by A J Rivers
“My office isn’t far from here, so it really shouldn’t take all that long.”
“Your office is close to here?” I ask.
He pauses and gives me a hint of a smile.
“Yeah,” he says. “When I left the military and had to decide where to settle down and start my business, this was the place that felt right. Turns out there’s lots of work in D.C. for a private investigator. Who’d have thought?”
We part ways in the parking lot, and I head home. Bellamy hasn’t answered yet, but I leave her a message and stop at an all-night convenience store for some snacks. If sleep continues to elude me tonight, at least my late-night TV binge will be in good company.
I get to my house and do the quick check of the area I’ve gotten into the habit of doing each time I return home. Everything looks exactly as I left it, but when I unlock the door and step inside, I realize that’s not quite the case.
A heart-shaped box of chocolates sits on the coffee table with a note beside it. My skin goes cold until I realize it’s after midnight. It’s Valentine’s Day. The holiday completely slipped my mind, but obviously, Sam had something up his sleeves. I smile, drop everything in my arms down on the chair, and walk over to the table.
“Sam?” I call out as I sit on the couch and take the top off the box to snag my favorite dark chocolate dipped coconut. “I’m home. This is a wonderful surprise.”
“Yes, it is.”
The voice comes out of the darkness at the back of the house and the back of my mind. It’s wrenched from a night so long ago, barely audible from the tiny attic room where Mama sang to me to keep me calm. The chocolate drops from my fingertips as I look up and see glassy eyes and a jagged scar.
“You.”
“Hi, Emma.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Jonah takes a step toward me, and I stand up.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Emma,” he says with a magnanimous grin on his face.
“What are you doing in my house?” I growl.
He cringes slightly.
“What kind of way is that to talk to me? Aren’t you happy to see me?” he asks.
“Why would I be happy to see you?” I look down at my hand and see chocolate melted onto my fingertips. “Oh, no.”
I grab a handful of tissues out of the box on the end table and spit into them. Scraping my tongue with my teeth, I try to get as much of what part of the candy might linger there out. I only took one bite, but that could be enough.
“What are you doing?” he asks. “Don’t you like your treat?” He watches me for a few seconds, then seems to realize what I’m doing. “You don’t think they’re poisoned, do you? You don’t have to worry about anything like that, Emma. I would never hurt you. I just wanted to bring my little girl a Valentine. I’ve never gotten to do that before.”
“I’m not your little girl,” I tell him firmly.
He gives me a simpering look like he’s just seen a small child try to take a bite out of a wax apple.
“Oh, sweetheart. I know it’s hard for you to understand. It’s so much for you to have to learn and wrap your head around,” he says, coming toward me.
“Stay away from me,” I warn him, my hand hovering to my holster.
“Please don’t be like this. I’ve waited so long to tell you the truth.”
“You’ve waited so long to tell me what your deluded mind thinks is the truth. I am not your little girl. You are not my father. You never have been. You are a rapist and a murderer and a terrorist who has lived your life obsessed with your brother’s wife,” I snap.
He looks almost stung by the comments.
“Did she tell you that?” he asks. “Or did he? He has spent your entire life lying to you and making you believe what he wanted you to.”
“All he wanted was to protect me. Ian Griffin is my father. You are nothing but a delusional murderer. You killed my mother,” I say.
Any fear I might have felt when I first saw him disappears and cold, angry defiance replaces it.
“No,” he says, shaking his head adamantly. “No, I did not.”
“It might have been another man’s finger that pulled the trigger, but every drop of my mother’s blood is your fault. She died because of you! Because you sent a man stronger than you to do a job. You might as well have slaughtered her yourself.”
“You don’t understand, Emma. I didn’t hurt your mother. I would have never hurt her. I loved Mariya. I was trying to protect her. Your father was standing in the way. It was always Mariya and me. From the very first moment we saw each other, we had a connection. We were meant to be together. Not her and Ian. He stole her and kept her away from me. Then he stole you. I had to free her. I had to take her away from that life and give her the one she deserved. The both of you deserved,” he argues.
“You were going to free us by having your henchmen murder my father? You were going to allow him to be killed while I was in the house. What was supposed to happen to me? How was I supposed to deal with that?” I snap.
“I was waiting. As soon as it was done, I was going to come take you. Then I could tell you the truth. With Ian gone, your mother and I could finally be together, and we would be able to be the family we were supposed to be. You wouldn’t have to keep struggling.”
“I didn’t struggle,” I correct him. “My parents never let me struggle. I had a happy childhood right up until the day you destroyed that by hiring men to gun my mother down. Actually, no. Let me correct myself. You didn’t hire them. That would imply you saw them as people and that you gave them some sort of compensation. You ordered them to do it.”
“That’s right,” he says. “You see, that’s what I’ve been trying to make you understand. I have power, Emma. Control. Wealth. Influence. People revere me.”
“They’re terrified of you because you’re insane and likely to kill them on sight. Those that don’t feel that way are just as sick as you are.”
