path forward from here. No soft landing, no peaceful next chapter waiting at the edge of this hell. Not while even one man tied to Maddox’s operation was still out there, walking free. This wasn’t just about survival anymore—it was about finishing what had started, about dismantling the entire corrupt machine, from the people who funded it to the ones who kept it hidden. Every string had to be cut. Every name exposed. Every snake’s head taken clean off and tossed onto the fire.

And even then, it still might not be enough.

No one said a word. We didn’t need to. There weren’t words big enough for what came next—none that wouldn’t feel hollow or shatter halfway out of our throats. So, we sat in the quiet, letting the truth settle between us like smoke from a fire we hadn’t put out yet.

We just stared at each other—me standing in the middle of the clearing, blood on my sleeve and dirt on my boots, her sitting quietly in that chair like she wasn’t held together by anything more than sheer willpower.

But I saw the fire in her. That stubborn, reckless, incredible fire.

We both knew the fight wasn’t done, but we also knew something else—something no one else standing in that clearing could possibly understand the way we did. If we were going to survive what came next, we’d have to face it the same way we’d faced everything else—together.

Chapter 36

Gabby

Four weeks later…

The breeze rolling in from the Atlantic carried the sharp tang of salt and the faint, earthy scent of driftwood. It swept across my skin with a softness I hadn’t felt in weeks—like something kind, something human. I stood on the beach in the Outer Banks, watching the tide pull in and out in a slow, hypnotic rhythm while the sky above stretched wide in bruised hues of early evening.

Behind me, the agent had just ended the call, but his words lingered like a storm cloud in the back of my mind.Months, Gabby. This won’t be quick.

Months alone, disconnected from everything and everyone I loved, because it was safer that way. I’d agreed to it. Hell, I’d asked for it. After giving my statements to both the FBI and local police, it'd been clear I couldn’t stay near the people I cared about. Not without putting a target on all of their backs again.

So here I was, a ghost with a name nobody here knew, tucked away in a little beach town.

I tried to picture my cousins’ faces, their voices overlapping in concern when they’d all offered to help me hide. It would’ve been easier, maybe even comforting, to be with them, but when I’d sat down with the agent the first time, I’d been crystal clear—I needed to be far away from them. I couldn’t stomach the idea of any more danger touching them.

It wasn’t the violence done to me that haunted my dreams, it was the nightmares I had of them bleeding, crying, shouting, fighting for their lives. I woke up covered in sweat, lungs screaming for air, and begging for someone to tell me it was over. But no one was there, and it sucked as much as it comforted.

The funny thing was, I’d always thought I was a little tougher than this. I’d always been the one who could take a hit and keep going, who made jokes in the middle of chaos to keep other people from falling apart. Now, the silence was so loud it made my chest ache.

And I missed him. God, I missed Webb.

At first, it'd been curiosity. The gauges in his ears, the tattoos, the way he always looked like he’d just stepped out of a brawl or a basement show—he was chaos and calm, wrapped in a man-shaped mystery. I’d even winced the first time I thought about getting a finger accidentally stuck in one of those ear gauges—how do those things even work? And had a barber ever caught a comb in them? My stylist caught the tiny hoop at the top of my own ear every time, so I couldn’t imagine trying to navigate clippers around those things.

But then, he'd smiled at me that first time, and I'd realized the sharp edges were only surface deep.

What caught me off guard wasn’t the way he looked—it was the way he saw me. It was likehe could read the parts of me I didn’t even understand yet.There was a quiet strength about him, steady and grounding, but always with a flicker of mischief in his eyes. He could switch from deadly serious to disarmingly charming ina heartbeat.From the start, we'd had an effortless rapport—something rare for me, like winning a coin toss five times in a row.

I could have lived without him. I had before. But each time we crossed paths, I started to see him more. The way he really listened or how he leaned in when he teased me, like the joke wasn’t just for a laugh but a test.

When the nightmare started—when it all turned to hell—I could’ve gone anywhere. I could’ve called in favors, flown across the world, or thrown money at the problem. But I realized I'd gone to Marcus’s ranch because Sasha had mentioned Webb had been there recently, and my gut, my heart, whatever you want to call it, hoped he still was.

Deep down, I think I knew he’d protect me. Not just with fists or guns—but with that fierce, grounding energy that had pulled me toward him from day one.

At the police station, just before we were separated, he'd whispered that he loved me.

And now, I was sitting on a beach with no way to reach him, no way to hear his voice, no one to even say his name out loud to. The sun dipped lower behind the dunes, shadows growing longon the sand, and I pulled my knees up to my chest, letting the breeze mess with my hair as I closed my eyes.

He was still with me. Not in the way I wanted or the way I ached for—but in the way that meant something deeper. Some people come into your life like a spark. Webb was a burn that didn’t fade.

I scratched at the side of my calf and hissed at the raw, ticklish sensation. My leg and arm felt like they didn’t belong to me anymore. They were too light and too exposed after being trapped in plaster for weeks. The handyman who’d helped me cut them off had done a decent job, though. No blood or need for stitches and only a slightly nervous laugh when I’d looked at the saw in his hand and asked if he’d ever done this before.

He was one of those sun-browned, salt-soaked surfer types—young, charming, and always barefoot called Flynn. Apparently, he built custom boards when he wasn’t fixing leaky roofs or mending fences, and from the stories he told, it sounded like half the island had him on speed dial.

He’d offered to teach me how to shape a board some time, his smile bright enough to rival the sun. I’d smiled back and nodded, but the odds of me ever actually getting into the water were slim. Every time I looked at the ocean, I pictured a shark mistaking my newly healed leg for a snack. Or worse, catching a wave only to snap my arm again in some freak wipeout.

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