Page 61 of The Maverick

Miles swung again, wild and furious. Hawke took the hit to the ribs, absorbed the shock, and retaliated with a knee to the sternum that sent Miles reeling.

But the bastard was wired. Amped up on adrenaline or worse.

“You don’t deserve her,” Miles growled. “You don’t understand her!”

“I know her,” Hawke said coldly. “And I’ll make sure you never touch her again.”

They crashed into a stack of crates, wood splintering beneath them. Miles clawed at Hawke’s face, reaching for his eyes. Hawke slammed an elbow into his throat, knocking him off balance, then drove him backward against the wall.

“No more games,” he said, low and deadly. “No more messages. No morescenes.”

Miles spat blood. “She was mine first. I saw her before you even knew her name. She wrote me.”

“She wrote fiction,” Hawke said, pinning Miles’s arm behind his back. “You turned it into a sickness.”

Miles twisted free with a wild roar, landing a punch to Hawke’s jaw that snapped his head to the side. But Hawke didn’t go down. He absorbed the impact, grabbed the front of Miles’s shirt, and drove him back, lifting him off the ground with sheer force.

“You think obsession is love?” Hawke growled. “You think taking her voice, rewriting her life, hurting her is love?”

“She’s not who you think she is,” Miles choked. “She needs control. She needs discipline. She needs someone to keep her in her place.”

Hawke slammed him to the ground. “She needs freedom. She needs trust. And she damn sure doesn’t need you.”

He punched him. Once. Twice. Miles’s head hit the pavement with a dull thud. Blood smeared across the concrete. His limbs twitched, then stilled. The blow left him unconscious, but alive.

Hawke knelt over him, breathing hard, fists tight at his sides. It was done. Miles Brenner was down.

Behind Hawke, footsteps echoed—soft, halting.

Vanessa.

He turned, and the sight of her knocked the air from his lungs. She was barefoot, wrapped in a jacket too large for her, the bruises on her wrists stark under the pale floodlights. She stared at Miles’s broken body, her eyes wide and unreadable.

Then she looked at Hawke, and she started to shake. He crossed to her fast, but didn’t touch her right away. He let her close the last step.

“I’m here,” he said quietly.

“I know.” Her voice cracked.

“He’ll never take another free breath again.”

“I know.”

But then she crumbled. Her knees buckled, and she sank to the ground. Not sobbing. Not wailing. Just silent tears that wouldn’t stop, her face in her hands, shoulders trembling.

Hawke crouched in front of her, wrapping his arms around her carefully. She pressed into him, burying her face in his chest, fists curled into his shirt like she could anchor herself there.

He didn’t tell her to breathe. Didn’t tell her it was over.

He just held her.

Until the shaking slowed. Until her breathing steadied. Until the woman in his arms—the one who’d fought with everything she had—lifted her head and nodded once.

“I’m okay,” she said.

He searched her face. “You don’t have to be.”

“I need to be.” She wiped at her face, mouth set firm. “I need to stand. I need to walk out of here.”

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