Page 24 of The Vagabond

But because maybe, just maybe, I was starting to heal.

11

SAXON - FOUR MONTHS AGO

Isaw her before she saw me. Of course I did.

I could pick Maxine Andrade out of a crowd of a thousand. Blindfolded. Half-dead. Didn’t matter. There’s something about her—something that’s embedded under my skin like shrapnel. I’d know her silhouette. Her walk. The tilt of her head when she’s listening to a lie she wants to believe.

She was in the hospital waiting room, pacing like the floor is lava and she’s trying not to burn. Her arms were wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold the seams of her soul together, her jaw locked, eyes fixed on Brando like she was daring him to speak again.

She’s not fragile. She’s fury in remission.

Her blonde hair was pulled back in a loose braid, frayed strands clinging to the tension lining her face. Her blue eyes didn’t shimmer; they burned—cold and sharp, the kind of color that made you think of deep oceans and deeper secrets.

And just like that, I wasn’t in the hospital anymore.

I was back in that castle.

Kadri’s estate.

The room with the locked windows and velvet curtains. The place where Maxine was kept. Broken. Controlled.

I remembered her silence more than anything. The way she stared at the walls like if she looked long enough, they’d open up and swallow her whole. She didn’t scream. Didn’t cry. She didn’t ask to be saved. She was just gone behind her eyes. But now—now those eyes locked onto mine. And they were not empty.

That same fire still burned there, low and slow like coals that refused to die. That same quiet defiance—choking down fear just to hold her ground. And underneath it, buried deep like a splinter that never healed, that same bitterness. Old and sour. The kind that settled into your bones when the world owed you more than it ever gave.

Maxine didn’t flinch when she saw me. She didn’t look away. She just stared me down—and for a moment, I felt like I was on trial.

The girl from that locked room was gone. And in her place stood something forged in the aftermath. Sharper. Colder. Made of whatever was left after the fire scorched through her soul and didn’t quite put her out.

Brando picked up on it immediately. His gaze flicked between us, shoulders going taut, like he could feel the tension bleeding out of us in thick, suffocating waves. He stepped forward, slow and solid, slipping between us like a man walking into a storm. He’d do anything to protect his sister in law from the likes of me.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he growled. Not a question. A warning.

His eyes narrowed as they bounced between Maxine and me, reading something in the silence—something unspoken and unsettling. And from the way his mouth hardened, he clearly didn’t like it.

I didn’t answer immediately.

Lucky stepped in beside me, slow and steady, his posture calm but unmistakably protective. A silent message that didn’t need to be spoken:

He’s with me.Back off.

I kept my eyes on Brando.

I didn’t owe him a damn thing.

Mason Ironside’s new girl just happened to be the ex-wife of my former partner — a man who, conveniently, had gone missing. It only made sense for me to check on her after the attack. After all, she was assaulted right around the same time my old partner vanished.

My silence hung between us, thick and heavy — the kind that said everything and nothing all at once.

I glanced back at Maxine. She hadn’t moved. Still as a statue. Spine straight, arms crossed tight across her chest like she was holding herself together with sheer force of will. There was no fear in her expression. No vulnerability. Just a calm, ruthless kind of readiness. She looked like she’d take a bullet just to see who fired the shot.

For some goddamn reason, I had the sudden urge to ask if she was okay. But there were too many eyes watching. Too much history standing between us. And this… this was not the time nor the place.

Her eyes met mine, sharp and surgical. A warning.Don’t.She didn’t want anyone knowing about what passed between us—just as much as I didn’t want to explain it.

The air tightened, a silent battle of wills crackling between us like exposed wire. Neither of us spoke or blinked in the tense standoff. Then, for the first time since I walked into the goddamn minefield, something inside me stilled. Because whatever I came here for—leads, clues, answers—I’d foundsomething else entirely. Something hanging heavy in the air. A line. A choice. A quiet reckoning.

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