Page 5 of The Vagabond

MAXINE - FIFTEEN MONTHS AGO

B y the time Devon Walsh walked into my life, I was already half-dead.

Not physically—though my body was little more than bones and bruises wrapped in skin. But inside? I was just a collection of survival reflexes wearing a human face.

I didn’t remember what month it was. What season. Whether it was morning or night. All I knew was Altin Kadri’s voice. All I knew were his fists, his rules, his casual, calculated degradation.

For nine months, I had belonged to him. Nine months of being paraded like a prized possession. Passed from room to room. Hand to hand. Laughed at. Stripped bare. Called pet, whore, property.

Sometimes they called me Maxine, like it was still my name. But it didn’t feel like it was mine anymore.

Altin never raised his voice, because he never had to. He broke girls with a look, a deceptive smile, letting his guests do the rest. And when he touched me, it was with a predator’s patience—like he was molding something beautiful out of something broken .

The worst part? The part that ate me alive? I had stopped screaming a long time ago. It was useless. Because no one ever came. Until him. Devon Walsh. That was what they called him.

He arrived on a Thursday. Or maybe it was a Monday. Time bled there. His hair was dark brown and unkempt, tousled in a way that made me think he didn’t pay much mind to his appearance before stepping through the door. But that didn’t make him any less formidable.

Five-day stubble shaded his jaw. He wore expensive clothes and shoes that looked like they could be custom made.

He didn’t look at me the way the others did. That was the first thing I noticed. He looked at Altin. Straight on. Unflinching. A man who didn’t fear monsters.

And when he finally turned to me, it wasn’t with that hungry look I was used to receiving. He looked at me as though he were looking through me.

The room was cold, its bite sinking into my bones.

Silence pressed in on all sides, thick and suffocating.

I stood barefoot, the bruises on my skin pulsing like tiny heartbeats.

The silk clinging to me was no comfort; it left faint marks, little dots across my flesh, as if even the fabric wanted to remind me I didn’t belong here.

Altin draped a possessive hand across my shoulder, nails pressing into bone.

“She’s our most... valuable possession,” he said, wearing that smile he always wore—like he was talking about a bottle of wine, not a person.

The man he referred to as Devon didn’t reply. He just stepped closer. And when he did, I saw it.

His eyes. Dark brown on the surface. But when the light hit him just right, I caught the glint of something pale underneath. Contacts.

My pulse fluttered. His voice was low. Measured .

“You trust her?”

Altin chuckled.

“She doesn’t bite…anymore.”

Devon’s eyes never left mine, watching me curiously.

“That so?”

That night, I was left with him. Alone. Just like I had been given to others so many times before. That night, it was Devon Walsh’s turn.

In the gilded bedroom they used for showings—white sheets, hidden cameras, and the swirl of incense making me gag.

It was just me. And him. And the war between trust and terror pounding in my chest. Because Altin Kadri didn’t just give you away. He watched. He was meticulous like that. Sadistic in the quietest way possible. He liked to observe what happened when you thought you were unobserved.

And I knew—deep in my bones—that he was watching now.

That somewhere behind a pane of one-way glass or a camera hidden in a bouquet of roses, he was sitting with a drink in his hand, waiting to see if I would fail.

Waiting to see if I would betray myself.

Or Devon.

I sat on the edge of the bed, spine straight, hands folded tight in my lap like a good girl on her worst night.

I could feel the heat of Devon’s presence as he stepped into the room, closed the door behind him with a soft click. He didn’t speak or move toward me. He just stood there, watching. Like he knew we weren’t alone and that Kadri was waiting for blood.

Then, softly—like a ghost slipping beneath the surface of a dream—he started walking toward me.

Lifted me by the shoulders. Slid his fingers down my bare arm. Leaned in as though to kiss my neck. I shivered as he moved closer still, and whispered into my ear.

“I’m FBI. ”

Two words. Two detonations. I didn’t breathe. I didn’t move. My heart hammered, but I was cautious, because Altin was good at playing games, testing me.

He leaned in closer. His lips grazed my ear.

“He’s watching. Play along.”

My eyes stung. My jaw tightened.

“It’s a test,” he said. “Kadri is testing my loyalty. He wants to see the hate. The disgust. Make him think you’re as repulsed by me as the rest.”

I stared at him. “And if I can’t?”

“We both die,” he said flatly. “Or worse.”

I knew he was watching. Kadri. That sick, smiling, sadistic bastard. He was on the other side of the two-way mirror, nursing a drink with that signature calm, probably stroking the ring on his finger like it was a trigger. This was his game. His theater. And that night, I was the show.

I felt the cameras in the walls. I felt his eyes in my spine.

