Page 56 of The Vagabond

SAXON

E veryone has a price to pay.

I’ve known that since the first time I wore a badge.

Since the first time I looked a man in the eye, promised him justice, and delivered something far bloodier.

Since the first time I told myself the end justified the means — and started making bargains with the parts of myself I swore I’d never lose.

Now here I am, sitting on the edge of this bed, Maxine curled against my chest, her breath soft, her fingers light on my skin.

And I’m wondering if I’ve already paid my price — or if the bill is still coming. Because redemption? It’s not some grand, sweeping moment where you save the girl, kill the bad guys, and walk away clean.

It’s quieter. Crueler. It’s the long nights where you can’t close your eyes because you see every face you ever left behind. It’s the mornings you wake up next to the woman you love, and the first thought in your head isn’t I’m lucky — it’s I don’t deserve this .

Maxine stirs, shifting closer, her cheek pressing into my chest. I tighten my arm around her, burying my face in her hair, breathing her in like she’s oxygen.

Because here’s the fucked-up truth: I never thought I’d get here.

I never thought I’d find her — let alone keep her.

And now that she’s in my arms, safe, alive, trembling but unbroken — I’m terrified.

Terrified the past is still waiting for me. Terrified that no matter how hard I fight, no matter how many bodies I bury, the ghosts will keep coming. Because I made choices. I sold pieces of myself. And everyone has a price to pay.

I press a kiss to the top of her head, closing my eyes. I think about the cases I buried. The favors I called in. The lines I crossed — lines that, once crossed, you don’t come back from. I think about the people who watched me do it. The ones who kept my secrets.

I rub a hand down my face, breath shaking.

Maxine murmurs something soft before she resumes her fitful sleep.

I have to figure out how to keep her safe from the monsters I brought to our doorstep. Because the irony? It’s not just her past that’s dangerous. It’s mine. My past is a loaded gun, cocked and aimed, and sooner or later, the trigger’s going to get pulled.

I ease back, slipping from the bed, standing at the window, staring out at the endless forest.

The trees. The silence. The thin, fragile space I carved out for us - knowing damn well it won’t hold.

My reflection stares back at me in the glass.

Tired. Hard. Haunted. I know who I am. I know what I’ve done.

And I know — with a sinking, inescapable certainty — that no matter how tightly I hold Maxine, no matter how many promises I whisper against her skin, everyone has a price to pay.

The cabin is quiet. Maxine is still asleep in the bed behind me—half-curled into the space I left, the sheet low on her hip, her breath soft and slow.

The bruises on her face are starting to fade to purple, the swelling gone.

Her swollen eye is looking a little better.

But the weight in my chest? Worse. Because I know peace doesn’t last. Not in this world.

Not when the ground’s already shifting under our feet.

My burner buzzes on the table. It’s an unknown number. But I’m sure I know who it is. I snatch it up and step out onto the porch, boots crunching over pine needles, gun tucked into my waistband.

I press the phone to my ear. My jaw’s tight, my pulse louder than it needs to be. Scar’s voice cuts through the line like a serrated edge. Cold. Precise. No warning.

“You need to come back, North.”

Scar Gatti doesn’t make small talk. He delivers the directive like a man who’s too busy to dress anything up.

He’s become the last person I ever thought I’d trust. An unlikely ally with his own brand of justice, feeding me intel from the inside while I stay buried off-grid with Maxine.

He gives me the pieces. I put them together.

And together, we’re planning something no one’s ready for.

I close my eyes for half a second, exhaling slow and steady through my nose, forcing control into a body that wants to snap.

“I can’t do that,” I murmur, because there’s nothing else to say — no excuse, no lie, no half-truth that could change what’s already carved into my bones.

The truth is, I’ve been drowning since the day I met Maxine. And the tide hasn’t let me up once.

I don’t want to drag her back to the city, back to the concrete graveyard where every corner holds bad memories, where every shadow whispers regret.

I want to keep her here. Hidden. Safe. Far from the darkness, far from the weight of everything waiting to crush her.

But then Scar’s voice cuts through, sharp and cold:

“You didn’t just kick the hornet’s nest this time, Saxon. You burned the whole fucking hive down.”

