Page 79 of Victorious: Part 3

I nod. “I just want to get back home to my wife,” I tell him.

And for the first time, when talking about Clover and me being married, Maverick smiles. He slaps me on the back with a light chuckle and a reassuring nod. “Then let’s get us the fuck out of here.”

As my brothers spread out to start opening cells, I kneel beside my mother, Layla’s body, one more time. Not to mourn, exactly, but to finally understand.

She chose this.

Every step of the way, she chose power over family. Cruelty over love. The Cartel over her children. This chamber of horrorsover the life we could have built together.

She stopped being my mother the day she walked away from us.

Everything after that was just a stranger wearing her face.

I stand slowly, my jaw set with new determination. The sound of women crying, not in pain, but in relief, fills the chamber as my brothers work to free them from their cells. Some are so weak they have to be carried. Others are in active labor. All of them have stories that will haunt my dreams for years to come.

But they’re alive.

And they are free.

The monster who helped create this hell is dead at the hands of someone who actually cares about me, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

Rolling my shoulders, I help a pregnant teenager to her feet, her hands shaking as she grips my arm. “It’s okay,” I tell her softly. “I don’t know where you’re gonna go after this, but it’s gotta be better than here.”

She smiles up at me. “I don’t care where I go… just thank you for getting me out.”

I dip my head as I hand her off to Rip, and continue, moving for the next woman. It won’t be the life my mom tried to force on her victims. These women will be headed for real safety now.

Maybe even areal family.

As we begin the slow process of evacuation, I take one last look at the woman who gave birth to me. She looks smaller in death, less threatening.

Just another casualty of a war she chose to fight on the wrong side.

Maverick’s hand rests on my shoulder, steady, supportive, real. “You good, brother?”

“Yeah,” I say, and mean it because for the first time in my life, I understand what family really means. It’s not about blood orgenetics or the people who brought you into this world.

It’s about the people who would die to keep you in it.

About who you would die for.

Clover is my world, and while part of the reason we got married was because of my past connection to my mother, it doesn’t change the fact that I love how we got married. I love that we were spontaneous in the moment. And even though my thoughts on my mother will now be tarnished, my memories of Elvis and all things that go with it can now be replaced with Clover.

Because she‘loves me tender.’

She has me‘all shook up.’

And it might sound corny and stupid, but I love my woman more than I care about the fact that my mother was the villain in my story. So, while it shook me, I won’t let this ruin me and the life I am making for Clover and me.

Smirking to myself, I glance over at Maverick, seeing him lift another woman into the waiting van, using all his strength even though he has a gaping wound across his chest.

Yeah, I have to pull my shit together, or Maverick reallywillkill me.

Chapter Fifteen

HAVEN

Unleash the Birds