“We aren’t sick. We just see the world for what it is and what it can be. Everyone is sleeping. Don’t you know that? Everybody walks through their lives and thinks they’re experiencing everything, but they’re asleep. They don’t even know what’s going on around them,” he says.
I hold up a hand.
“Spare me, Jonah. I’ve heard the spiel. Greg told me about the massive bowl of Froot Loops you call your philosophies. You didn’t destroy him. You tried, but he was stronger than you thought. Smarter. More resilient.”
“He could have had everything. You can. I want to show you the life you were meant to have. It’s your birthright, Emma.”
“Stop saying that,” I spit at him.
“I won’t. It’s the truth. And one day, you’ll understand that. You’ll appreciate everything I’ve done for you and finally take your place.”
“I don’t need to understand anything,” I tell him. “I am fully aware of what’s going on. Tell me, Jonah. How does it feel to have to create a cult just so people will pay attention to you?”
“I did not create Leviathan. Leviathan created me. It has been for far longer than I have. How could I resist it? My parents gave me a name that readied me for it. I waited my entire life for Leviathan. And when I found it, it took me within itself and nurtured me into what I am. I rose to the top. I became Lotan, and there has never been anything like me. I will bring about a world, unlike anything anyone has ever seen. Don’t you want to be a part of that, Emma?”
“I don’t want to be a part of anything that has to do with you,” I say through gritted teeth.
This seems to be what finally snaps him. His face drops, and he reaches into his back pocket. I finally place my hand on my gun.
“Emma, please. I’m unarmed. There’s no need for this. After everything I’ve done for you, I thought you would have more appreciation. I hoped you would feel the connection between us and know you were always meant to be with me. But I can see it’s going to take more time than that. Don’t worry; I forgive you. I don’t blame yo
u. You were abused and misled by an evil, heartless man. You can’t help but be confused,” he says.
“Don’t you dare talk about my father that way,” I say. “The only one confused here is you. But maybe a few decades behind bars will make things clearer for you.”
In one fast motion, quicker than I can blink, he lunges for me. I draw my gun, but he somehow slides underneath my stance and knocks my arm to the side, sending it skittering out of my grasp. I try to reach for my phone, but he grabs both wrists with an impossibly tight grip and snaps handcuffs on me.
“Don’t fight me. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Just come along with me. Everything will be alright. I promise,” he says.
“And let you do to me what you did to Greg? What you did to the men who killed my mother?”
I struggle against his grip, trying to kick out at him with my legs, but he applies pressure to my knees and then binds my ankles together with a zip tie.
“I told you, Emma, I won’t hurt you. I would never hurt you. I’ve waited your entire life to have you, and I’m not letting you go,” he says. “And soon we will bring your brother into our family. You’ll like that.”
“Dean is not my brother,” I say, finally managing to maneuver, so I wrench myself free of his grasp despite being on the floor now. “But you can’t stand that truth, either. Because it means you killed another woman for no reason. Did you even bother to find out her name, or did you just call her Mariya?”
“Her name was Natalia,” he says. “And I didn’t kill her. I wanted nothing to do with her, but she wasn’t worth the energy and effort to kill. I even might have had a fondness for her. She would never be anything like your mother, but she made life bearable for a short time after Ian manipulated your mother away from me again.”
“You mean after my mother got the morning after pill and cut you out of her life,” I say.
Jonah’s jaw twitches. He twists his head slightly, stretching his neck back and forth.
“That’s enough. It’s time to go,” he growls.
“That’s the first true thing you’ve said tonight,” I respond.
He lunges for me again. I throw my momentum to roll out of his way, moving for the front door, but his position gives him the advantage, and he cuts me off before I can get there. His hand goes to his pocket again, and he pulls out a syringe.
“I didn’t want to have to do this, Emma. I didn’t want to think you would resist me so much. I hoped you would be a sweet little girl and cooperate with me,” he says.
I need him to stop saying my name. It sounds slimy and manipulative, and every time he says it, I want to claw it off my skin.
“I’m not a little girl!”
He glances at the syringe in his hand.
“Do you remember Ian sedating you when you were? He would put you to sleep and keep you that way so he could move you around the country, hiding you from me.”
His voice is getting angrier, and I notice his hand shaking just slightly. Tension is winding up inside him like a taut wire, threatening his control. Slowly, without drawing attention to my movements, I reach as well as I can with the handcuffs to the zip ties on my ankles, slowly depressing the tiny switch holding it in place until I feel it give way.
“He wasn’t hiding me from you. We moved because my mother saved other women from people like you. I never even knew you existed. They never said your name. They never even told me my father had a brother. You were erased the second they thought you died.”
As I say it, I realize he hasn’t even mentioned that. Now, he laughs.
“A beautiful ruse if I do say so myself. It convinced everyone.”
“Who was he?” I demand. “Who was the body in the car?”
“No one important.”
“You don’t get to assign value to other human beings.”
