Page 57

SAXON
Iwatch her through the window.
She’s laughing. Head tilted back. Hair catching the hallway light like spun gold. Bare feet, loose tee, a wine glass in hand like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
And there’s a guy in her apartment.
A guy.
All swagger and sharp lines, lounging on her damn couch like he belongs there. His legs are stretched out in front of him, like he owns the space—like he ownsher. Dark curls hang messily over his forehead, and he’s wearing a smug fucking expression I want to knock clean off his face.
His leather jacket’s tossed over the back of her chair, and he’s still in those goddamn boots—on her rug.
She’s been good at keeping the door closed.
She’s seen other guys, sure. Grabbed coffee. Shared laughs and smiles that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Sat across tables with men who didn’t know the first thing about surviving her scars. And I let her. I let her.
Because I thought—if I gave her space, if I stayed behind theline I drew with my own blood—maybe she’d breathe. Maybe she’d heal.
But tonight? Tonight she let this one in. Inside. Not just into her orbit. Into her fucking apartment. She’s never done that before. Not once. Not during any of her coffee dates or pretend flings or flirty smiles with guys too normal to understand the fire she’s built from. No one gets past her threshold. But this one did. And that should be fine. That should be normal. But there’s nothing normal about the way my chest feels like it’s caving in. There’s nothing normal about the way I’m clenching my fists, pacing outside like a man preparing for war, trying not to tear the door off its hinges just to feel the pain of what she looks like when she laughs inside her own space—with someone else.
I’m unraveling. Because I told myself I could stay away. I told myself I’d protect her from a distance. But now there’s a man—some fucking stranger—breathing the same air she sleeps in.Thisis a line I can’t watch her cross. Because if I let this go—if I let this become routine—I lose her. Not in theory. Not in memory. For real. And I can’t do that. I won’t do that.
So maybe it’s time I stop pretending I’m the better man. Because the second she let him in? She lit a fuse. And I’ve got one match left to burn.
I see his Ducati parked across the street, all sleek lines and matte-black arrogance. Expensive. Customized. Loud enough to announce his presence from three blocks away.
I’ve been watching for twenty-three minutes. If he touches her again, I’m going through the door. If he kisses her, I might black out.
My hand twitches at my side, fingers curling, unclenching, curling again. The veins in my neck are pulsing so hard I can feel the beat in my ears.
I shouldn’t be here. But I am. Because it’s been twenty two days since I’ve touched her, and I’m not fucking okay.
I’ve been deep undercover trying to infiltrate the pipeline that funnels into the Aviary. Chasing down leads, learning the names of the new players, deciphering their patterns. Anything and everything to bring down the organisation that broke Maxine. The same one that broke my sister Sienna and countless others.
Being away from her nearly broke me, but it was unavoidable; her name stuck in my throat like a bullet I couldn’t spit out. Every second I wasn’t in danger, I was picturing her smile. Her laugh. The curve of her neck.
I thought being away from her would help me let go. That maybe, just maybe, I could scrub her from my system if I put enough miles between us. But I didn’t let go. I hung on even tighter. And the longer I was gone, the more I unraveled. Because she’s not just in my head. She’s in my bones. And every moment I was gone felt like punishment for not being by her side.
Coming here was supposed to feel like relief. Instead, I came back to him. Her date is the kind of guy girls pick when they want to forget. Pretty. Loud. Lazy in that smug way that makes him look like he’s always just gotten away with something. Arrogant. Gold skin, tattoos down both arms, a strong jawline.
And Maxine? She’s letting him sit on her sofa. Letting him laugh with her. Letting him drink wine like he’s earned that privilege. I grind my teeth hard enough to taste copper.
Then it happens. He stands. I tense. Lean forward. But he doesn’t touch her. Doesn’t kiss her.
He picks up his jacket, slings it over one shoulder, and walks to the door. She opens it for him. Says something. Laughs again. That laugh. Thatfuckinglaugh.
Then she closes the door. And she’s alone. I start breathing again.
I stay hidden across the street, behind the stairwell of anempty unit, watching as he steps out onto the sidewalk and lights a cigarette. He looks relaxed. Satisfied. Like the night’s gone exactly as he planned it to.
He pulls out his phone and dials. Leans against his bike, talking to someone, voice too low to catch from here. After a few minutes, he hangs up, straddles the Ducati, and speeds off.
I look up at her apartment just as the lights flicker off. The window goes dark, and the whole world feels like it exhales without me. Somewhere deep in the hollow part of me — the part that’s still raw, still bleeding from the last time she whispered my name like a secret she wanted to forget — I wonder if this is what she wants now. Someone simple, easy. A man who doesn’t bleed obsession, doesn’t carry violence under his skin, doesn’t watch her like she’s the only pulse in a dead world. Someone whose love isn’t a weight, a chain, a goddamn curse.
And I know, with everything in me, despite craving easy, that she was never meant for it. Because a girl like Maxine? She’s forged in sharp edges and she’s meant for hands that grip too tightly, for hearts that break and rebuild and break again. She’s made for a man like me, who would carve the whole world open just to hear her say my name one more time.
I think about her fingers in someone else’s hair. Her lips somewhere else. Her breath on another man’s jaw. And something inside me cracks. What if I was never meant to be her forever? What if I’m just the scar she’s still trying to cover?