“Not until tonight. Did you have something in mind?”
Meghan smiled.
Jonas had Meghan drive, so that if he told her to leave, she’d be ready. He could escape faster on foot. “If you get a ‘go’ text, it means ‘go’. Do you understand me?”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine. I can escape anywhere on foot faster than getting back to the car anyway. I shouldn’t have even allowed you to come.”
“I’m not a fragile little girl, Jonas.”
“When it comes to creatus you are. You’ve never had to fear, because you’ve been stronger than every other human you’ve met, but now you’re in my world. If you see anyone, take off. You have all my passwords. Get away, and then get as much money as you can at once, and then leave.”
She crossed her arms. “I’m not leaving without you.”
Jonas leaned across the seat and kissed her. “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. If I say leave, you better damn well leave until I call you. Do you hear me?”
Her eyes glazed over as she realized he was serious.
He stroked her cheek. “I can’t lose you, Meghan. It’d kill me. Please understand. Creatus can die of a broken heart. It’s not a myth. Do you want me to die?”
She sniffed. “Of course not.”
“Then listen to me. Okay?”
Meghan nodded, her head falling against his shoulder. “Why do you have to keep doing this?”
“This is it. I’ll take care of this last thing, and then we’ll leave. For you, I’ll walk away. I only wanted to be free, and with you, I feel free.”
She inhaled a deep breath and sat up in the seat. “Okay…thank you. I love you, Jonas. Please be careful.”
“It’s an eighty-year-old woman. The worst that will happen is she’ll swat me with a broom.” He kissed her and hopped out of the SUV, looking back once to see a tear fall.
He hated upsetting her, but he was nervous. The words I can’t leave any loose ends were haunting him. He was a loose end, the only person who knew that Janelle Heskin’s death had not been a random crime, but an assassination. Maybe if he just did this he would be able to leave in peace.
When he’d started this, he hadn’t known how big it would get. He definitely hadn’t expected to be approached by someone in the family, offering help, as long as he didn’t harm anyone in the family.
He’d never wanted to hurt anyone. He still hated that he’d smacked around that young girl and that the guide had taken a nosedive off the platform. Was he guilty of his death? Was he guilty of the people his brother had killed…and Tag. If he’d never started this, maybe neither of them would have ever killed anyone, and his brother and mother might still be alive.
Loose end…he was a loose end, which meant Meghan was in danger. If he couldn’t protect her, he needed to make sure someone else could. Just in case, he typed in the address of the building where he’d parked the SUV and sent a message to the one person he knew he could trust: Meet me here in five minutes.
I’ll be there.
He made his way to Roy Baler’s building and took the stairs to the fifth floor. Not in a hurry, he took them one by one, waiting for the next text.
His heart rate increased as he made his slow way down the corridor. Something wasn’t right. He felt it, like a heavy weight on his chest.
Where are you? The text he’d been waiting for finally came through.
Is Reece with you?
He wouldn’t let me come alone.
Good. See the black SUV? Go to the driver’s side, while Reece takes the passenger side.
What’s going on, Jonas?
Just keep her safe. I can’t lose her.
Meghan?
Yes
Jonas stuffed the phone back in his pocket as he heard Meghan scream his name. It was for the best.
He pulled in a breath, then sluggishly turned the knob, breaking it with a twist of his wrist. The moment he stepped inside, noxious fumes enveloped him. He immediately tried to turn, but as if in slow motion, a fireball of pale yellow and white flames crept across the room, then exploded, driving him backward with a deafening ROAR. Something solid slammed into his side, as if he’d been hit by an oncoming train. The lights around him extinguished, casting him into pitch-black nothingness. Surely, he was in Hell for all he’d instigated with his quest, and he’d never see his beautiful bride again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Meghan clawed at the leather-clad arm that had dragged her out of the SUV. “Let me go!” she screamed. “Jonas! Help me!”
“Meghan, it’s okay. Victoria’s with me.”
She turned to the familiar voice, her thoughts lost for a second, forgetting that she was supposed to run from her father. She may not have gotten along with Reece, but she’d never run from him. He’d never given her any reason to be afraid of him, even though she’d seen what he could do with an ax, with his bare hands. Things he’d never revealed to anyone but her.
Shaking her head, she stared at him. “Dad? How did you know—”
BOOM!
The shockwave pulsed through her system, resounding in her ears, knocking her off balance. But then she realized the direction it’d come from, and she whipped her head to the side to find the source.