“And yet, I do. Every day. He was nothing but a pitiful worshipper. If he knew, he wouldn’t mind what happened to him. He would have been honored to give up his life for his leader. I did what I had to do to protect myself and ensure I would still have the chance to claim you,” he says.
“And more than two decades later, you still haven’t,” I taunt.
“Something I intend to rectify immediately.”
Jonah slashes at me with the syringe. I wrench out of the way enough for him to miss me. I scramble for the front door, but he grabs the back of my shirt and yanks me back away from it. We hit the floor hard, my handcuffed hands around his wrist, struggling to hold the needle away from me. I pull my knee up and bury it in his ribcage. The shock of pain is enough to loosen his grip, and I yank the syringe out of his hand. I press the plunger to release the liquid inside and throw the needle across the room before surging up to get out of his hands.
He grabs me by the ankle and pulls hard enough to yank me down to the ground. I land hard on my handcuffed wrists and cry out as the metal cuts into my skin.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt you. But you have to learn.”
He wipes a small amount of blood from his mouth and stares down at me. I glare back, directly into his eyes. Eyes that are the same as my father’s.
The same as mine.
“What did you do to Ron Murdock?” I growl.
Jonah makes a sound, almost like a laugh and stoops low, pulling me up to my feet.
“He got what he deserved. He should have protected your mother that night. If he had done his job, it wouldn’t have been her in that house.”
“You were in Feathered Nest,” I say.
“No. I sent a hunter after him. It took years to track him down. It seems he had a few run-ins with the wrong people and wasn’t always available for me to find. But something good did come out of his continued existence. He led me right to you. I am ashamed to say I couldn’t find you. I tried so hard, and you were always just out of reach. But he led my hunter right to you. When it was safe for him to return to me, he told me, and I was able to find you. I could get close to you again. Suddenly, I had another chance.”
He steps up close to me again, and I bend quickly at my waist, then slam upward, swinging my arms, so my elbow cracks into his face. I pull away and break into a run. But he’s blocking the front door, so I run for the hallway.
“You’re just making this harder,” he says. “You’re never going to get away from me.”
I get to my bedroom and knock the landline off its cradle. The handset hits the floor, but I don’t care. All that matters is being able to dial. I’ve hit the second one when Jonah gets to my room.
“This is Agent Emma Griffin,” I shout into the speaker, reciting my address. “I have an intruder who is threatening my life.”
“You don’t want to do that, Emma,” Jonah warns. “That will make things much more difficult.”
“His name is Jonah Griffin. He assaulted me and is attempting to abduct me.”
His eyes go wild, and he backs out of the room.
“You’re going to regret this.”
“Stop!” I shout as he heads toward the living room.
Leaving the operator shouting at me through the phone, I run after him. Handcuffs aren’t going to stop me from trying everything I can to keep him here. He’s already to the door and unlocking it when I get back into the living room. I find my gun on the floor and pick it up, awkwardly lifting it up with both hands bound in the cuffs.
I turn and draw it on him.
Jonah eyes the gun before opening the door.
“Stop,” I order him again.
He runs out into the night. I chase after him. Aiming through the darkness, I get off a round before the lights appear in the distance. The grunt of pain tells me my bullet landed, but I don’t know where. By the time the police pull up moments later, he’s gone.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“I had him,” I growl. “He was right there, literally in my hands, and I didn’t stop him.”
I’m wringing my hands together so hard they
hurt as I stalk back and forth across the hotel room.
“You did everything you could,” Bellamy insists.
“If that was true, he wouldn’t have gotten away.”
“The police are looking for him,” she tells me.
“I don’t understand how he got away. He was running away from the house as the police got there.”
“They were focused on making sure you were alright,” she says. “They heard a gunshot.”
“Yeah, that was me. They might want to start checking hospitals to find him because wherever he is, he has a bullet in him.”
“Emma,” she says.
“I’m pretty sure I got him in the arm. Maybe the shoulder. I didn’t want to kill him. There’s far too much for him to answer for to go out that easily. But I didn’t think he’d be able to get away.”
“You really should try to get some sleep. You went through a lot tonight,” she tells me.
“And you seriously think I can sleep now?”
“You need to try. You’re starting to spiral again, Emma. You can’t let that happen.”
“I’m not spiraling!”
“Then you’re thinking clearly enough to know how important it is for you to get some sleep if you want to be any good in these investigations. I spoke to the detectives. They want you to stay here tonight. I offered for you to come to my place, but they said you would be safer somewhere more neutral and secure. They have an officer posted to keep an eye on your room and make sure no one gets near it.”
“I should be out there looking for him. He’s getting more dangerous. I just pissed him off royally. Who knows what he’s going to do to deal with it,” I say.
“The police are looking for him, Emma. You need to stay here, stay safe, and get some sleep. I’ve already called Sam and Dean. Both of them know what’s going on. I’m going to stay here with you for as long as you need me to,” she says.
“No,” I sigh. “Go on home. You’ve already been camping out at my house far too much. You should go back to your own place and follow your own advice and get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell her.