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Saxon saved me tonight.
Just like that—he stepped out of the dark like a knife from its sheath, sharp and sure, violence in his fists and devotion in his eyes. He didn’t hesitate. He moved through the chaos like it was built for him, like he was born to meet monsters in the alley and bury them for having the nerve to look my way.
And for one fleeting moment, I let myself feel it.
The warmth of his arms wrapping around me like armor. The weight of his hand cradling the back of my skull like I was made of porcelain. The steady thrum of his heartbeat, fierce and real beneath my cheek, like proof that I was still alive. Still breathing. Still his.
But it doesn’t erase what he did. What he didn’t do. Heleftme. Not metaphorically. Not in that dramatic, emotional distance kind of way that poets write about and girls survive. Heliterallyleft me.
And now he’s back. With blood on his hands. Fury in his eyes. Love burning in his bones like it excuses everything. But there are some absences you don’t come back from. Some silences so loud, they fill every room you’ll ever enter again. And no matter how many times he shows up now—haunted, breathless,ready—he can’t undo the damage of vanishing when I needed him the most.
He abandoned me when I was at my lowest. And even if he hadn’t… even if I was weak enough to want him anyway—to lethim stay—the rest of my world would never allow it. Lucky Gatti made sure I knew that. The warning was in his stillness, in the weight of his stare. Cold and final. The kind of threat you don’t come back from if you’re dumb enough to test it.
Saxon doesn’t belong. In my life. In my future. He doesn’t belong anywhere near me. And Lucky knows him better than anyone. Their history is long—schoolyard secrets, a trust forged from blood, and a thousand shared silences that should mean something, but doesn’t. Because there’s one man who’d kill Saxon without a second thought.
Brando Gatti.My brother-in-law. My family. My own walking threat assessment with a trigger finger and no tolerance for threats to what’s his. And if he found out Saxon touched me—held me—shielded me with his body like he had any right? Brando wouldn’t just warn him. He’d snap his neck. Clean. Brutal. Quiet. No jury. No chance to explain. Just a shallow grave and a memory.
That’s the reality I live in—the jagged, blood-stained truth. A chasm carved between Saxon and me, too wide to leap, too deep to climb. He can’t fill that space. Nor can he win this war. He can never have me.
So yeah, I felt safe tonight. Safer than I’ve felt in years. But safety is a luxury I can’t afford. Not with him. Because no matter how strong his arms are… No matter how soft his voice gets when he says my name like a prayer he forgot how to stop repeating...
This? This can never happen. Not in this lifetime.
27
SAXON
Blood coats my knuckles, drying in angry streaks beneath my fingernails. My shirt’s torn at the shoulder, stained red like I walked out of a warzone. And maybe I did. Just not the one that mattered. Because when I saw her phone's location ping in that alley—when I realized she wasn't home, she wasn’t moving—something in me broke.
I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I was on my way home, half-dead and half-sane after long endless hours strategizing with my team about how best to take down the Aviary. But something told me to check. Just a glance. Just in case.
Andfuck—when I think that I almost didn’t…
She could’ve been gone. He could’ve taken her. Hurt her. Left her cold and bleeding on that concrete while I sat in some sterile car, watching monsters I’d sooner take out than share the same air with.
I almost didn’t save her. And the thought of that? It’s poison in my veins. Because as it stands, there’s nothing in the world more important to me than Maxine Andrade.
I keep my hand pressed gently to the small of her back as we walk. She doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t speak, but she lets meguide her home, quiet as a ghost. I can feel her trembling through the fabric of her t-shirt, and I want to stop right there in the street and wrap my whole damn body around her like a shield. But I keep walking. For her.
Inside, I steer her to the sofa and she sinks into it like the weight of tonight has finally hit her bones.
She looks up at me, eyes too wide, too soft. “You’re covered in blood,” she says.
Not afraid. Just... observing. Brave in that quiet Maxine way that guts me every time.
“Not all of it is his.”
She nods, like she knew that.
“So, whose is it?”
I shrug. “You don’t want to know.”
But the truth is, I barely remember the guy’s name. Another trafficker. Another piece of shit who thought he could disappear girls into the void and not answer for it. I made sure he did. But it doesn’t matter now.
“What were you doing out there so late, Maxine?”
My voice isn’t harsh. There’s no edge to it. But it’s not calm, either. It’s hollow. Fractured. Judgey.