Page 48 of The Vagabond

SAXON

T he moment Brando steps into the shipping yard, the air changes.

It thickens. Warps. Goes still like the seconds before a storm touches down.

He’s a shadow at first. Then a silhouette.

And then—he’s here. Eyes red-rimmed. Jaw locked.

Shoulders squared like he’s bracing for war.

His coat billows behind him like wings made of knives.

And for a second—just one—I think we might be too late.

Not for Maxine. For ourselves. Because Brando Gatti doesn’t walk like a man. He walks like a reckoning. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t even breathe. He just throws a punch. Right at me.

I barely register the movement before his fist slams into my jaw with enough force to snap my head sideways.

Pain fractures through my skull, my teeth clack together, blood floods my mouth.

I stumble back, blink once, twice—just in time to see Brando lunging again.

His fists fly as his face twists into something primal.

Mason and Kanyan are on him before he lands the next blow—but barely. They each grab an arm, muscles straining to hold him back. Brando Gatti is a lethal man when he’s full of fury and has no-where to put it.

“ Where the fuck is she! ” Brando roars, voice shredded, raw, the kind of sound that comes from a place deeper than wrath. From grief and terror.

“We don’t know yet,” Mason grits out. “We’re close?—”

“Close doesn’t fucking matter!” Brando fights against their grip like he’s possessed.

“She’s gone. And if Maxine doesn’t come back, I will lose Mia again!

I’ll lose her! Do you understand that?!” His chest is heaving, eyes feral, mouth curling around his words like venom.

“Don’t tell me you’re close. Tell me who the fuck I have to kill to get her back! ”

“We have a good lead in the boot,” Mason tells him. “Just calm down, let’s work him.”

Mason finally lets him go—slowly, cautiously—and Brando wrenches his arm free from Kanyan with a snarl. He spins toward the SUV, eyes landing on Zack in the trunk like he’s a lamb strapped to the altar.

My stomach knots. I know this is going to get ugly.

Brando stalks to the back of the SUV and throws it open. The light catches Zack’s face—smeared with dried blood, taped mouth already heaving as he senses what’s coming.

Brando grabs him by the ankle and yanks him out, hard.

Zack’s knees scrape against the concrete, the skin peeling back in raw ribbons as he’s dragged across the unforgiving yard.

He thrashes, trying to slow the descent, but Brando doesn’t stop.

Because he’s not pulling a man out of a car. He’s dragging a sacrifice.

Brando shoves him against the bumper, rips the tape off his mouth in one brutal tear, and stands there—towering, wild, dripping with wrath.

“You want to play games?” he snarls. “Let’s fucking play.”

Zack tries to speak, but Brando cuts him off with a backhand that echoes through the yard. Blood arcs through the air as Zack drops to his knees. Mason steps forward.

“Brando—”

“No . ” Brando jabs a finger toward the truck. “You said this piece of shit led you here. And what’d you find, huh? Girls. But not Maxine . So he either lied—” Brando slams a palm into the SUV beside Zack’s head “—or he’s hiding something.”

“Ready to talk?” Kanyan asks, stepping forward slowly, steely voice quiet.

His tone is calm, but I know what that calm means.

It’s not mercy—it’s management. Like he knows exactly how far he can let Brando spiral before someone has to step in and pull him back from the edge of no return.

But looking at Brando now? There might not be an edge left.

Because it looks like he’s already over it.

Zack stays on his knees, panting through a busted lip, skin slick with blood and sweat as he tries to hold it together.

But Brando Gatti doesn’t have the patience and control owned by the rest of the Gatti brothers.

Brando is storm and steel. And in this moment, with his bloodlust stretching across the shipping yard like wildfire, I know—bone-deep know—that Brando Gatti is capable of anything.

He crouches low, eye to eye with Zack, and pulls something from his coat pocket.

A knife. Not a gun. A fucking blade.

It's long and curved, blackened metal with a handle worn smooth from years of use. It’s not a showpiece—it’s personal. Intimate. A knife you use when you want to feel the damage. He flicks it open with a practiced motion. The sound it makes is sharp, final. My spine goes ice cold.

“I’ve been real nice up to now,” Brando says softly, voice coiled and shaking with restraint.

“I let you keep your face. I let you keep your fingers. You’re still breathing.

” He tilts his head, eyes narrowing. “But if you’re going to sit there like a good little soldier who’s loyal to our enemy while our clock ticks slowly… ? ”

Zack glares at him, chest heaving, mouth shut tight.

Brando smiles. It’s a slow, terrifying thing. Then he grabs Zack by the hair, jerks his head back, and presses the flat of the blade to his face.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Then let’s start small.”

The tip of the knife drags lightly along Zack’s cheek, just enough to draw a bead of blood. Brando watches it with interest, like he’s mapping out a design.

“You know what happens to men who don’t talk when I need them to?” he murmurs, voice almost gentle. “They lose the parts that keep them quiet.”

Zack starts shaking his head, trembling now.

Brando’s smile stretches, slow and razor-thin.

“I respect loyalty,” he says, voice laced with mock disappointment. “But don’t mistake that for restraint.” His eyes harden. “I’ll cut out your fucking tongue and toss it to the gulls if that’s what it takes to get what I want.”

Zack flinches violently. “You’re insane?—”

“No,” Brando says, eyes blazing. “I’m pissed off. There’s a difference.”

He presses the blade harder under Zack’s jaw, tilting his face toward the sky.

“You will talk, Zack. Because this?” He gestures to the night, the yard, the bodies, the blood. “This is the part before the pain starts. And once I start? I don’t stop. And you will bleed out on these docks. Now, are you willing to die for your loyalty?”

