Page 10 of DFF: Delicate Freakin’ Flower (Family Ties #5)

Chapter Eight

Webb

A s 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.

Her face didn’t change much at first, her muscles just tightened. Like her body was trying to keep all her reactions in check to conserve emotional fuel.

She was listening hard and processing everything I was telling her.

When I finished, she leaned back and blew out a breath.

“So… it's not that great, really,” she muttered.

“Nope.”

“And Maddox is out of the country?”

“For now, but the guy he left in charge is worse. Think ‘mercenary with a clipboard.’ And he doesn’t care who you are, just what you’ve got.”

She nodded slowly. “So, what now?”

I looked at her. Not the sunburn, not the sarcasm. I looked at the woman, the one smart enough to dig this stuff up and brave enough to run when it got too dangerous.

“Now,” I drawled, “we figure out how to end this in a way that doesn’t leave you at the bottom of a construction site in a fresh pour of concrete.”

She blinked once. “Cool, so something slightly better than death. Great.”

“We’ll come up with something.”

“We have to,” she said. “Because if I’ve come this far just to die looking like a lobster and wearing bucket-bath shame, I swear to God, I’m haunting you.”

I gave her the smallest smile. “Deal.”

But beneath it, my gut told me time was running out.

The first warning was the silence. It became too quiet, too suddenly, as if the woods had taken a breath and decided not to release it. There was no birdsong, no buzzing bugs, just stillness and the low hum of something pressing against the air.

I’d been to this place enough times to know what that meant. Something—or someone—was moving out there.

I stood from the table where Gabby and I had just finished laying out our options, which had ranged from “brilliant but risky” to “dumb and probably fatal.” My hand instinctively went for the small black case tucked behind the pantry shelf.

Inside it was my Glock 19. It was clean and familiar, but most importantly, it was loaded.

Gabby stood too, her eyes wide but clear. “What is it?”

“Something’s close.”

Her expression tensed. “How close is close?”

I flicked the safety off and moved to the window, careful not to disturb the curtain. “Close enough that the birds have shut up.”

She stepped beside me, arms crossed tightly against her chest. She was still wrapped in the oversized flannel she’d taken from the hook by the fire, still barefoot and still shaken from what I’d told her an hour earlier. Now we could add this to what she was going through.

“Get in the back room,” I whispered over my shoulder, pointing blindly with my finger.

“No.”

I turned to her, making it clear I wasn't joking. “Gabby.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m not hiding again. Not after everything.”

“This isn’t about bravery, it's about survival.”

“Then I want to see what I’m surviving.”

For a beat, we just stared at each other, adrenaline thick in the air, our breathing shallow, and every nerve lit up like a live wire. Then I nodded. “Fine, stay low. No sudden moves.”

She grabbed the fireplace poker like it was Excalibur and crouched near the side of the window, eyes locked on the door.

I moved slowly and silently to the front entrance, gun in hand, and kept my breathing steady and focused. My mind was running a mile a minute, calculating the odds, while I replayed everything Matty had said and wondered if this was how it would start.

There was a crunch outside—leaves shifting beneath someone’s weight. I raised the gun, every muscle in my body pulled taut, my vision sharpening with focus. Another sound followed, this one softer but closer. Then something clattered onto the porch—a sharp, metallic sound that made my breath catch.

I counted the seconds under my breath. One… two… three…

Then, nothing. Just a long, tense pause.

Chitter ...

Gabby whispered, “Did they just chitter?”

There was a scrambling sound, followed by a faint squeak, and then the unmistakable sound of something knocking over the tin washbasin by the door.

I eased forward, heart still thudding, and cracked the door open just enough to look.

And there they were, a whole damn family of raccoons.

Five of them, maybe six. One of them was halfway inside the basin like it was a ball pit, and another was standing on its hind legs, pawing at a stick like it had beef with it.

They froze when the door creaked, and the biggest one looked right at me.

Gabby popped her head up beside me, eyes wide. “Is that... a raccoon?”

I lowered the gun and exhaled so hard my ribs ached. “Specifically, multiple raccoons.”

The one by the stick hissed and bolted, and the others scattered after it in a blur of fur and offended dignity.

I shut the door gently, locked it, and turned to Gabby.

She was staring at me, her face pale and her body trembling with leftover adrenaline, andthen she burst out laughing.

It wasn't a little chuckle, but a full-on, half-hysterical, doubled-over, post-terror laugh.

I just stood there, the gun still in my hand, trying to decide if I wanted to laugh too or throw it at the nearest tree.

Gabby wiped her eyes. “I thought I was going to die, and it'd be death by a hit squad, but it was raccoons. Raccoons , Webb.”

I finally let out a breath and leaned against the wall. “Welcome to the cabin.”

She wiped her eyes, still catching her breath, and looked up at me with a lopsided, exhausted smile. “You always know how to show a girl a good time, don’t you?”

I raised a brow, re-holstering my gun. “Stick with me,” I told her, deadpan. “Next week, we upgrade to armadillos and existential dread.”

She snorted, shook her head, and muttered, “Unbelievable.”

But she was still smiling, and right now, I’d take that as a win.