Chapter Eighteen
ALPHA
Tightening my grip a little more, I bare my teeth as Javier’s eyes roll into the back of his head, my rage almost consuming me, but Haven’s comforting hand on my shoulder pulls me back somehow.
Panting, a low growl escapes me, and reluctantly, I release him.
His body slumps as he gasps for much-needed breaths, while I step back and begin pacing the room.
Javier chuckles, through light coughs, the rational part of my mind knows Haven is right.
This isn’t just about my revenge anymore.
This is about justice for everyone he’s hurt.
It’s not even just my family anymore.
It comes down to Defiance as a whole.
Because we’ve lost good men to this Cartel.
“You’re right,” I murmur, slowly returning to my seat. “We should let the people you’ve actually wronged have their say first.” I nod toward the Chapel entrance, where the birds stand waiting, and they file in like ghosts returning to haunt him.
Haven first, her movements predatory and precise. Behind her, Nighthawk, whose loyalty he never truly earned. Then Black Swan, who tried to save Livvy despite her orders. And Rosella, Kestrel, Magpie, Egret, Starling, Peacock, and Kite.
Poppy slips in last, despite my specific instructions for her to stay away. She’s supposed to be at the safe house with Ingrid and the others, but one look at her determined expression tells me there was never any keeping her away from this moment.
“Javier,” Haven says, her voice carrying the deadly calm that means someone’s about to have a very bad day.
For the first time since he woke up, real fear flickers across his features. “Blue Jay. I wondered if you’d show yourself. Or if this lame attempt at being a biker’s bitch had fully taken you over.”
I raise my brow as Haven smirks. “Oh, I’m not Blue Jay anymore,” she replies, pulling out a knife that gleams under the Chapel’s dim lighting.
“And you’re right. I have fully embraced being a biker’s bitch.
But the thing about that is, Javier, I’m now just a woman whose family you tried to destroy.
And that is far more lethal than any bird could ever be.
Plus, I also have all these birds to help me,” she quips.
The nine women and Poppy circle Javier, like birds of prey, as evil grins cross their faces. My brothers stand back, letting these trained women do what Javier’s Cartel trained them to do.
Javier’s eyes dart between them, finally understanding that his silver tongue won’t save him tonight. “Now, wait a minute. Let’s discuss this rationally. I have information you need. Senator Wilson’s network, government contacts, financial accounts you haven’t found yet—”
“We already have all of that,” Loki calls out from his position near the door.
“The Martinez twins were quite helpful,” Haven adds. “Amazing how cooperative people become when they realize they’re on the losing side.”
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.
“You can’t do 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 think you have 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’re nothing like 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 are dead. And the system you helped corrupt won’t save 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 whole house of cards is coming down. Clover’s all over it, she’s making sure that this shit is every-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 a fraction of 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 for Livvy.
For Poppy.
For me.
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.
Finally, his eyes widen in fear.
Reality’s crashing in now, hey, asshole?
“You turned us into weapons…” Starling murmurs, “… and now those weapons are pointed back at you.”
Peacock steps forward like she’s strutting a runway, blood on her heels.
Literally. She tosses a switchblade between her fingers and leans in, smiling her perfect pearly whites at him.
“You remember me, don’t you, papi?” she sneers.
“You liked making us wear pretty things. Told us we were dolls. Well, let’s play dress-up again. ”
She slashes down the front of his bloodied shirt, tearing it open like a cheap gift bag.
Then she drags the blade down his chest, blood splashes over her leather bodysuit, and she laughs, sliding her hands up and down like she is caressing the blood into herself.
“Oh yeah, now this is an outfit I could get used to wearing.” She grins, bringing her hand up to her face and wiping a smear of Javier’s blood across her cheek.