Page 59 of The Vagabond

SAXON

M y first stop is the guts of an abandoned parking garage that hasn’t had guests in years. Concrete dust clings to my boots. The lights overhead flicker, stuttering like they’re afraid of what’s to come.

I hear him before I see him. His polished shoes tap against the concrete before he steps out of the shadows like a devil in disguise.

Deputy Director Halbridge.

The man who once vouched for me. The man who once mentored me. He stops five feet away. He watches me with the kind of measured calm that says he’s weighed this moment ten times before stepping into it. I’m sure he now wishes he could erase me from the history books.

“You’re late,” I say, flicking ash from the cigarette I haven’t lit just to calm my shaking hands.

“Wasn’t sure I’d come,” he replies, tone even. “You’ve made a royal mess of things this time, North.”

“Disappointed?”

“Let’s say... conflicted. ”

We stand there a beat. Two wolves circling the same corpse, deciding who gets to gnaw the carcass.

“You came because you couldn’t afford not to,” I say. “Because everything I have on the Aviary is a spark. And you know I’m holding the fucking gasoline.”

He’s a smart man not to deny it.

“You want immunity,” he says.

“I want blood,” I correct. “Immunity to follow.”

“And the Aviary?”

“I’ll give you every last bastard involved. Every name. Every asset. Every hidden ledger and offshore account. The entire Aviary, gutted from the inside.”

“And you want a badge to do it?”

I take a step closer, slow and deliberate. “No. I want to finish what I started without some wet-behind-the-ears compliance officer breathing down my neck and labeling me unstable every time I draw my weapon.”

Halbridge folds his arms. “You are unstable.”

“I’m effective.”

There’s a pause before he speaks again.

“I lost good people in that operation,” he says finally.

“I lost my goddamn humanity.”

His eyes narrow. “You think that girl—Andrade—is worth all this?”

I don’t blink. “This is not about her. I need IA off my back. And I want immunity from prosecution.”

Halbridge exhales. Long. Controlled. He opens a folder from under his coat. Slides it across the floor between us. I’m glad he came prepared.

I scoop the file up, glance down. Terms. Conditions. NDA so tight it might as well be a noose. A classified clearance level above what I held before. I’ll be invisible. Off-book. Disposable. It’s the perfect alibi for a ‘serial killer’ like me .

“Sign it,” he says. “You get one shot. If you fuck this up?—”

“I won’t.”

“What happened to you?” His voice is gentle, but the question slices all the same—sharp and insulting.

As if the ruin standing in front of him is a mystery, and I haven’t been bleeding out in plain sight this whole damn time.

As if I didn’t scream for help in a thousand silent ways he chose not to hear.

Like I didn’t unravel in front of him piece by piece and he wasn’t there when the light went out in my eyes.

I lift my head slowly, eyes locking with his.

“What happened to me?” I repeat, voice colder now. “ Reality happened. It broke me. So don’t look at me like I’m some puzzle you can’t solve, when you already threw away all my broken pieces.”

I uncap the pen. My name carves into the page like a wound reopening.

He watches me sign the document, then says, almost like an afterthought, “There’s talk of a presidential run in two years. Some of the names on that list? They’re fundraising it.”

“Then I’ll slit the campaign’s throat on live TV.”

Another pause. Another glance. Then he nods once. “Welcome back to the dark side.”

“I never left.”

He turns to go.

“Saxon,” he says over his shoulder. “What’s next after this?”

I light the cigarette again. This time, I inhale.

“Retirement.”

“And the girl?”

My mind drifts to Maxine.

Even when I’m knee-deep in shadows — on rooftops, in safehouses, behind the glass of a surveillance van — it’s her.

Maxine Andrade.

The only color in a life that’s been black and white for too fucking long. She’s wildfire and soft rain. Thunder in my chest, lullabies in my bloodstream.

She doesn’t even know it, but she hums through me like a song I forgot the words to and still somehow remember. The only thing I’ve ever wanted that didn’t come with conditions.

She looks at me like I’m not a monster. Like I could be more. I don’t deserve it — but God, I crave it. Because when she’s near, the grayscale life I know explodes into color.

Gold in her skin, wine in her mouth, ocean in her voice, violet in the bruises she hides behind her strength. She smooths out the jagged edges of me — edges carved by war, regret, years of pretending I was fine.

I’m not fine. I never was. But near her? I almost believe I could be. I see the light in her, even when she can’t. Especially then. Especially when she’s cracked, shaking, holding herself together with spite and sheer will.

God, I love her. Not soft. Not gentle. I love her like a drowning man loves air. Like I’d burn the whole fucking world just to keep her by my side.

