Page 70 of DFF: Delicate Freakin' Flower

They’d found the packaging, but they hadn't seen the tracker. I still had a chance.

I stood and reached beneath the chair, feeling for the device I’d hidden earlier. Once it was in my hand, I lifted my shirt and carefully slid it down the front of my jeans, tucking it into the waistband of my underwear just above my hipbone. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was secure—and, more importantly, unlikely to be found. They hadn’t tied me up or bothered with a thorough search, and if they did, the device was small and flat enough to pass as nothing more than a harmless piece of clothing hardware.

Letting my shirt fall back into place, I brushed off my hands. For a few minutes, I leaned back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, letting my brain wander just to keep the panic from settling in too deep.

If this were a movie, something would’ve happened by now.

Maybe an earthquake. Something big and biblical, cracking the ground wide open and swallowing Maddox and his goons into the earth. Or a hurricane. A wild one, roaring through the building, ripping steel and concrete apart while I clung to a buried pipe, hair whipping around like I was on a poster.

Maybe SWAT would have dropped in with ropes, helmets, and precision timing. Or something even more unhinged—like genetically engineered dinosaurs breaking loose from some underground lab, stampeding through the site, and chomping on the mercenaries while I rolled under a forklift, slick with gasoline from the gas line I’d “accidentally” cut.

Perhaps even my army of raccoons running in to save the day.

But this wasn’t a movie. There was no dramatic twist, no sudden rescue, and no music swelling in the background.

It was just me in a concrete room, with a bruised face and the hope that I’d bought myself enough time to think of something. Because I had to.

If that tracker worked—if the signal reached the right people—Webb would come. I knew it like I knew how to breathe.

But until that moment came, I had to stay ahead of them—stay sharp, stay focused, and find a way out. And if I couldn’t? If this really was the end of the line? Then, at least, I knew Webb and his family were safe. So was mine. That was something I could live with, even if I didn’t walk away from this. Still, deep down, I wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Webb

Jackson’s house had become our makeshift command center, chosen out of necessity and strategy. The hotel was too exposed—too easy to watch, too public to risk—and the ranch was too far out. If we had any chance of finding Gabby quickly, we needed to stay local and mobile. Jackson’s place, hidden deep within a wooded neighborhood on the edge of Orlando, struck the perfect balance: close enough to the city to respond fast, yet quiet and tucked away enough to avoid drawing attention.

Inside, it was a scene of controlled chaos.

Maps were spread across the dining table, layered with highlighter marks, and crowded with sticky notes. Every flat surface in the house buzzed with laptops, their screens glowing with open tabs and satellite feeds. At the same time, phones rang and vibrated in a constant, chaotic rhythm no one could keep straight anymore. Jackson’s dry-erase board—once used for whatever scribbles they'd drawn on it—had been completely repurposed, now covered in timelines, names, and grainysurveillance screenshots. At the center of it all, Gabby’s name was written in bold letters and circled in red. We didn’t know where she was. We didn’t know if she was okay. But we were going to find her.

Matty sat with his laptop in front of him, three monitors hooked into his personal mobile server. He hadn’t stopped typing in over an hour. Next to him was Marcus’s friend Remy—normally the quiet ranch handyman with a gift for electrical repairs. It turns out he also had a side gig in digital security and was currently running trace calls to every electronics store within a fifty-mile radius.

“I’ve spoken to four shops so far,” Remy told us, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder as he typed. “Two confirmed a woman matching her description came in today. One said she bought a couple of micro-cams, a portable recorder, and maybe a burner. I'm still waiting to hear if she bought anything else.”

Matty didn’t look up as he clicked through another frame of grainy hotel surveillance. “I’ve pulled every camera angle from within three blocks of the Halcyon. Got three men leaving the hotel about an hour after we think Gabby made contact. I’m enhancing one of the plates now. The other car had tinted windows and no front plate.”

“Can you ID the make and model?” I asked, pacing the edge of the room.

“Already on it. Might take a few, but if I can cross-check traffic camera feeds, I might be able to trace their route.”

Marcus leaned in behind him, arms crossed, jaw tight. “If we get a direction, we can spread the search.”

“I’m also working off a few facial matches,” Matty added, his eyes still on the screen. “I pulled the clearest frame I could from the guy who entered the room and ran it through the system. Got a hit on an ex-contractor with a history of overseas work—bad reputation, lots of red flags, and that type of shit. He’s not the kind of person you bring in unless you’re planning to keep things quiet and don’t intend to ask too many questions.”

“And the others?”

“No hits yet, but I’m not done.”

I stepped outside as my phone vibrated in my hand, and Sasha’s name lit up the screen.

“Hey,” I greeted quietly, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Tell me you found her,” Sasha whispered, and I could hear the hope that she was trying to cling to.

"Not yet, but we’re getting close. We’ve identified some faces, and we’re tracking the vehicles. She left us a trail to follow—it’s just a subtle one, not easy to spot."

“I should’ve stopped her.” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed audibly. “I knew she’d try something like this.”

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