Kanyan steps closer now, not to stop him—but just enough to remind Brando that there’s a line somewhere in the sand. But Brando? Brando wipes that line out with the heel of his boot. Because I think he wants to cross it.

And Zack? He’s finally seeing it.

The fear blooms in his eyes. The arrogance fades. He’s living on borrowed time. And the clock just ran out.

“I don’t know where she is,” Zack stammers, breath hitching, sweat sliding in thick, salty rivers down his filthy face. His voice is barely more than a mumble, trembling around the cracked edges of desperation. “All I know is this is where they’re keeping the girls.”

Brando’s smile is slow. Dangerous.

“So you gave us something,” he says, crouching low, blade still glinting in the dim yard light. “Just not necessarily the thing we wanted.” He taps the flat edge of the knife against Zack’s chest—light, rhythmic. The way you might tease a piano key before slamming it down.

“That tells me you’re not just lying,” Brando continues. “It tells me you weighed your answers. Measured them. Which means you think Maxine’s worth more than the twenty-six bodies we just pulled out of that fucking container.” His eyes harden. “That true, Zack?”

“I—I don’t know,” Zack stutters, shifting, straining against the invisible noose tightening around him. “I told you everything I know?—”

Brando’s hand moves fast. Too fast.

He grabs Zack by the throat and slams the back of his head into the car. Zack yelps, limbs flailing, panic rising in waves.

“You’re lying,” Brando snarls, his voice low and lethal. The knife presses under Zack’s chin now, just enough to dimple the skin.“You’re lying because you’re scared. Of them—but the one you really should be afraid of is me.”

And he’s not wrong.

Zack’s eyes are wide now. Glassy. This is Brando at his feral worst.

I shift beside Mason, hand drifting toward my gun, not to stop Brando—but to be ready in case he needs to be stopped. This is the part where rage starts to drown logic. And right now, Brando Gatti is neck-deep in it.

But Scar beats me to it as he steps forward, cutting into the heat like a storm rolling in.

“Brando,” he says, voice cool but pointed. “Don’t.”

Brando doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t blink.

“I said don’t,” Scar repeats, firmer this time. “We kill him, we kill our only lead.”

Brando’s nostrils flare. His grip on the blade tightens. But Scar doesn’t back off.

“Maxine’s alive,” Scar continues. “You feel that, don’t you? She’s out there. And this piece of shit might be the only thread we’ve got.”

For a moment, it’s silent except for Zack’s ragged breathing.

Brando leans in so close I see blood smear across Zack’s face just from the proximity.

“You get one chance, Zack,” he whispers. “One. You keep feeding me half-truths, and I swear to God—I will carve out your fucking tongue and send it back to your boss in a jar.”

Zack trembles. He’s about to crack—I can see it in the twitch of his eye, the tremble of his lips. The facade is shattering, piece by piece. Zack spits blood but says nothing.

Brando pulls a burner phone from his coat pocket and tosses it at his chest. “Call your boss.”

Zack stares at the phone like it’s a loaded gun.

Brando leans in close, voice dropping into something cold and terrible.

“Here’s how this works. You call him. You say we want to trade.

Maxine for you . ” His lip curls. “If they say no? Then you’re not worth shit to them.

And you’re worth nothing to me without the answers I want.

You get one chance - fuck it up and you die. ”

Zack’s hands tremble as he picks up the phone. He dials. Waits. Everyone’s holding their breath. It clicks. He puts it on speaker as requested.

The voice on the other end is calm, a little too cautious. “What is it?”

Zack stutters before he answers. “It…it…it’s me. Zack.”

The silence stretches longer than it should. It’s not a silence caused by bad reception—but an intentional one. A listening silence. A calculating one.“Zack…?”

Brando answers for him. “We’ve got your boy. We want Maxine Andrade. Alive. We get her back, you can have your boy.”

There’s another long pause. Then the voice says, crisp and quiet, “Do what you want with him.”

Zack stiffens. Blinks like he misheard.

“What?” he breathes, disbelief coating his features. “But… Dad ?—”

But the voice doesn’t repeat itself. He hangs up, and we all turn to look at Zack, dumbfounded.

Zack’s face goes white. Everything in his face shifts—cockiness draining away, replaced by something pale and wounded. He opens his mouth again, but the words fall out strangled, helpless. Unintelligible.

“Wait,” Mason says. “ Dad ?”

That’s when it hits. The silence. The weight. And then Brando’s eyes go wide with dawning horror. And the world stills.

The phone slips from Brando’s fingers. Mason’s entire body goes taut beside me. Even Scar swears under his breath.

Because that voice—the one who just signed Zack’s death warrant without a second thought—isn’t just some handler in the shadows.

He’s a major player at the top of this sick fucking twisted empire.

He must be, if has the authority to dispose of one of his own.

And Zack? Zack’s not a pawn. He’s blood.

He’s the son of the monster. And his father just told us he’s not worth saving.

For a moment, no one moves. Then Brando laughs. Cold. Sharp. Unhinged.

“I knew you bastards were sick,” he says. “But this?” He looks down at Zack like he’s already dead. “I’m gonna make you scream for daddy, little prince.”

Zack blanches. Tries to scramble back. Brando steps forward, grabbing him by the collar again, and this time—this time—there’s no one stopping him.

But I don’t stick around to watch it unfold.

Because while they deal with the son, I’m going after the father.

I pull out my phone and make a call of my own. My contact answers on the second ring.

“I need a trace,” I say. I rattle off the number that Zack called from the burner phone. “Find the signal. Pin it. I want a name and the exact location.”

My contact doesn’t ask questions as she gets to work. Because I’m done guessing. I’m done chasing ghosts. I’m going to find Maxine. And I’m going to bury the man who thought it was a good idea to take her.