Page 20 of DFF: Delicate Freakin' Flower

I smirked. “Especially with the spiders. They toughen you up and put hair on your chest.”

Gabby exhaled, eyes fluttering shut for a moment. Her shoulders dropped like the weight of the last few weeks had finally been spoken aloud—and maybe, for now, that weight had been handed off to someone else.

I let her sit in the silence because sometimes, that’s the safest place to land.

Chapter Eight

Webb

As the sky turned steel gray and the cabin creaked beneath the weight of the late afternoon stillness, my phone finally buzzed.

The screen showed two missed calls—one from Marcus and one from Matty.

I stepped out onto the porch, shut the door behind me, and returned Matty’s first. He picked up before the second ring finished.

“You’re gonna want to sit down,” he said, skipping the hello.

“Well, that’s always a great start.”

“I’ve been digging and so has Marcus. We’ve cross-checked everything we’ve got on Maddox, and unfortunately, he’s worse than we thought.”

I leaned against the porch railing, my heart rate already ticking up. “How much worse?”

“Really bad. A couple rival developers who tried to report code violations on his builds stood out. One ended up with federal fraud charges six weeks later. The other—get this—disappeared after a boating accident. Except that there is no official record of the boat, the accident, or even his filing a complaint. He's just gone.”

“Jesus.”

“There’s more." I started to wonder if I shouldn't have dug out a bottle of whiskey to take this call. "A union rep went missing five years ago after filing a claim against one of Maddox’s subcontractors. Another guy, a zoning official, got divorced, fired, and arrested for assault, all within a month of trying to block one of Maddox’s permits. Every time someone gets in his way, something happens, and it's always fast, clean, and undocumented.”

“And nobody’s talking?”

“They’ve either been paid off, or they're too scared to open their mouths. The guy’s got deep pockets and dirt on everyone. It’s a one-person protection racket, except with corporate branding and high-end suits.”

I let that settle for a second. “What about the search for Gabby?”

“That’s the other part.” Matty's tone made my hackles rise. “He’s upped the bounty.”

My grip tightened around the railing. “How much?”

“Mid five figures, maybe more. It’s hush-hush, all done through back channels, but Maddox wants her found. And fast.”

“Any sign he knows where she is?”

“Not yet, but he’s asking the right kinds of questions. He’s narrowing the search, and he will find Gabby if we don’t get ahead of this.”

I exhaled hard. “And where's Maddox right now?”

“Out of the country,” Matty said. “He left two days ago to some offshore real estate meeting or something. He’s got a guy running things while he’s gone, a second-in-command type called Clayton Barris. He's ex-security and has absolutely no morals. He’s in charge of finding Gabby now, and from what I’ve heard, he’s not subtle.”

Fucking perfect.

After he told me the rest of what he'd found, I hung up and headed back inside, where Gabby was sitting cross-legged on the couch with a towel on her head and a book she definitely wasn’t reading.

She looked up as I stepped in. “Ruh-roh, that's a bad news face.”

“Worse than that.”

I sat across from her, leaned forward, and gave her the short version—Maddox’s buried history, the missing people, the quiet payouts, and now, the price on her head getting higher by the hour.

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