Page 53 of The Vagabond

MAXINE

S axon kneels at my feet, hands trembling as he removes the chains from my wrists, whispering my name like a broken prayer.

“You’re safe now,” he whispers, as he presses me into his chest. “You’re safe.”

I want to say something.

But all I can do is stare at him—this bloodied, unrecognizable version of the man who sees and understands every crevice of my darkness, because it so clearly mirrors his own.

He cradles my face, searching for injuries.

Can’t he see that the biggest injury I have is to that vessel in my chest?

His thumb brushes my cheek. That’s when I feel it.

The tear. Just one. Sliding down my face like the blood on his.

“I saw you,” I whisper, voice raw. “I saw what you did.”

He stiffens.

“I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” he says, voice breaking on the words.

I pause. And then I shake my head, just once.

“I’m not,” I whisper. “I’m afraid of what I felt when you did it. ”

His breath hitches. And then he pulls me into him, arms wrapping around me so tight I feel like I might dissolve. The room is a slaughterhouse. But in his arms? It almost feels like home.

The air outside hits my skin like I’ve never felt wind before.

Cold. Open. Free.

I should be crying. I should be screaming. But my body is too numb to register anything except the way Saxon holds me—arms tight, one under my knees, one behind my back, like I weigh nothing at all.

I don’t even know when he lifted me from the ground. One minute I was watching blood drip down the walls, the next… I was in his arms. Against his chest. Wrapped in his scent—gunpowder, sweat, dark rage.

“I’ve got you,” he keeps whispering.

Like if he says it enough, it’ll erase everything they did to me. Everything I’ve been. Everything I’ve survived.

“You’re safe now.”

But that’s not the part that undoes me. It’s the next words.

“No one will ever touch you again.”

His voice is low. Steel and silk that wraps around me like a promise. A threat to the world.

He presses his mouth to my temple, and I feel his breath tremble. And all I can think—through the pain and the blood and the way my heart still stutters when I look at him—is:

What kind of girl falls in love with a man who would kill for her?

Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? He carved a path through my prison with my name in his mouth and murder in his veins.

He slaughtered men like they were nothing.

He made men bleed just for looking at me the wrong way.

And I didn’t look away. I watched it all.

And the sickest part? The part I’m terrified to say out loud? I felt safe. I felt vindicated.

Loved in a way I don’t know how to accept. In a way that’s all teeth and fire and hands that don’t shake when they hold a gun for you, seeking your revenge.

What kind of girl loves that? Me, apparently.

Saxon carries me through the wreckage, his arms locked around me like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he loosens his grip. His jaw is tight. Eyes forward. Blood—some of it his, most of it not—splatters his shirt, streaks down his forearms.

We pass through the edge of the estate, moving over bodies. Some are facedown, unmoving. Others are sprawled like they died mid-run, limbs bent at the wrong angles. Throats open. Chests caved in. The ground’s soaked in blood, and the air is heavy with the scent of gunpowder.

Scar is first. He stands over a body, fingers slack around a pistol. Kanyan flanks him, dragging someone’s corpse by the collar, with Lucky trailing behind.

They see Saxon and step aside, giving him space. Which says everything. These men—killers, soldiers, men who barely tolerate Saxon North on a good day—I never thought I’d see them in the same room without a fistfight or a gun drawn. Now they’re clearing a path for him like it’s owed.

Scar’s the only one who speaks.

“We’ve got a problem.”

Saxon doesn’t stop walking and he doesn’t so much as glance at him. He continues to walk, as though in a trance, until Scar falls into step beside us, voice low. Controlled.

“Vernon Gibbons isn’t just a name. He’s the current mouthpiece for the Aviary and a respected member of the community. You don’t try to take out a man like that without consequence.”

Saxon’s jaw tightens. I feel it under my cheek. I guess he wasn’t actually supposed to gut the man .

Scar continues. “When word spreads—and it will—this doesn’t end with you walking away. They’ll come looking. For you. For her. For anyone tied to this.”

“She’s not staying in the city,” Saxon says. He speaks without hesitation; no argument in his voice, as though he’s stating a fact. And that’s when Mason explodes.

“The fuck she’s not,” he growls, storming toward us. “She’s not going anywhere.”

“She’ll be protected,” Saxon snarls back, finally stopping. His voice cracks around the edges—raw, wrecked. “I’m protecting her.”

“She’s not yours to protect.”

“She’s not safe in the city,” Saxon bites back.

I want to speak. But I don’t. I just bury my face in Saxon’s shirt and close my eyes. Because I don’t want to be the thing they fight over. I just want to be free.

Scar steps between them, holding up a hand.

“Enough. You want her safe?” He asks, directing his attention to Mason. “She leaves the city until this dies down. You want to fight about it, do it after we know the danger has passed.”

Mason seethes. But he doesn’t argue. Not because he agrees. But because deep down, he knows that this is what needs to happen.

Saxon stops walking and turns slightly, still holding me tight against his chest. His eyes scan the men around us—Scar, Lucky, Mason, Kanyan—not with suspicion, but with something rarer.

Gratitude.

The silent kind. The kind that doesn’t need to be said out loud because it’s carved into his jaw, into the set of his shoulders, into the way he hasn’t let go of me since the moment he found me.

He wouldn’t have pulled this off alone. He knows that.

Yet still, a small voice inside me wonders— Where were the agents?

Where was the Bureau? Wasn’t this supposed to be a joint task force?

A coordinated strike? Like he reads the question on my face, Saxon’s voice cuts through the fog, sharp but hoarse.

“I’ll reach out to some old contacts. I’ve got enough on the Pastor to bury him six times over and keep digging.”

Scar nods once. “Be careful who you trust.”

The warning lingers in the air, heavier than the smoke still curling from the wreckage behind us. There are bodies cooling inside that house. Secrets buried with them. More criminals waiting to be named.

Saxon’s lips tighten into a line, his expression unreadable.

He gives Scar a sharp nod of acknowledgment—but says nothing.

He just turns and walks again, carrying me like I’m too fragile and too sacred to be jostled.

And maybe I am. Because for the first time in days, I’m back in his arms, and I don’t feel fragile, like I’m about to break.

He reaches the SUV, opens the door, and gently lowers me onto the seat like I’m porcelain. His hands are careful, reverent, shaking just a little as he buckles the seatbelt across my chest. He checks it twice before he pulls back.

Brando materializes behind him—silent, grim, eyes red-rimmed from what he’s holding back.

He steps up as Saxon moves aside, and leans into the open door. His voice is tight, the words sticking in his throat like they don’t want to be spoken.

“You take care of her,” he tells Saxon without looking at him. His voice is low. Threat and plea wrapped in one. “If you fuck this up?—”

He doesn’t finish the sentence as his eyes meet mine.

And they soften . Brando lifts a hand and gently brushes my hair back from my face, his touch careful, trembling with raw emotion.

“Mia doesn’t know,” he says quietly. “And I don’t want her to.

So please— please —just stay alive for her, Maxine. For all of us. Just… be safe.”

My chest aches with the weight of his words.

I nod once. That’s all I can manage. Saxon climbs in beside me, slams the door shut, and without another word, he starts to drive.

No destination spoken. Just away . Away from the blood.

From the ghosts still whispering in the charred halls of that mansion.

And maybe we’re driving straight into darkness, but it’s his darkness.

And in Saxon’s arms—even the storm feels like salvation.

Because I’m not the kind of girl who gets rescued.

I’m the kind who survives. And the kind who lets a killer carry her out of hell… So I can finally learn how to live.