Page 28 of The Vagabond

SAXON

B lood 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.

And fuck —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 me guide 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.

Like the words are crawling out of my throat through splinters, raw from the scream I didn’t let loose when I saw her standing there—shaken and vulnerable.

She shrugs like it’s nothing. Like she didn’t just almost get torn from this world. “I wanted to work out.”

My jaw clenches. There’s a tidal wave of emotion I’m choking down just to stay in this moment.

“The world isn’t a safe place, Maxine,” I say, quieter this time. Not a warning—an admission. A confession from a man who’s seen too much. Who’s done too much. And who knows exactly what monsters are still walking the earth, unchained .

She looks at me, something dark and tired moving behind her eyes. “I, of all people, know this.”

And fuck, doesn’t she?

Her voice carries the weight of it—months of it. Abuse. Survival. Silence. That’s the worst part. She’s not na?ve. She’s not clueless. She’s just trying to take a piece of her life back, and I’m the bastard trying to tell her she can’t.

But all I can see is her face in the streetlight, seconds away from becoming a memory I couldn’t bear.

“You shouldn’t have been alone,” I murmur, swallowing the gravel in my throat. “You don’t get it, Max. If anything had happened to you...”

I trail off, because the truth is ugly.

I’d burn this entire city to the ground.

I can feel it now—the phantom weight of her body slipping from my hands. The blood. The panic. The cold sweat on the back of my neck. I can see it all, even though it didn’t happen. And that’s what haunts me. How close I came to losing her.

I take a step closer, not touching her, just needing her to feel the heat of my presence.

Needing her to understand. “I’m not here because I want to be near you, Maxine.

I’m here because I have to be. Because I don’t sleep if I don’t know you’re safe.

” A pause. “And I damn sure won’t survive if something happens to you. ”

She doesn’t respond. But her silence is heavy. Acknowledging.

“I should teach you to fight,” I say, dropping to my knees in front of her. “Real stuff. None of that kick-the-air cardio bullshit. Things that’ll really hurt someone.”

She blinks. “You think I can hurt someone?”

“I need you to.” My voice is low, raw. “In case you ever need to, Max.”

“I don’t know that I can. ”

Her fingers reach for my hand, pausing over the broken skin across my knuckles. She pulls it into her lap without asking and starts rubbing her fingers over the cuts. I don’t tell her that the movement stings against my skin.

Instead, I watch as she rises, still holding my hand, and walks me to her bathroom. She starts to clean my bloody knuckles with a washcloth. I watch the way her brows pinch in concentration, the way her lips press together like she’s holding something in.

And I break.

I reach up and cradle her face in both hands, gently, reverently, like she’s made of fragile glass and I’m terrified she’ll vanish. My thumbs brush under her eyes, across her jaw, committing every inch to memory in case I ever forget what she looks like, what she feels like beneath my fingers.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispers.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m yours.”

My chest aches.

“You’ve always been mine,” I say. “From the moment I found you, you’ve been mine. I just fucked it up.”

Her breath catches—sharp and sweet and silent. Our foreheads almost touch. Her fingers are still wrapped around my torn hand. Her heartbeat thrums loud enough for me to feel it in my bones.

I shouldn’t kiss her. I shouldn’t.

But for a moment, we don’t breathe. We just are. Her and me and the ghosts we carry.

And it’s the kind of silence that could set fire to everything.

Her lashes lower, casting shadows across her cheeks, and I swear I could stay like this forever. Just looking at her.

She’s got a cut on her lip, the faintest trace of blood, and it makes my stomach turn with guilt. With uncontrolled anger. With something hot and ancient that makes me want to raze the whole world just to keep her untouched.

“I almost didn’t find you,” I say, voice low. Shaky.

Maxine looks up at me, steady now. Always steady when I’m the one unraveling.

“But you did,” she says.

Barely a whisper, but it slices through me.

“I was supposed to go home. I was exhausted, filthy. My head was a mess. I just... checked. Just to make sure. Just to see if you were okay. And when I saw your phone?—”

I stop. The words strangle halfway up my throat.

She’s watching me like she’s trying to see inside my soul. Like she’s peeling me apart without ever moving a muscle.

There’s a pause. It’s full of all the words we refuse to say.

Then she shifts forward, just a breath, just enough. Her gaze flicks down to my mouth, then back to my eyes, and I feel it—like a live wire stretched between us.

“Saxon.” She says my name in a way that tells me she’s afraid of the words about to leave her mouth. “This can’t happen.”

