Page 89 of Victorious: Part 3
Nighthawk continues, “Oh, soyouthought we’d only come for the prison here in LA? Oh, no,cabrón. Once we had help from the Martinez twins, and they told us this prison issue was all over the country, that yourrothad taken place everywhere, Defiance made the call to all its chapters, and right now, everything you’ve put in place is being torn down. All your prison bullshit. All yourwarehouses. Everywhere you do your business is simultaneously being ripped to shreds.” Nighthawk chuckles as Javier narrows his eyes on her, clearly trying to gauge if she’s telling the truth or not.
She smiles widely, tilting her head at him. “Plus, I forgot to add, the evidence of all your shit is being put out there foreveryoneto see. So, those officials you adore so much, those government assholes involved in your Cartel, everyone who is a part of your operations? They are all going down with the sinking ship. Now that’s what I call an ‘iceberg dead ahead,’ motherfucker!” Nighthawk mocks, making the rest of us chuckle along with herTitanicreference.
Javier stands there, his smile faltering as he looks between all of us like he’s trying to figure out if we are fucking with him or not. His breathing quickens as he begins moving toward his desk. In unison, we all train our weapons on him, and he stills, raising his hands. “I’m not going for my weapon, I’m verifying your information.” His tone is curt, almost angry.
I wave my gun at him, and he moves faster than lightning, sliding into his desk chair, typing on his computer. His face crinkles, his top lip curls, and he shakes his head while typing frantically, clearly moving through the security feeds for all of his sites. His breathing escalates as he searches more and more. The rage spreads across his face like wildfire, then his fist slams into the desk so hard the wood cracks beneath him.“Puta madre!”he swears in Spanish.
For a moment, we stand frozen, former birds facing the architect of our torment, weapons trained on him, the weight of years of pain and trauma hanging in the air like smoke.
Then Javier smiles, and I know he’s about to do something desperate.
He stands slowly, walking to the edge of his desk, where his gun sits, and in a flash, he picks it up, his finger tightening on thetrigger, the gun aimed directly at me.
But I fire first.
The bullet punches through his shoulder, his body jerking back, slamming against the wall next to Kite’s blade as he drops the gun with a hiss of pain. Rosella lunges, tackling him to the floor, slamming a fist into his face, and blood spatters across his cheek. He tries to fight back, but it’s pitiful.
Weak.
Nothing less than I expected from the scum of the earth.
“We lost sisters because of you!” Rosella snarls. “You don’t get to fight back.” She pins him to the floor beneath her, and I walk over, my fellow birds flanking me as I kneel beside him, gun still trained.
“This is for Poppy,” I state, smiling widely.
Then Nighthawk jams the needle into his neck, the sedative taking hold almost instantly. His body slumps, the asshole going out like a light. Rosella jumps off him, kicking his ribs for good measure.
“Tie him up. Let’s get this fucker back to the clubhouse,” I order.
“With pleasure,” Peacock states, pulling the zip ties from her pockets.
We bind him tightly and literally drag his unconscious body behind us as we make our way from the compound while I check in with the extraction team. “Egret, Starling, extraction report.”
Static buzzes over the comms, and Starling’s voice chimes down the line. “We had some resistance, but Egret took care of the guards while I dealt with evac. All cargo loaded up, ready for shipment. We are good to go.”
With a wide smile, I glance at the other birds who grin back at me while Javier’s body slams into dead guards on the floor as we drag him through the blood, dust, and empty bullet casings on the way out to the convoy point. “Mission complete. Let’s get ourasses back to the clubhouse to celebrate.”
I shift my gaze back to Nighthawk and let out a long exhale. She moves in beside me, sliding her arm around my shoulders. “So, that was the last flight of Blue Jay, wasn’t it?” she asks.
I thought I would feel sadness.
An emptiness, even.
But walking away from The Nest, from being a bird, finally feels like the right thing.
I exhale with a smile. “I think I have one more mission left in me, then Blue Jay will take flight.”
Nighthawk furrows her brows at me. “One more?”
I turn back, my eyes focused on Javier’s almost lifeless body lying on the floor, before we lift him into the waiting van. “Yeah… one more.”
My phone buzzes against my hip, cutting through the moment. Alpha’s name flashes on the screen, and my stomach drops.He wouldn’t call unless something’s wrong.
“Alpha?” I answer, pressing the phone to my ear as we load Javier’s unconscious form into the back of the convoy vehicle.
“Haven, I need you and Nighthawk to swing by the hospital. After everything that went down tonight, I want to make sure Lock is safe.”
Relief floods through me. Lock is the doctor who tried so hard to save Livvy, and who has been drowning in guilt ever since she died in his ER.
