58. Maverick
58
Maverick
T he damp air of the warehouse clung to my skin like a second, clammy layer as I trailed behind my wife. My breath came in ragged pulls. The scent of metal and old wood permeated the atmosphere, the lighting dim.
Sophie moved with lethal grace, her steps silent. I watched the muscles in her back tense beneath her tight shirt, the slight sway of her hips hypnotizing me for a moment before the reality of what we were about to do crashed back into focus. She didn’t even glance back at me; she didn’t need to. Her confidence was my compass. It should’ve always been my compass, not my own twisted versions of some fairy-tale ending with my family.
“Ready?” Her voice was a low purr, almost lost in the cavernous room, yet it cut through my thoughts with razor-sharp precision.
“Mmhm,” I responded, the sound more reflex than conscious thought. I felt the weight of my gun pressing against my lower back, an anchor grounding me to the present.
She killed Chavez as if he was nothing, an insignificant bug squashed beneath her boot. But this… this was my family. The same blood flowed through my veins, but where was the loyalty from them? The love? Nonexistent. And it had to stop at some point.
I thought back to the countless times I’d been sidelined, the sneers and jabs that were meant to be all in good fun, or to straighten me out. They’d never seen me as their equal, just Maverick, the runt of the litter. And tonight, they’d pushed me too far, tried to snuff me out, tried to play me for a fool.
And they almost had. My wife had almost been caught in the crossfire as a result.
A surge of fury rose within me, hot and unyielding. It collided with the adrenaline pumping through my veins, creating an intoxicating combination of rage and pain. I glanced at Sophie, her silhouette outlined by the dim overhead lights that created a large circle in the center of the room, and something inside me clicked. She was the only one who saw my worth, who stood by me when everyone else would’ve watched me fall.
“Let’s end this,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, but laden with resolve.
“End it, we shall,” Sophie replied, her tone laced with a dark promise.
Her presence was a constant flame, igniting the kindling of my wrath. With each step toward this inevitable conclusion, I felt my doubts dissipate, replaced by a sense of clarity as sharp as the edge of a knife. I could do this. For us. For the future we were carving out of the rotten wood of my past.
“Remember, love, you’re not alone,” Sophie murmured, casting a heated look over her shoulder. “You never will be again.”
The sight that greeted me broke through the fog of adrenaline—my parents and three brothers, bound and gagged, on their knees like sacrifices at the altar of retribution. My heart did a somersault—not in fear, but in awe of Sophie’s efficiency.
“D. Paulie,” I nodded to my best friends, “you’ve outdone yourselves.” My voice echoed off the walls, rebounding back to me with a sense of power I hadn’t known before. Because this? This was the ultimate power move, and it was the last one I’d make when it came to how to handle them.
“Jesus, Mav, this is what you call family time now?” Kendrick, my eldest brother—who’d wiggled his gag free—said, as if I wasn’t just sitting before him less than two hours ago while he helped orchestrate my demise.
Sophie stood behind me, her presence a silent storm of disdain as their desperate eyes flicked to her, all trying to speak around their gags. Her lips curled in distaste at their attempts to demean her around the cloths between their teeth.
“Careful, old man,” I said coolly, staring down at my father as I wrenched his gag loose. His eyes burned with a mix of hatred and fear. “You don’t get to look at my wife.”
Duane moved to remove everyone else’s gags.
“Your wife?” spat my second brother, disbelief coloring his tone. “She’s nothing but—”
“Finish that sentence, and it’ll be the last thing you say,” I warned, my possessiveness flaring within me. Their words were like gasoline, fueling the inferno of rage that was always there inside me.
“Come on, Maverick. You’ve made your point,” my mother begged.
“Point?” My laugh was hollow, echoing around us. “What point have I made? That I’m still alive despite your pathetic attempt to take me out?”
Nothing from any of them.
“Why do you always push me aside?” I growled, stepping closer to them, feeling every inch the predator they had forced me to become. “Am I not flesh and blood to you?”
Their eyes shifted, faux guilt and defiance that only soured my stomach. They had no answer for me, no justification for their betrayal. It was all there, in the silence between us, the final confirmation of where I stood. And with Sophie behind me, her quiet strength my backbone, I knew this twisted family reunion could only end one way.
