Page 19 of The Vagabond

MAXINE

I ’ve seen enough ballgowns and tuxedos tonight to make my eyes bleed tulle and satin.

Everywhere I turn it’s glitter and lace and polished smiles, clinking glasses and carefully staged laughter.

It’s a masquerade of power—beautiful, intoxicating, and exhausting.

The kind of night that looks good in photos but feels like sandpaper against skin if you’re already raw underneath.

I wouldn’t even be here if Mia hadn’t practically shoved me into a car and threatened to have Brando drag me in by the elbow if I refused again.

“You need to get out of your head, Max,” she said as she zipped me into a sleek, scarlet dress that fit me like it was sewn onto my skin. “You need to remember who you are when the world isn’t trying to break you.”

I didn’t argue. Not because I agreed, but because I was too tired to fight her.

And because part of me thought maybe—just maybe—being around people again would help.

Maybe standing in a room full of noise and opulence would drown out the memory of Saxon North’s voice scraping against my bones.

It didn’t. Not even close. He’s still in there.

In my head. In my blood. Still dragging the oxygen from my lungs every time I let myself remember how it felt to slam into him outside my door.

How he looked at me like I’d never left his mind.

Like losing me had left a mark. Like he still wanted to fix me.

And that? That’s the most dangerous thought of all.

Because I don’t want to be someone’s redemption.

I just want to be left alone. Yet now he’s here, almost like he’s dogging my every move.

I slip out of the ballroom when no one’s looking, trading the gold-drenched chandeliers and string quartet for the hush of the hallway outside. My heels click softly against the marble floor as I make my way toward one of the balconies. I need air. I need space.

I push open the glass door and step into the night, the cool air slapping against my bare shoulders like a reprimand. The sounds of the party are muted out here—faint music, distant laughter. It almost sounds normal.

I grip the balcony railing, lean into it, and let my eyes drift over the city lights below.

They sparkle like they’re trying to compete with the ballroom behind me.

But nothing out here feels real. It’s all just reflections and pretense.

Just like me. Mia thinks I’m isolating too much.

That being alone isn’t the same thing as healing.

But she doesn’t understand that for me, solitude isn’t punishment.

It’s protection. When I’m alone, I don’t have to pretend.

I don’t have to wear a mask over my scars or keep my voice light when all I want to do is scream.

I can sit with the broken pieces without having to shove them into a shape that makes people more comfortable.

And maybe that’s selfish. But it’s safe.

Being alone means no one gets close enough to reopen the wounds that are still stitching themselves together beneath the surface.

But Saxon? Saxon didn’t just get close. He tore the stitches out with a single look.

Now I’m here. At a party full of beautiful, powerful people. Wearing a dress that Mia swore would “remind me I’m still the baddest bitch in the room”. With my makeup perfect and my spine straight. But inside? I’m just a girl hiding on a balcony, trying to remember how to breathe.

I lean against a marble pillar and close my eyes.

Saxon. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be in my head, in this world, in my blood. We’re poison to each other. But my body doesn’t care. It remembers his voice, his mouth, the way he looked at me like he understood the pain beneath my skin.

“Pretty night to be running from your problems.”

Lucky Gatti’s voice slides through the dark, silky smooth.

I turn to find him stepping into the moonlight, hands in his pockets, suit immaculate, like he wasn’t just watching half his family nearly go to war inside.

He’s the charming one. The dangerous one.

The one who smiles when he’s two seconds from snapping a neck.

“Didn’t realize you were out here,” I murmur, straightening my spine.

“You looked like you needed space.”

He strolls closer, and I realize that Lucky doesn’t move without purpose. That’s the thing about Gatti men. Everything is intentional.

“You okay?” he asks, but it’s not really a question. It’s a test.

I shrug. “I’ve been worse.”

He hums, like he believes it. Like he knows the exact scale of my pain and how close to the edge I’ve always been. “Saxon North being here… that shook you.”

“I’m fine.”

“He’s not your world, Maxine.”

That gets my hackles up.

“I know that.”

