Page 66 of DFF: Delicate Freakin' Flower

The back of my neck prickled. “Have you handed them over?”

Ren chuckled, and I felt something sinister in me wake up. “Not yet. Thought we’d hold them a little longer, see if they'll have a talk with us.”

I shared a look with Marcus, and when he rolled his eyes, I knew that, as much as I wanted to do the opposite, we needed to do this properly. “Hand them over,” I sighed, rubbing my eyes. “Let the feds deal with it. We need to keep it clean, I don’t want our names in any reports.”

There was silence, then Cole spoke again, this time slower. “We could drive out to help you.”

I shut my eyes for a second. I wanted to say yes and have the extra backup. I wanted more people I trusted around Gabby. But I also couldn’t drag them deeper into this mess. This was my choice and mess, and if it blew up, I wasn’t taking anyone else down with us.

“No, let me handle it. I’ll get my brothers to step in if I need more hands. You two keep eyes on your families and watch your backs in case more come. If the guys talk before they're taken, let me know what they say.”

They didn’t like it, I could hear it in the long silence that followed.

But eventually, Ren sighed. “All right. You call the second things get ugly, though.”

“I will.”

Ahead of us, the Orlando skyline rose out of the haze, sunlight glinting off glass and steel. It was the kind of city where monsters wore suits and smiled for the cameras. And somewhere in the middle of it, Gabby was walking straight into the lion’s den.

I clenched my jaw and focused on the road, my grip tightening with every mile.

The hotel cameinto view ahead, looming like a beacon or maybe a trap.

The Halcyon was all clean lines and glossy windows, with perfectly manicured landscaping designed to distract you from the truth—that you were in the heart of a city where people vanished for far less than what Gabby knew.

Marcus took the corner fast, tires gripping the asphalt, and we slid into the parking garage behind the building with two other trucks following. Eddie pulled in beside us, already talking into the comm device we’d passed out during the drive.

I jumped out of the truck before it had even come to a complete stop, my heart already racing. Gabby was inside—alone—and still wasn’t answering her phone. I’d called three times during the drive down: once when we crossed the state line, again twenty minutes ago, and a third time just now, standing in thehotel garage with my pulse pounding so hard it felt like my heart was echoing in my ears.

There was nothing, not even a declined call. And that silence was the part that scared me the most.

“She’s still not answering,” I told Marcus as he popped the tailgate and passed out gear—low-profile earpieces, concealed sidearms, and burner comms with encrypted lines. “If she was okay, she’d have picked up by now.”

“She’s not stupid,” he replied. “But she’s alone, and that’s the part I don’t like.”

“None of us do,” agreed Eddie, falling in beside me. “But we’ve got people moving.”

And we did. The Townsend name wasn’t just a name in this part of the country. We not only had the ranch behind us, but my family had respect and other business ventures.

Our other brothers, Elijah, Jackson, Jesse, and Wes, were already deployed and spread out around the hotel. Friends from the old crew had either arrived or were in position. One of them—Kade—had eyes on the lobby. Another, Boone, had slipped into hotel staff clothes to monitor the elevators. Elijah and Wes were working their way up near the penthouse floors, heading toward the stairwells.

In the room next door to Gabby’s were Jackson and Jesse. They’d gone in about five minutes earlier, using a key card I’d obtained from a desk manager who didn’t ask too many questions and had a clear appreciation for cash.

We had eyes, and we had muscle, but what we didn’t have was time. And that was the one thing keeping my lungs locked tight.I couldn’t hear her voice or see her face, and I had no way of knowing if she was already too deep into whatever trap she’d set for herself.

“She’s not just the bait,” I said aloud, more to myself than anyone else. “She thinks she’s the solution.”

Eddie nodded grimly. “She’s trying to protect you and your family. She thinks walking into this alone is going to end it.”

I scrubbed a hand down my face and stared up at the building’s sleek mirrored windows. “We get in there, and we end it our way.”

We split up. Marcus and Wes took the freight elevator through the service hallway, creeping toward their position. A quick pulse from Jackson came through the comms, letting me know they were in place. Jesse was stationed on the other side of Gabby’s room, listening through the shared wall with a directional mic, waiting for the signal to move.

But the anxiety wouldn’t let go. It gnawed at me, a constant, biting reminder of how quickly things could go to hell. All it would take was a handful of seconds for Maddox to walk in, for Gabby to be caught off guard, disarmed, and taken, just like that.

I sent one more call to her phone, jaw locked tight. My heart hammered as I listened to the ringing.

Once. Twice. Still no answer. It just rang until it didn’t, and then it went straight to voicemail.

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