Sighing, I turned my back on them, meeting my wife’s gaze momentarily. She gave me a small smile of reassurance. It was all I needed.
Turning back around, the dialogue dwindled into a thick silence. Each breath from my family felt like a clock ticking. Their faces were pleading, but I’d already found my resolve.
Fuck them. Fuck them all.
“Time’s up,” I muttered, pulling the gun from my waistband, feeling its familiar weight—cold, but comforting in my grip.
I started with my youngest brother, his eyes wide with terror as I pressed the barrel to his forehead. He wasn’t pleading. He was frozen. He fucking knew. My finger tensed on the trigger.
“For every time you ignored my cries as a child,” I whispered, and his breath shuddered out just as I pulled the trigger.
The shot split the silence. The force knocked his body backward, blood painting the ground behind him, his head lolling at an unnatural angle.
One down.
My next brother, always the smart one, tried to reason even now, “Maverick, please! Don’t do this! We can work this out!”
“Intelligence without loyalty is just cunning,” I said coldly, the second shot resonating like thunder. My hand didn’t shake; if anything, it felt steadier with each pull of the trigger.
By the time I reached my eldest brother, I saw something that resembled respect—or was it resignation?—in his eyes. His wife and kids wouldn’t miss him; they’d live a better life without his abuse. Nevertheless, he met the same fate. “For never being the ally you should’ve been,” I told him as his lifeless body crumpled to the ground.
I stood before my mother then, tears streaming down her cheeks. But there was no maternal love there, not really. I lowered the gun. “Live with this,” I said darkly, sparing her the bullet but condemning her to a lifetime of nightmares by shooting both of her knees.
My father was last. Him, I approached with methodical steps, my heart hammering against my chest. He was the architect of my pain, the one who had orchestrated this betrayal from the start. My body acted with a mind of its own. With every punch I threw, blood splattered, both his and mine, until his features were unrecognizable.
“Should’ve loved me, Dad,” I spat out between gritted teeth, finally stepping back, leaving him gasping in a broken heap. I raised the gun, aiming at what was left of his face, and fired. The blast echoed, a period at the end of a tragic sentence.
“Jesus, Mav!” Paulie’s voice broke through the haze of adrenaline.
But then I looked at my sobbing mother. Her fake fucking tears. Her lack of empathy and compassion. The worst mother on the planet. She hated me, always had. Resented me. Wanted my entire existence to be scrubbed from her life.
And that feeling of her never loving me?
“I changed my mind,” I snapped, not thinking twice about landing a bullet between her eyes. Because fuck that bitch.
Suddenly the gun felt heavier in my hand now, like it had taken on the weight of what I’d done. Of what I’d become. I looked down at them—all of them. Blood pooled at my feet, the air thick with the sharp sting of gunpowder and death. It should’ve felt satisfying.
It didn’t.
It just felt quiet. A different kind of quiet than before. Permanent.
And then, my body gave up before my mind did. I blinked, the room spinning as the wound on my side, forgotten in my rage, pulsed with fresh pain.
“Fuck,” I hissed, my legs giving way beneath me.
“Gotcha,” Sophie’s voice cut through the blur, her arms wrapping around me as she and Paulie hoisted me up. Her touch was fire, somehow igniting a flicker of life in me despite the pain, the bloodstain growing on my shirt the more I pulled at the wound.
“Stay with us, Maverick,” she urged. She was my lifeline as they dragged me from the warehouse. Her concern, coupled with the sharp jabs of pain, barely kept me tethered to consciousness.
“Can’t… pass out…” I mumbled, trying to focus on her face, the one thing in this world that hadn’t betrayed me.
“Damn right, you can’t,” she retorted, her strength surprising as she helped carry my weight. “You’re not leaving me to clean up your messes.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, darling,” I managed, a twisted smirk tugging at my lips as darkness crept at the edges of my vision. Even now, with my family dead behind us, her presence was the only praise I needed, the only affirmation that mattered.
Through the haze in my brain, I felt Sophie’s hold on me tighten.
“I’m right here with you. Like calls to like,” she said, and I huffed out a weak laugh.
“Yeah, and all that shit.” I let my head fall against hers, exhaling a breath I’d been holding for years.
It was done.
I was finally fucking free.