Page 61 of The Vagabond

SAXON

T he walk to the safehouse is a smear of noise and shadow — a hard push through dark alleys, blood drying in thick streaks down my side, the night air biting deep through the tears in my shirt.

By the time I slam the door behind me, my ribs are a screaming knot of pain, my knuckles are shredded meat, and every inch of me feels like it’s been ground through a fucking meat grinder.

But my mind? My mind has never been clearer.

I rip off what’s left of my shirt, the fabric peeling away from skin where the blood’s gone tacky, and stumble into the shower.

The water blasts down cold, cutting through every bruise, every gash, every inch of torn-up flesh — not a relief, not a wash, just a thousand little knives stabbing sharp into the bone, reminding me that I’m still breathing. For now.

I brace both hands against the wall, chest hitching, eyes squeezed shut, jaw locked tight. This isn’t catharsis or a cleansing.

This is what it costs to keep moving when everything inside you screams at you to sit the fuck down and quit .

When I step out, the steam clings to me like a second skin. I don’t feel clean. I don’t feel whole. I just feel ready .

I drop into the rickety chair at the desk, muscles screaming, fingers shaking. The laptop hums to life. I slam in the drive I pulled from Kiernan’s corpse, watching as the screen flickers, the files spit themselves open, and the first pieces of the war waiting for me unfold across the screen.

And that’s what this is now — war. One I intend to finish. No matter how much of myself I have to tear apart to do it. This is my insurance. No, it’s more than that. It’s leverage against the city’s greatest.

Line after line scrolls past — names, faces, titles, dollar amounts.

Corrupt judges. Compromised agents. CEOs laundering blood money through foundations they hide behind, pretending to be upstanding, charitable citizens.

Some of them I’ve worked with. Others I’ve saluted, toasted, trusted.

And now here they are — exposed, raw, vulnerable.

I start the upload to a dead server, fingers moving fast, the room lit only by the glow of the screen. I can almost feel the weight of every name settling on my shoulders, pressing down like a crown of thorns.

The files crawl across the screen, line by damning line, the upload bar inching forward like the slow pull of a trigger.

My fingers hover over the keys, cold and blood-soaked, trembling in a way I can’t quite control.

I curl them into fists. Feel the sting in my knuckles — split skin, pulsing pain, bone-deep ache. It’s not enough.

I slam my fist into the desk, the old wood rattling under the blow. A sharp crack rips through the room. A frame on the shelf tips, falls, shatters on the floor.

I suck in a breath, jaw tight, vision swimming.

Maxine.

Her name lands in my chest like a punch I didn’t see coming. She’s there, carved into every moment, every decision, every inch of the ruin I’ve become.

I drag a hand over my face, rough and shaking, and feel the weight of it all pressing down. The men I killed tonight, the friends I’ll never get back, the life I shattered the second I chose this war.

Maxine deserves better than a man whose hands can’t stop shaking. No peace will come from this war. No redemption.

I stare at the screen. The names keep scrolling.

The upload bar creeps closer to full. And I realize — even if I bring the Aviary to its knees, even if I destroy every last one of them, I will never be free of this.

Because the kind of man who does what I just did…

he doesn’t get to crawl back into the light.

I let out a slow, shuddering breath, my shoulders tight, heart pounding hard and bitter against my ribs. Somewhere deep down, a voice whispers: When this is over, will Maxine even recognize you? Will you even recognize yourself? But I already know the answer.

I push the thought down, crush it beneath the weight of necessity. Because love? Love doesn’t save you from the fire. It just gives you something worth burning for.

I take a slow breath, drag my hands through my hair, and force myself to focus. The screen flickers, the upload bar crawls forward, and the roster of names keeps unspooling like a noose tightening around every neck I’ve ever trusted.

I scan line after line, each name another nail in a coffin I didn’t even know I was building.

Until—I see it.

The second to last name on the list makes my stomach turn.

Special Agent in Charge Rod Dorsey.

Of course. Of fucking course.

He was always too clean, too perfect. The golden boy at the Bureau. The one who signed my suspension order without blinking. The one who buried my reports on Kadri three years ago, buying Kadri precious time in which to relocate.

Dorsey is the one standing at the center of the storm, smiling like he owns the goddamn weather.

And now it’s clear. He’s the leak. The one feeding intel from the inside, the reason we were always a few seconds too late — every time, like clockwork.

The targets vanished. The evidence scrubbed clean before we even kicked down the door.

Because someone on the inside was tipping them off.

Someone with unrestricted access. Someone who read our reports before the ink dried and passed them along like breadcrumbs to the enemy.

My pulse slows. My focus sharpens, narrowing to a razor’s edge.

I don’t feel the pain in my ribs anymore. I don’t feel the bruises or the cuts or the exhaustion.

All I feel is the slow, coiling burn of betrayal — and the cold, lethal clarity that comes when you realize your enemy has been smiling in your face all along.

According to the Bureau, I’m on indefinite leave, pending psychological evaluation and full internal review. But I walk through the front doors of the Bureau like I never left.

Suit on. Tie loose. Stubble grown out. Just enough of a mess to be written off as a man who’s had a bad night—not a man with murder in his eyes.

“Agent North?” the clerk at the front desk stammers, voice tight with confusion.

I flash the access card Halbridge slipped me during our midnight deal. “Ghost protocol,” I say. “Directive 11-C.”

She blinks. Nods. Lets me through. Worked like a charm .

The elevator feels like a coffin. Steel and silence and the weight of every choice I’ve ever made pressing against the walls.

When the doors open, Dorsey’s office is at the end of the hall. I walk the stretch like a man going to war. Inside, he’s alone. He looks up when I walk in. He smiles, but it’s that tight politician’s smile.

“North. I didn’t expect?—”

I throw the file down on his desk. Hard. His mouth snaps shut.

“That’s your signature,” I say. “On the funds transfer. That’s your face on the dock cameras. That’s your voice giving the order to scrub the warehouse raid in ’23. And that,” I jab a finger into the last photo, “is a girl with a broken arm chained to a radiator in a container you paid for .”

He blinks. Once. Twice.

“Where did you get this?”

“I buried a rat to find a snake.”

He leans back. He’s too calm, and it almost unnerves me.

“You’ve always been reckless, North. Always chasing shadows.”

“You can’t imagine my surprise when I realized it was you all along selling us out.”

His eyes flick to the door. Then to the panic button under his desk.

“I press this,” he says, “and a dozen agents storm in. You’ll be gone before you reach the hall.”

I grin. Wolfish. “You really think so little of me that I wouldn’t have pre-empted you doing such a thing?”

His face twitches. He doesn’t ask, so I tell him.

“Right now, every file in that folder is being duplicated to a secure whistleblower network, set to release if I don’t check in by 9:00 a.m. with a voice ID. You kill me, you burn. Your family burns. Everyone on that list goes down. ”

Silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.

Then I lean in, slow and deliberate, my voice dropping—a low rasp of gravel and venom.

If I could wrap my hands around his throat, crush the air right out of his lungs until his soul clawed for release, I would.

God, I want to. But I can’t. Not without triggering consequences so big they’d bury me in them.

So I hold it in. Teeth clenched. Fists tight.

And let the threat simmer between every word I say.

“I don’t need you arrested, Dorsey. I need you neutralized .”

He flinches like I slapped him.

“I can’t touch you legally. But Halbridge can. And if he doesn’t? Someone else most definitely will. The choice is yours—exit strategy or obituary.”

He looks down at the files again. This time, there’s sweat on his brow.

“I suggest you run,” I say. “Because the next time I see you, I won’t bring a file. I’ll bring a bullet with your name on it.”