I say nothing. What the hell can I say? I butchered Vernon Gibbons and left a trail of bodies from the docks to the Pastor’s estate.

I slit Zack’s throat without blinking. I dropped off the grid with a trafficked woman who should be under Federal protection.

I did it all with full clarity. And I’d do it again.

Scar keeps talking.

“Mia found out. About Maxine. About everything. Brando’s losing his goddamn mind. I don’t know what he’ll do to you the next time he sees you.”

I grit my teeth. “Tell him to take a ticket and get in line.”

“Mason doesn’t trust that Maxine’s safe with you. He wants her home.”

I laugh under my breath—sharp, bitter. My list of enemies just keeps growing.

“He ever trust anyone who doesn’t bleed his name?”

Scar pauses. “He trusted me.”

Fair. But I’m not Scar Gatti. I’m the Fed who burned Mason Ironside before and he’ll probably never get past that. Scar keeps going.

“The Bureau’s crawling all over the city,” he says, voice low, like even the phone line could turn traitor. “Internal Affairs is digging hard. Word is, someone upstairs thinks you’ve gone off-script.”

I clench my jaw. “Define off-script.”

“They’re saying you’ve gone rogue. That you’re either working for the mob…” He pauses, lets his words hang like a noose between us. “Or that you are the mob now.”

I pace the length of the porch, blood drumming in my ears.

“And with what you did to Vernon?” Scar adds. “That wasn’t some quiet Bureau-sanctioned black bag job. That was personal. That was vengeance, loud and messy. You didn’t just send a message—you lit the whole fucking building on fire.”

“He deserved worse,” I say, but my voice comes out quieter than I mean it to.

“Yeah, maybe. But that’s not what concerns them.” He pauses again, longer this time.

“What?” I press. His silence curdles something in my gut. “What aren’t you saying?”

Scar exhales. When he speaks again, it’s slower. Measured. Like he knows there’s no way to soften what’s coming.

“They’re calling it vigilante justice.” He hesitates. “Or…”

“Or what?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. Then, after a long pause, he breathes the words out.

“They’re trying to frame you as a serial killer.”

The words hit like a cold blade to the spine. I stop moving. Scar keeps going, voice low and even.

“They’ve pulled your old casework. Reopened every violent takedown you were part of in the last five years.

Every body that didn’t make it to trial.

Feds are calling in behavioral analysts, violent crime profilers.

They’re running comparisons between what you did to the Pastor—and what’s been done in half a dozen unsolved cases they never could pin down. ”

I don’t speak. I can’t breathe.

“They think you’ve been playing executioner longer than you’re admitting.”

I close my eyes. And I smile. Not because it’s funny. But because it’s true. I’ve always been this man. They just didn’t notice until now. And I’ll be damned if they try to separate us now that I’ve found Maxine again.

“You need to fix this,” Scar says. “For your sake. For hers. You leave a trail, they’ll bury you. And if they don’t, there’s a long list of others waiting to do the honors.”

I go quiet. Scar does too. Then his voice drops lower. He doesn’t sound like a mob boss now. He sounds like a man who’s watched the city chew up people he cared about and spit them out in body bags.

“You’ve made more enemies in the last forty-eight hours than you can count on two hands, North.

Maxine’s safe—for now. But if you think this ends with you both disappearing into the woods and playing house, you’re wrong.

The Gibbons fallout is massive. The Aviary’s bleeding.

The Bureau’s twitchy. And the only reason I haven’t handed you over is because you’re more use to me on this side than on theirs. ”

“I’ll deal with it,” I say.

He sighs. “I know you will.”

The line goes dead. I stand there for a long moment, staring into the trees, the early light cutting through the branches like teeth.

Enemies on every side. No badge to protect me.

And a woman inside who thinks she’s safer with me than without.

She’s wrong. But I’ll keep lying to her until I can make it true.

Because I’d rather die a hunted man with Maxine in my arms than live another second in a world without her.

Let the Bureau come. Let Brando dig my grave. I’m not running. Because I already chose my side. And it’s her. It’ll always be her.