She’s not my weakness. She’s my reason. My line in the sand. My every unspoken prayer. And if I lose her? There’s no coming back for me.

So I’ll protect her — to my last goddamn breath.

“If anyone so much as looks at her wrong,” I say, voice low, lethal, steady as a blade, “I’ll slit their throat and drain them dry. I’ll paint the fucking pavement with their blood and smile while I do it.”

The words don’t echo—they linger , thick and hot in the air like fresh gunpowder.

Across from me, he chuckles. That smug little sound he makes when he thinks he’s figured someone out.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” he says, slow, savoring it. His eyes gleam with something close to amusement, a smirk curling at the edge of his mouth.

I don’t respond, because I don’t need to. I know exactly what he’s thinking.

That the great Saxon North—the Bureau’s sharpest knife, the coldest bastard in a suit—has finally fallen. And he’s right. Because I have fallen. Hard. Violently. Without a fucking parachute. And I’ll drag the whole goddamn world down with me if it means keeping her safe.

Three suits sit across from me. Just blank expressions and clipboards. They’re the kind that ask questions they already know the answers to. They think silence is power. But they’re wrong, because I’ve bled too much to fear silence now.

“So,” the one in the middle starts, flipping through my file like it’s fiction. “You were assigned to the Kadri operation for surveillance only. Yet you—how do I put this? Flew to Ukraine, personally neutralized twenty-two men, killed two bodyguards, and burned down a known safehouse.”

I lean back in the chair, calm. Smiling like I’m the devil they know.

“Twenty-three,” I correct. “You missed the one in the drainage tunnel. He bled out slow. Might wanna update your paperwork.”

The guy on the left—Weller, I think—frowns. “You’re admitting to extrajudicial killings?”

“No,” I say. “I’m admitting to saving lives. You just don’t like how I did it.”

The guy on the right—Dorsey’s protégé, wet behind the ears—leans in. “You disobeyed a direct order. You abandoned your post in Albania. You stole Bureau property. And now we’re looking at the possibility that you’ve falsified reports, interfered with investigations, and murdered suspects.”

“Murdered?” I repeat, dry. “You mean the traffickers? The ones chaining girls and selling them like cattle by the container load?”

“Due process exists for a reason.”

I snap forward, nails biting into my clenched palms. “Don’t you dare say ‘due process’ like it’s ever protected these girls. I did my job in Albania, before I was pulled out to deal with that clusterfuck of a terrorist act the bureau itself sanctioned!”

My tirade lands like a slap. The lead guy—Carson, sharp but too soft for the real world—narrows his eyes but ignores my insult and skips right into their next point of concern.

“Let’s talk about Maxine Andrade, shall we?

You’re aware that your relationship with Andrade has compromised every piece of intelligence gathered from Operation Bird’s Nest? ”

I laugh. Cold. Merciless. “Compromised? I dismantled the Aviary.”

“You disrupted an active investigation.”

“I ended it.”

“By going rogue.”

“No,” I snarl, “by doing your fucking job when no one else would. You sat on your hands while girls were trafficked out of shipping containers in broad daylight. While politicians hosted auctions in palaces. While the Bureau protected names you were too scared to whisper. Politics.”

I slam the folder in front of me—the one I walked in with. My little gift.

Carson opens it. Sees the photos. The bank transfers. The offshore accounts. The security footage of a Senator’s son slapping a screaming girl while she bleeds through her dress.

He stiffens. Dorsey’s mini-me turns green. Weller just exhales through his nose, slow. He already knew. Bastard’s probably been playing both sides.

“I’ve got ten more files like that,” I say. “All originals. All authenticated. And I’ve made sure copies go public if anything happens to me. I have enough ammunition to blow this whole fucking investigation sky high.”

Carson looks up, his voice quieter now. “This is blackmail. You’re really going to play this card? Against the bureau?”

“This is leverage,” I correct. “The only language you suits understand.”

Silence. Beautiful, trembling silence. Then I lean in. Real close. Let them see the monster they created. Let them smell the fire I walked through.

“You’re going to drop the charges against me. You’re going to clear my record. And you’re going to put me in a position to finish this— quietly —before the media picks it up and eats you alive.”

“And in return?” Carson says carefully.

“I hand over the final list. The big fish. The ones with names so heavy they’ll sink your careers if they go public before you make the arrests.”

“And the girl?”

I smile, slow and dangerous. “You leave her the fuck out of it.”

He closes the folder. Nods once. But the air in the room drops substantially. It always does when the wolves realize they’re sitting across from someone hungrier than themselves.

“Welcome back, Agent North,” Weller says.

“No,” I say, standing, uncurling my clenched fists. “I’m not your agent anymore.”