My jaw tightens. I know exactly what she means. We can’t happen. Because I wear a badge, and she bears the blood of a family I’ve been trying to tear apart one piece at a time. Because her last name may not be Gatti or Accardi or Ironside, but her loyalty is . And disloyalty gets people killed.

She shifts again. A subtle movement. Our foreheads finally whisper against each other, a fragile touch pulling us together.

“Brando would slit your throat if he saw you here,” she murmurs, voice trembling. “And Mia... I can't hurt her. She’s all I have.”

“I know.”

“I have a duty to her, Saxon. Even if I hate the life she’s tied to. Even if I don’t want it to be mine. ”

My fingers curl against her jaw, gently. She leans into the touch like she doesn’t care if it ruins us both.

“Tonight, I’m not asking for forever,” I whisper. “Just this moment.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to know that what I felt touching you in Albania was real... that we were real.”

And then, she kisses me. No, I kiss her. Or maybe we fall into it together, mouths meeting like a secret that’s been begging to be told. Her lips are soft but hungry, like she’s been starving and I’m the first taste of something tangible.

Her hands slide into my hair, tugging, grounding. My bloodied knuckles curve behind her neck as I pull her closer, swallowing the small sound she makes against my mouth. The world narrows to this—her breath, her heat, the way she trembles under my touch and melts into the ruin of me.

It’s not gentle or sweet.

It’s freedom—wild and stolen and wrong in all the right ways.

The kiss is fire meeting gasoline, and we burn.

We burn. It’s everything it was when we met in that castle and more.

The same soft lips, the feelings that are ripped out of me as though my soul is being pulled out of my body.

She’s everything and more. So much more.

I kiss her like I’ll never get to again.

Because I might not. Because she’s mafia.

And I’m the Fed who’s supposed to bring her family down.

Because no matter how many times I save her, this world will keep finding ways to rip us apart.

But right now? She’s in my arms. Her lips are on mine. And I am alive.

Her lips are still warm against mine when she pulls away.

Slow. Hesitant. Like it physically hurts her to break the moment. Like she’s peeling herself out of a dream she’s not ready to wake up from. Her hands are still tangled in my shirt, but she’s not pulling me closer anymore. She’s pushing.

“Max...” I breathe, forehead resting against hers.

She shakes her head once, eyes clenched shut, like if she looks at me she’ll change her mind.

“We can’t,” she whispers. Her voice cracks on the last word, like it’s trying to claw its way back down her throat.

My chest caves.

“I know,” I say, even though I don’t. Not really. I don’t understand how the world can expect me to walk away from her and keep breathing like that’s supposed to be normal.

“I—” she starts, then stops. Her hands flatten against my chest and push. Firmer now. With intent. “Saxon, please.”

Please.

That’s the part that undoes me. She’s asking me to go for her sake, not because she doesn’t want me. Not because she didn’t feel it too. But because she's stronger than I am in this moment, and she knows the truth neither of us wants to admit.

I nod, jaw tight, and step back. My body is already mourning her before I’m even out the door.

She doesn’t follow. Just watches with hollow eyes as I leave. No goodbye. No last look. Just silence and regret hanging heavy in the air between us.

Outside, the night air slaps me in the face. It’s cold, but not enough to numb the ache splitting me in half.

I stumble into the street like I’ve been hit.

Like the kiss was a car crash and now I’m bleeding out under flickering streetlights, surrounded by the echo of everything I’ll never have.

She was the only part of my life that ever made sense.

And I don’t deserve her. But that hasn’t stopped me from wanting her.

Not since the first time. Not since that first night more than a year ago .

The night I was undercover, deep in hell, forced to play a role in a world that chews people up and spits them out in pieces.

When Kadri ordered me to use her—to touch her, to keep up appearances—I told myself that I had no choice.

That it would save her life. That if I didn’t do it, someone worse would.

But even then... even when my heart was breaking and I hated myself more than I ever have... she was all I could think about. Every breath she took. Every soft sound she made. Every flash of rebellion in her eyes. I touched her like I was dying, and she didn’t even know who I was.

She still doesn’t know the full truth. But I do.

I know that since that night, I haven’t touched another woman.

Not once. Not even close. Not even drunk or lonely or bleeding out and trying to forget her name.

Because forgetting Maxine Andrade? Impossible.

She lives under my skin. In my head. In my fucking bloodstream.

And no amount of years or distance or rules or rivals is going to change that.

There is no other woman. Not for me. There never has been. Just her. And I don’t care how many laws I have to break, how many lines I have to blur—I will find a way to make this happen. One way or another… Maxine Andrade will be mine.