Page 138 of The Vagabond

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 toofucking 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—theylinger, 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. Hiseyes 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 Ihavefallen. 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 sitacross 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’relooking 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 youdaresay ‘due process’ like it’s ever protected these girls. I did my job in Albania, before I waspulledout to deal with that clusterfuck of a terrorist act the bureau itself sanctioned!”

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