He raises an eyebrow, not buying it. “You sure? ‘Cause from where I was standing, it looked a little complicated.”

“It’s not,” I snap, too fast.

Lucky studies me .

Not in the leering, strip-you-bare kind of way I’ve learned to recognize from too many men with too much power and too little soul.

No, this is worse. This is the Gatti kind of scrutiny—clinical, razor-sharp, and quiet.

The kind that peels you open without ever laying a hand on you.

He doesn’t blink. He just watches, like he’s dissecting every breath I take.

Every truth I haven’t admitted to myself.

Every lie I’m still trying to wrap around my broken edges.

He’s younger than Brando—my brother-in-law by marriage, mafia by blood—but that doesn’t mean a damn thing.

There’s nothing soft about Lucky Gatti. He’s just as dangerous.

Just as lethal. He doesn’t need to raise his voice to be terrifying, and he doesn’t need to pull a gun to be deadly.

And standing in front of him now, I realize how small I’ve become under their collective shadow.

It’s been a year since I came back—after having my body torn apart and stitched back together. And I’ve spent every day since with their eyes on me. Watching. Hovering. Shielding. Suffocating. They mean well, I think. I hope. But sometimes protection feels an awful lot like possession.

And it doesn’t help that Uncle Mason—my uncle by name, but my sister Mia’s biological father—takes their side without question.

Without hesitation. Every time I want to breathe, Mason is there.

Arms crossed. Jaw tight. A storm in his eyes, ready to burn the world if I so much as wince the wrong way. And Lucky? He’s never far behind.

I used to think safety meant freedom. But around them? Safety feels like a cage.

“He’s bad news, Maxine. And I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

I let out a soft, humorless laugh — not because it’s funny, but because I’m just so damn tired. I tell him what he wants to hear.

“Yeah, Lucky. I know he’s dangerous. ”

I wrap my arms around myself, gaze dropping to the floor. I don’t tell him what I’m really thinking.

It’s not the kind of dangerous you can punch your way through, or the kind you can outrun. It’s the kind that stays. That settles under your skin and makes a home there. The kind that changes you long before you even realize it.

“You’d do well to remember that he’s a Federal Agent,” he reminds me.

“He’s not here for me.”

Lucky steps closer. Moonlight catches in his eyes. “No?”

“No,” I say firmly. “He thinks I can help him. Identify the people still moving girls. That’s all. He’s not here because of… whatever you think.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then Lucky nods, slow and deliberate.

“Good,” he says, his voice low. “Because the second you start thinking it’s anything more, you become a liability. And I don’t want to watch that happen to you.”

My throat tightens. “You know where my trust is. Where my loyalty is.”

Lucky’s gaze sharpens, a flicker of warning flashing in his eyes.

“You don’t have to trust him, Maxine. Just remember who you trust more .”

The implication sinks in like teeth. Mason. Brando. The girls. The Gattis.

Saxon didn’t save me. Not really. He offered hope and disappeared when it counted. He’s a badge with a broken conscience and a hero complex, and he’s dangerous not because he wants to hurt me—but because he might want to try to save me again. And I don’t need saving anymore.

“I know where I stand,” I tell Lucky .

He nods once, satisfied. Then he offers me a cigarette—just holds it out, no pressure.

I take it, even though I don’t smoke. I hate the smell of cigarettes. But my hands are trembling, and holding something— anything —makes me feel like maybe I still have control over myself.

He lights it for me. The flame flares between us like a warning.

We stand there in silence for a moment—me, exhaling smoke and memories I wish I could forget, and Lucky, who’s all quiet menace as he inhales his own stick.

“I like you, Max,” he says finally. “But don’t mistake my charm for patience.”

I meet his eyes. “I won’t.”

“Good girl.”

And then he turns, slips back inside like a ghost—returning to the party, to the danger, to the world I keep telling myself I’m strong enough to face.

And me? I stay out here, watching the city blink beneath me, the ember at the end of my cigarette glowing like a fuse.

Because I’m not sure if I’m ready to walk back into the fire—or if I’m about to start one of my own.