I flinched when Devon touched me. I had to. It was instinct, yes—but it was also strategy. Kadri needed to believe this. Every breath, every blink, had to sell the illusion that I hated every second of this.

Devon Walsh wasn’t like the others. I knew that now.

But it didn’t matter. Not that night. No matter how gentle his hands felt under the mask of aggression, how carefully he cradled my arm even as he pretended to grab it—this was still a stage, and if we fucked up our lines, the curtain would fall with blood.

I turned my face away when he leaned in because I had to. Disgust. Revulsion. The performance of survival.

My eyes fluttered shut .

I reminded myself this was just another role. Another body to endure. Another hour I had to outlast.

His hands gripped my upper arms—not hard or cruel, but made to look like it. His fingers pressed into the soft skin just enough to leave the kind of impression Kadri expected. The illusion of dominance and threat.

He walked me backward, slow, steady, like he had done this before.

When the back of my knees hit the edge of the bed, I fell, my breath catching as the mattress swallowed my weight.

Then he was on me. Fully clothed. Pressing down.

His head buried in the crook of my neck, and for a moment, it felt real. Like comfort, and safety.

But then he whispered in my ear;

“Come on, Maxine. Put up a bit of a fight. What would you do if this was anyone else?”

Maxine. He said my name. He knows my name.

I reacted on instinct. I shoved him. Hard.

A real, feral push with everything I had.

He let himself fall to the side—deliberate, staged—but I didn’t make it halfway off the bed before his hand closed around my arm and dragged me back.

His strength was terrifying. Not because he used it—but because I knew how much he must have been holding back.

He pinned me, slammed me into the mattress like he was furious, and for a split second, I forgot it was a game.

Then he tore the top of my dress open. Fabric screamed.

My chest was bare. He stared at me. Too long and intense.

His throat bobbed like he was trying to swallow down the guilt, the fury, the burn behind his eyes.

Then his head dipped. His mouth closed over one breast, then the other. He bit down on my nipple—hard. I yelped. The pain was real. Sharp. Immediate.

Kadri was going to love that.

“I’m sorry,” Devon breathed against my skin, over and over. His voice was a prayer, broken and low. “I’m so fucking sorry, Maxine. Do you want me to stop?”

“No.”

It came out on a ragged breath, and I didn’t even know if I meant it. All I knew was if this was the only way out, I would walk barefoot across glass to make it happen.

I kneed him in the gut—reflex, routine, scripted.

It landed with enough force to look good on camera, but not enough to hurt him.

His grunt was all performance. He shifted, moved fast, straddled me.

Pinned my wrists to the mattress like I was dangerous enough to hurt him and he wanted nothing more than to corrupt me.

One hand fumbled with his belt, the other still holding me down. Then I felt it—the rasp of metal, the slide of a zipper, and the heat of him as he reached into his pants. His cock sprang free. Thick. Hard. Flushed with blood and heat.

I averted my gaze. Sold the revulsion. Pretended I didn’t feel the way his touch lit something dangerous inside me.

He leaned down, pressed the head of his cock against my entrance—bare, hot—and rubbed slow, aching circles into my folds.

I was wet. I hated that I was wet. I hated that I wanted him.

His lips crashed into mine. Hard. Desperate. Messy. I opened my mouth to him even as I twisted my head like I was fighting.

It was a ballet of contradiction—every push matched by a pull, every protest laced with a yes I couldn’t say aloud.

My hips rose. Instinct. Treason.

And then—he growled. Low. Animal. His hand snapped back, and with a vicious yank, he ripped my underwear in half.

He didn’t enter me. Instead, he thrust against me. Brutal. Punishing.

His cock grinding against my slit, over my clit, again and again, hips slamming into mine with a rhythm too perfect to be faked. The friction was overwhelming. Raw. Electric. And I couldn’t stop it.

A moan clawed its way up my throat—I bit it back, but it trembled through me anyway, a raw shudder I couldn’t contain.

His hand shot up, wrapping around my neck, fingers tightening just enough to make the world tilt.

As if by choking me, he could strangle the sounds spilling from my lips, silence the soft, desperate moans that betrayed just how wrecked I was under his touch.

He didn’t look at me. He looked at the wall. At him. At the man watching behind the glass.

And with one final thrust, he came—hot and heavy. His seed spilled over my pussy, my thighs, the bed. Coated me like sin. Like proof. He rocked against me once, twice more, then collapsed forward, his breath jagged, his chest heaving against mine.

His mouth found my ear again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

And I believed him. But it didn’t matter. Because somewhere behind the glass, Altin Kadri was smiling. And I was still his.