Page 43 of The Vagabond

SAXON

T he SUV growls as it eats up the asphalt, tires hissing like they’re just as pissed off as the rest of us. Rage rides shotgun tonight, thick in the air, simmering in every breath.

Zack’s in the back seat—zip-tied, lip split, blood crusting down the side of his face. He’s trying to posture, to keep that smug little grin intact, but it’s cracked at the edges. He can feel it. The fury. The weight of it as it settles in the space between us.

I ride beside Lucky, who drives like a demon in a suit—hands white-knuckled on the wheel, jaw clenched, eyes burning straight ahead. He hasn’t said a word since we left the bar, but his silence is louder than gunfire.

In the rearview, I catch a glimpse of Mason. His face looks like it’s carved from granite. Hollowed out by fury. That’s not the face of a man looking for answers. That’s the face of a man looking to burn down everything that stands between him and his daughter.

“Pull over,” Mason says, voice low. Too calm.

Lucky doesn’t glance back. “We’re five minutes out.”

“I said pull the fuck over. ”

I twist in my seat, eyes flicking to Mason in warning. “Mason?—”

Too late.

Zack shifts in his seat—just a small, nervous twitch—but it’s the wrong move.

A stupid move. Because Mason sees it. And in that split second, all the restraint he’s been barely clinging to snaps like brittle bone.

That one twitch is enough to bring it all back—the bruises on Maxine’s body, the fear in her voice, the not knowing.

It hits Mason like a freight train. Every second we sit here talking while she’s gone again is a second too long.

Mason doesn’t speak. He lunges. In a blink, he’s on Zack, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him against the SUV door with the kind of force that comes from pure, undiluted ferocity. His fist cocks back, ready to break bone.

Zack chokes out something-I can’t tell what it is, and Mason doesn’t seem to care, because in his mind, this isn’t just Zack. It’s every man who’s ever laid hands on a woman for sport. It’s every nightmare Maxine’s too afraid to share with him.

And right now? Mason wants him to feel it.

The SUV jerks hard as Lucky tries to keep us on the road. Mason’s got a fist around Zack’s throat, slamming him against the door like he’s trying to push him through it.

“You took her,” Mason snarls. “You touched her. You looked at her.”

Zack gasps, his face turning crimson, eyes bulging. Mason doesn’t let up.

“You have any idea what she means to this family? What she means to my daughter ?”

Zack tries to jerk away, but Mason’s fist drives into his face. Once. Twice. Bone cracks. Blood flies. The SUV screeches to a stop.

I’m out of my seat in a flash, wrenching the back door open. I reach for Mason, but catch an elbow to the gut for my trouble. Another punch. More blood. It paints the window in jagged red streaks. A grotesque masterpiece.

For one fractured second, I almost let it continue. But then I snap back into myself. I grab Mason by the shoulders and rip him off Zack with everything I’ve got.

“We need him breathing,” I hiss.

Zack slumps forward, gasping, face already swelling, blood spilling down his chin. “Fuck you,” he coughs. “You can kill me and I still wouldn’t tell you where she is.”

I yank him out of the SUV and throw him to the dirt. The night roars above us—sky black and swollen with thunderclouds, lightning flashing like camera bulbs before an execution.

Zack tries to crawl away. Mason kicks him hard in the ribs.

He coughs blood into the dust. “You’re all fucking insane.”

“Wrong again,” Mason growls. “This is the color of vengeance.”

He presses the sole of his boot to Zack’s face, grinding down slowly.

“Last chance,” he spits. “ Where. Is. She? ”

Zack’s chest hitches. And for the first time since we found him?Fear looks good on him.

“It’s too late. She’ll be gone before you get to her,” he rasps.

I move in fast, crouch beside him, and grab a fistful of his hair, yanking his head up.

Scar and Kanyan disembark from their car and close the distance between us.

“Saxon.” Scar’s voice cuts through the haze, low and even, sharp as a blade. A warning. I must look murderous. Hell, I feel murderous. Like my blood’s been replaced with fire and my bones are itching to crack. “Remember who you are,” he says.

But that’s the problem. I don’t know who the fuck I am anymore.

I used to be the Fed. The one who followed the rules—well, bent them maybe, twisted them to hell and back—but never broke them.

I used to believe there was a line. A purpose.

