Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 114793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
I touched Gabby’s hand once more, gave her fingers a final squeeze, then turned and walked out of the room with fire in my chest and a target on my back.
Maddox had made this personal. Now, it was my turn.
I was heading down the hall, still replaying Gladys’s words in my head, when the elevator doors opened, and Eddie stepped out. He was dressed down—hood pulled low over a cap, plain jeans, worn boots—but his sharp eyes found mine instantly.
“Word got out,” he said by way of greeting. “Saw the post, figured you might need backup.”
I clasped his shoulder briefly. “I always need backup.”
He glanced past me toward the ICU door. “She in there?”
“Yeah, but she's still out.”
He looked at me more closely then, his gaze catching the exhaustion etched behind my eyes and the tension coiled tightly through every line of my posture. “How bad?”
“Worse than we thought, but she made it through surgery.” I lowered my voice. “That’s where you come in.”
Eddie followed my gaze.
“I need someone watching over her discreetly. Not just her—Gladys and Ira, too.”
He lifted a brow. “You trust the old woman that much?”
“I didn’t at first,” I admitted. “She helped Gabby escape from her own son—hid her, protected her, and risked her life to get her to that hospital. After everything she’s done, I’d be a damn fool not to trust her now.”
Eddie studied me for a beat, then gave a slight nod. “Okay, I’ve got it covered.”
Relief washed through me. “Thanks, man.”
“I’ll sit nearby, move if needed. And I’ll keep any unwanted guests from getting too close.”
With that, I left him there, the silent guardian I knew he could be, and turned my focus to the storm waiting outside.
Tracking Maddox wasn’t easy. Remy had done what he could from the digital side, cross-referencing property records, shell companies, private airstrip logs, and flagged financial activity. Marcus had pulled in contacts from Florida’s underbelly—contractors who kept their ears to the ground and owed us a few favors.
We identified a property registered under a false name Maddox had used before—an abandoned development out near St. Cloud. It matched Gladys’s description of his current site: unstable ground, large investors, and just remote enough to go unnoticed.
We mobilized fast. Me, Marcus, Elijah, and Jesse went in separate vehicles, fanning out with the kind of precision we’d learned the hard way.
However, when we arrived, the place was empty.
There was no sign of Maddox—no movement, no voices, nothing to suggest anyone had been there in a while. Just the skeletal remains of a project long abandoned, buried beneath layers of money, silence, and swamp soil.
“Son of a bitch,” Jesse hissed, slamming the truck door. “We were close. I know it.”
I stalked to the edge of the property, hands clenched at my sides, trying to piece together where he could’ve gone. How had he slipped away again?
Before we had a chance to regroup, headlights flared at the far edge of the lot as two black SUVs sped in.
“We’ve got company,” Elijah warned, his voice low and sharp.
Four men stepped out, each one armed and moving with the kind of quick, practiced confidence that left no room for doubt they weren’t here to talk.
Then, the first shot rang out, splitting the silence wide open.
We dropped behind the vehicles, weapons drawn, adrenaline surging through our veins. The next thirty seconds blurred into chaos. Shouts cut through the night, gunfire cracked back and forth, and the sharp, acrid stench of burning gunpowder filled my nose. Marcus caught one of them in the leg, and the man went down hard. The remaining attackers quickly retreated into the trees, covering each other as they fled into the shadows.
“Hold fire!” Jesse yelled, crouching beside the injured man. “We got one.”
The man let out a low groan, clutching his thigh as he collapsed to the ground. Blood was already soaking into the dirt beneath him, dark and spreading, but it didn’t look life-threatening—at least, not yet.
I was already pulling out my phone with a plan in mind. “We’re taking him with us. I know a place where we can go.”
Marcus’s friend Julian owned a small property out on the edge of Lake County. It wasn’t much, just a low house, a sagging barn, and an outhouse out back, but it was secluded, and nobody asked questions out there.
By the time we got there, the sun had started to set, casting long shadows across the empty field. We dragged the injured man inside and secured him to a chair in the old canning shed. Elijah cleaned and wrapped the wound while the rest of us circled him like wolves.
“You don’t wanna talk,” Jesse pointed out, leaning in, “but trust me, if you don’t, you’ll wish you had.”
The guy stayed silent, jaw clenched tight, face pale.
I took a step forward. “You work for Maddox, but that’s not who you’re afraid of, is it?”