Page 52 of DFF: Delicate Freakin’ Flower (Family Ties #5)
All I had to do now was make sure Gabby was safe.
As the men moved to lower Barris from the tree, with Jackson standing by holding heavy-duty cable ties and a look on his face that promised zero mercy, a familiar voice rang out across the clearing.
“Is everyone okay?”
I turned toward the cabin, where the light was starting to reach the porch, in response to Gabby's question. I couldn’t see her, but the sound of her voice—tired, hoarse, but alive sent something through me I couldn’t even name.
“We’re good!” I yelled back. “Are you?”
A beat passed, and then her hand emerged from the edge of the porch with a thumb-up. “Still upright,” she called out. “Mostly. How’s the dog?”
"Jesse's taking her to the vet now!”
“Got the bleeder!” Wes shouted from off to the side. “It's a thigh wound. I need help stabilizing him.”
“I’ll help once I get Gabby sorted out!” Ira’s voice rang out, and seconds later, I saw him wheel the battered, empty chair from the porch across the uneven ground.
He helped Gabby into it, his movements gentle yet firm, as if he were handling something sacred.
The wheelchair rolled smoothly across the dirt, somehow untouched by everything that had just gone down around it.
Gabby glanced around as if struggling to believe it was really over. Her hands trembled, and her mouth quivered despite her efforts to keep it steady. She wasn’t crying—but she looked like she was right on the edge. And honestly, who could blame her?
Minutes slipped by as the sky deepened into a rich navy blue, the sharp edges of night softened by the sweep of moonlight and the flashlights.
One by one, we rounded up Barris’s men, disarmed them, and lined them up in the clearing with their wrists secured.
The injured men received what care we could manage while we waited for the ambulance to arrive.
They sat there—seven of them now, not counting the one who’d been hit by friendly fire—faces hard, blank, or bitter. But none of them fought. It was over, and they knew it.
“This isn’t done,” Remy warned, leaning against a tree, arms crossed. “Not until we deal with the ones backing all of this. Maddox might be down, but he had investors. They’ll try to keep themselves safe.”
“She can’t keep going through this,” Wes said bluntly. “None of us can, but especially her.”
Marcus stepped forward, his arms crossed and his expression grim. “The only option now is WITSEC.”
The words landed harder than I’d expected— Witness Protection.
It wasn’t said lightly, and it carried no hint of comfort.
The phrase dropped into the conversation like a grenade—silent on impact but guaranteed to send shockwaves rippling through everything we knew.
It meant federal relocation, a new name, and a new identity.
A clean slate bought at the cost of erasure.
No calls. No messages. No mistakes. No more us.
That was the part that stuck in my chest like a blade— no us .
No waking up next to her. No stupid bickering. No porch mornings with coffee and silence. Just a hollow space where she used to be, replaced by some memory of what we almost had.
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 one could 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.