Page 97 of Victorious: Part 3
I watch Javier’s face cycle through emotions. Disbelief, anger, desperation. This is the moment every man like him faces eventually, when they realize their empire was built on sand, and the tide has finally come in.
“Youcan’tdo this,” he tries, his voice losing its earlier confidence. “I’m an American. I have rights.”
I snort out my exasperation. “So did Livvy,” I reply coldly. “So did Poppy. So did all those children you stole from their families. The women you enslaved, you impregnated to create your assassins. No, you lost all your rights the moment you lost your conscience.”
Javier turns up his lip, scowling at me, spitting out another line of blood. “And you? You thinkyouhave a conscience? You’re nothing but petty 1%ers. You’re no better than me,Defiance scum.”
I throw my hands to the side, letting out a laugh. “Yeah, you’re right, we are 1%ers. We do bad shit. We can be fucking assholes, but we’renothinglike you. We don’t do shit to women and children. You are your own brand of cunt, Javier. We aren’t even in the same league.”
A slow, low chuckle rumbles from his chest as the birds continue to circle him. “You think all this, this show you’re putting on, is going to make you feel better? All it’s doing is giving my guys or the people I have bribed time to find me. So keep delaying all you like,malditos idiotas.”
Haven leans in, placing her hands on either side of him on the chair, her face inches from his. “Oh, you better listen good, Javier… your soldiers aredead. And the system you helped corruptwon’tsave you. The judges you bought, the cops you paid off, the politicians you own, they’re all too busy trying to save themselves now that Loki’s leaked everything online.”
As if summoned by her words, Loki holds up his tablet. “Media’s having a field day. Every major news network is running exposés on Cartel infiltration of government institutions. Your political friends are tripping over themselves to deny connections. It’s actually hilarious watching these assholes try to maneuver their way out of everything. It is a great watch, especially Senator Wilson…” Loki laughs. “Fuck! He is in the hot seat right now!”
“Social media’s going crazy too,” Phoenix adds with obvious satisfaction. “Hashtags trending worldwide. Congressional investigations announced. The wholehouse of cardsis coming down. Clover’s all over it, she’s making sure that this shit isevery-fucking-where.”
Javier slumps in his chair, the fight finally looking like it’s taking a toll. “All right, all right. What do you want?”
Raising my brow, I let out a mock laugh. “We want you to understand,” I say, standing again and moving toward him. “We want you to feel even afractionof the fear, the helplessness, the anguish you’ve caused.” I turn to the birds. “Ladies. He’s all yours.”
An evil grin crosses their faces as Haven moves first. Javier’s eyes widen in fear, the realization setting in. Haven’s first move is quick, so quick, I almost miss it. But the hiss that leaves Javier’s mouth with his pain tells me the agony has begun. A single, precise slice down his cheek with her knife, just deep enough to sting, to bleed, to send a message.
She doesn’t say a word.
Her eyes say it all.
This is forLivvy.
ForPoppy.
Forme.
She continues her work, methodical and merciless. Her blade dances down his arm, slicing through muscle just enough to make him groan. The sound is like a fucking symphony to my ears.
She doesn’t flinch.
She doesn’t blink.
When his blood spills, she tilts her head, almost admiring the symmetry like the freak she is.
“You know what you did,” she whispers, her voice calm and terrifying. “But let’s remind you anyway.”
The other birds are circling, desperate for their turn.
Haven leans closer to his ear. “You think your mother would be proud of you? No Cartel honors for her. None for you either. No legacy left to build. Just a footnote in a scandal,” Haven taunts, starting the mental mind games.
Javier jerks, fury in his expression, but she’s already moved back, letting one of her sisters in. He doesn’t get to look her in the eye for long.
Not when Nighthawk steps in. She circles to his left. Calm, controlled, and calculated. She lifts a scalpel from her belt, the kind only a surgeon would recognize. Slowly, she carves Javier’s initials into his forearm. “You branded us with your orders,” she whispers. “Now let me return the favor.” She presses down hard into his arm as he screams, but it’s choked by a swift, vicious punch from Rosella, whose fist cracks across his jaw like a thunderclap.
“That was for calling me loud,” she grins, pulling a pair of brass knuckles from her pocket. She slams the knuckles into Javier’s face, and a stray tooth flies across the Chapel table as she keeps pummeling him. Her blows come fast, chaotic, a blur of vengeance and fury. Blood splatters the Chapel walls, and a sick, twisted part of me thinks about never cleaning it.
About keeping it there as a reminder that we took this fucker and his damn Cartel down.
Kestrel steps up next, eerily silent, movements like a shadow. She opens a pouch of surgical needles, and one by one, she drives them into pressure points along his arms and thighs. Agonizing, but non-lethal. “You trained me to know the human body inside out,” she says, quiet and cold. “Big mistake.” She twists one needle as she says it, and he lets out a strangled, gurgled noise that barely resembles a scream.
Starling steps up while Kestrel twists her pressure points, her movements methodical. Precise. She shoves a garrote wire around his neck, not to strangle, but to hold him in place. I smirk, watching as she tightens the grip around his throat and he gasps for air.
