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)
“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.
Chapter 36
Gabby
Four weeks later…
The breeze rolling in from the Atlantic carried the sharp tang of salt and the faint, earthy scent of driftwood. It swept across my skin with a softness I hadn’t felt in weeks—like something kind, something human. I stood on the beach in the Outer Banks, watching the tide pull in and out in a slow, hypnotic rhythm while the sky above stretched wide in bruised hues of early evening.
Behind me, the agent had just ended the call, but his words lingered like a storm cloud in the back of my mind. Months, Gabby. This won’t be quick.
Months alone, disconnected from everything and everyone I loved, because it was safer that way. I’d agreed to it. Hell, I’d asked for it. After giving my statements to both the FBI and local police, it'd been clear I couldn’t stay near the people I cared about. Not without putting a target on all of their backs again.
So here I was, a ghost with a name nobody here knew, tucked away in a little beach town.
I tried to picture my cousins’ faces, their voices overlapping in concern when they’d all offered to help me hide. It would’ve been easier, maybe even comforting, to be with them, but when I’d sat down with the agent the first time, I’d been crystal clear—I needed to be far away from them. I couldn’t stomach the idea of any more danger touching them.
It wasn’t the violence done to me that haunted my dreams, it was the nightmares I had of them bleeding, crying, shouting, fighting for their lives. I woke up covered in sweat, lungs screaming for air, and begging for someone to tell me it was over. But no one was there, and it sucked as much as it comforted.