Page 146 of The Vagabond

“A man like that, Maxine…” she breathes, “he’s a keeper.”

Her lips curve into a sly, wicked grin.

Their words wrap around me like a net, tugging, tightening, pulling me into something I don’t know how to carry. I press a trembling hand to my mouth, a sound breaking free — something between a sob and a gasp, raw and guttural and shaking.

Again, Sophia crosses my mind. She’s always on my mind. I wish she were here to see this, to know that not every man is a monster. I wish she could see that sometimes — just sometimes — a man can love you so much it terrifies you.

I squeeze my eyes shut, body curling forward as the weight of it crushes me. This isn’t the light, fluttery love the books talk about. This is a devouring love. An unstoppable, merciless, unapologetic force.

And the scariest part? I know I’ll never come back from it. There’s no going back to the girl I was before Saxon North carved himself into my bones.

I am his now. And he…is mine.

60

SAXON

The clock on the wall clicks louder than it should. The chair’s uncomfortable. The room’s too beige. There’s a plant in the corner that’s definitely fake. I’m tempted to ask about it, just to fill the space. But I keep my mouth shut.

Across from me, the woman watches — legs crossed, pen poised but not moving, eyes locked on me like she’s got nowhere else to be.

She always lets our sessions run long. She never watches the clock. It’s like she’s feeding on the unraveling, waiting for the next jagged piece of my story to fall out, even though she already knows how it ends.

She’s not here to fix me. She’s here to witness the slow-motion collapse. And we both know it.

“Tell me about her,” she says.

I shift in my seat. Jaw tight. Heart twitching like it still doesn’t know how to beat gently when anyone mentions her.

“Which part?”

“The part you can’t let go of.”

I stare at the window. The city moves on outside. Horns. Wind. Life.

Inside me? It’s still her. Alwaysher.I’ve tried to let go, but damn, it hurts.

“I used to dream about killing the men who touched her,” I say, voice flat. “Then I stopped dreaming and just… did it.”

The therapist doesn’t flinch. Points for her.

“But that’s not what keeps you up now,” she says. “Is it?”

“No.”

“What is it?”

I lean forward, elbows on my knees, hands locked together like they’re holding something back.

“It’s that I left her,” I whisper. “In Albania. I walked away from her when I should have stayed and saved her.”

“Why did you leave?”

“My job. I was called on assignment. By the time I could get back, she was already gone.”

My throat tightens at the memory, sharp and sudden, like a ghost’s hand wrapping around it. I don’t know why I can’t get past that fucking time in Albania.

I went back to there, desperate, frantic — clinging to the hope she was still alive. That maybe, just maybe, I could find her, get her out, pull her back from the jaws of the hell Kadri had thrown her into. But when I got there, she was gone. And Kadri? Vanished too. It would be many months before I caught up to him again.

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