That justice, no matter how delayed, would eventually win.

But that version of me? Dead. Buried somewhere beneath the wreckage of Sienna’s body and Maxine’s trauma echoing in my skull.

They—the Bureau—took everything from me. Stripped me of the one thing that made me useful: my autonomy. My ability to act. To follow through on the investigation that could’ve brought the Aviary to its knees.

We were close. So fucking close. And just like that, they pulled the plug. Yanked the rug. Benched me like a misbehaving rookie and left the monsters to roam free while I sat on my hands and watched it all go up in smoke. Because I’m ‘too close.’

They didn’t just rob me of justice. They stole my vengeance. For Sienna. For Maxine. For every girl they turned into collateral damage.

So no, I don’t know who I am anymore. Not really.

Am I the Fed still trying to color inside the lines?

Or the man who’s ready to burn down every institution that let these bastards breathe?

Because right now? I feel a hell of a lot more like them—Scar, Mason, Lucky, Kanyan—than I do anyone I used to report to.

And maybe that’s the scariest part. That it doesn’t scare me anymore.

Zack trembles. His whole body shakes. But he’s quiet.

We’ve transported him back to the SUV, and he sits trembling in his seat, the door open.

He has blood on his lip and panic swimming in his eyes.

He’s playing tough, but his mouth is twitching, hands shaking, soul literally giving out in front of us.

And then Kanyan moves. No rush. Just quiet purpose.

He steps forward and crouches beside him, a forearm draped casually over the doorframe like he’s settling in for a fireside chat. But there’s no warmth in him. Just bone-deep silence.

Zack goes even quieter, like prey that just realized it’s not alone in the woods.

Kanyan doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. It’s the way he tilts his head, just slightly, like he’s listening to something no one else can hear. The way his eyes don’t blink, but instead bore straight into Zack’s skull like he’s reading every lie before it’s told.

Silence wraps around them like a noose. Zack shifts. Kanyan watches. And something in the air fractures. Zack breaks first.

“I—I don’t know where she is exactly,” he mutters, voice cracking. “I just got paid to watch her. Log her habits. I didn’t know they were gonna take her until they told me to…”

Kanyan doesn’t move. He just lifts one brow, barely.

“Who?” He asks. No further explanation needed.

“You know who. The same people that had her before.”

“And where is she now?”

Zack swallows hard. “Okay. Okay. Warehouse. Near the river. The south docks—block seventeen. That’s where they were taking her.”

I watch it unfold in stunned silence. Not a threat uttered. Not a weapon drawn. Just presence.

I’ve dealt with Kanyan before. Briefly. Enough to know he’s not a man who needs to flex to be dangerous. But this? This is something else. This is a man who terrifies without lifting a finger. The kind of man who could teach the Bureau a thing or two about real power.

Scar and Lucky exchange a glance but don’t speak. Even Mason stays still—watching, absorbing. No one interrupts the storm in still water that is Kanyan De Scarzi.

Zack’s trembling like a leaf in a hurricane now—his bravado shredded, his spine long gone.

He’s unraveling in real time, too many words pouring from his mouth too fast, like he’s desperate to outpace the silence.

He gives up names. Routes. Timelines. Things we didn’t even ask for.

All to keep that oppressive stillness from swallowing him whole.

And Kanyan?

Kanyan just nods. Once. Nothing dramatic. Just a small, precise dip of his chin, like a surgeon finishing a cut. Then he stands—fluid, composed, not a hair out of place—like he didn’t just peel back a man’s mind with nothing but a stare.

I can’t look away. I’ve seen seasoned interrogators threaten, scream, break kneecaps just to get half of what Zack just handed over on a silver platter.

But Kanyan didn’t even raise his voice. He didn’t have to.

It was the absence of threat that made him terrifying.

The unbearable weight of quiet expectation.

And me? I’m standing there like a goddamn rookie. Half in awe. Half shaken. Because I’ve spent my life hunting monsters. Filing reports. Building cases. Thinking justice was something you could wear like a badge.

But this man? Kanyan De Scarzi is justice—cold, wordless, and utterly indifferent to the rules I once lived by.

And as he steps away from Zack’s broken frame, not even sparing him a second glance, one truth settles into my bones like stone: God help anyone who stands between us and Maxine now. Because we’re not coming. We’re descending.