She looked up to see a plume of black smoke surging out of the building that Jonas had gone into. Blazing orange flames that contrasted against the midnight sky licked at the edges of the windows, slowly crawling up the brick wall, as though racing the billowy black smoke to the roof.
“No!” She wrenched against the woman’s arm. Her father had come around the vehicle and was approaching her. Meghan used the woman’s viselike grip to her advantage. She twisted her arm and slammed her to the ground. She drew her baton and flicked it out with a hiss. “Let me go. I have to save him.”
Victoria stood, her one arm raised, the other lifting her phone screen up to her. “Jonas sent us to get you, Meghan.”
Meghan read the texts, then glanced at her father.
Reece nodded. “It’s true, Meg. He wanted us to protect you.”
“I don’t need you to protect me.” She glanced back and forth between the two people who were blocking her path. “I have to find Jonas. He went into that building.”
Her dad sighed. “Meg, he’s either alive or dead. I can’t let you go. The police will be all over this block in a few minutes.”
Meghan held her baton close to her body, ready to swing. She didn’t want to hurt her father or the woman she knew Jonas trusted, but he needed her. “Daddy,” tears flooded her eyes, “I love him.”
Reece stepped forward, his hands raised. “He’s alive or dead, baby. There’s nothing we can do right now. Obviously, Jonas knew something was up and wanted you to be safe, so I can’t let you go.”
Meghan made a move to flee, but Reece rushed her faster than she could react. He spun her around, wrenched her hand behind her back, and then knocked her baton to the ground before she could blink. He hadn’t hurt her, but she couldn’t believe he’d been able to restrain her so quickly.
Why did he have to be a cop?
He snapped a set of cuffs on her, and she screamed, “Why are you doing this?”
“To protect you,” he answered in his normal calm voice, no matter the situation.
“Please, Dad. God…please. One of you…please…help him.”
Victoria scooped up the baton. “I’ll go. See if I can help anyone.”
Reece held her at arms’ length, nodding to Victoria to go ahead. “I’ll meet you back at the apartment. If O’Brian sees me at another crime scene, I’m sure he’ll haul me in, and I don’t want him to know Meghan’s here.”
Victoria stuffed the baton in her belt and trotted off toward the building while Reece dragged her around to the passenger side of the SUV.
He strapped her in the front seat and then jogged around to the passenger side. “I’m sorry, Meghan.”
“Shut up! God…please…just shut
up!”
She fell back against the seat, attempting to hold back her tears, but nothing worked. Why? Why would this happen to her? Was it not enough that she’d lost her mother, had a part-time father, and that she was some freak of nature… Why did she have to lose the only person she’d ever loved…that had ever loved her?
“I know you hate me, but I really am sorry. I always liked Jonas.”
She turned her head to him. “Dad…please… If you’ve ever cared about me… Please…take me back to him. I have to see him. He’s my husband. We’ve…fallen.”
Reece stopped at a red light. He pressed his hand against her face, his thumb wiping away her tears. “I can’t. They have a witness, baby. Of you at the bar…with Rick Williams. If they find out you’re in Boston, they’ll arrest you.”
She closed her eyes.
“Meghan, did you know they were gonna kill—”
She exhaled a sharp breath, her tears momentarily lost to his accusation. “Is that how little you know me? You think I’d murder someone?”
“No…no…I knew you couldn’t. But…they have a witness. Luckily, I have the tape, and even if they ever filed charges, the tape would prove that he dragged you out of there.”
“Dad,” she groaned. “I don’t care about all that. I want my husband. I have to make sure he’s okay.”
Ignoring her, Reece stepped on the gas again without making a U-turn. “Victoria’s a doctor. If he’s hurt, she’ll save him. They’re close, probably the reason Jonas contacted her to come get you.”
Meghan grunted as she tried to pull apart the cuffs.
“You’ll only hurt yourself, sweetheart. Those are from the NSA…they’ve been testing a new product called Graphene. I even had a hard time breaking them.”
She smashed her feet against the dashboard, driving a hole right through the thin plastic. She pulled back, feeling the jagged edges claw at her leg, but she didn’t care.
Reece sighed. “Meghan, what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to turn around,” she said through her teeth.
“I can’t. You’ve always said that I haven’t been there for you, but I’m here now, and I’m not going to let them arrest you for something you didn’t do.”
“God! Don’t you understand! No, of course, you don’t! You’ve never loved anyone but yourself and your stupid job.”
“That’s not true. I loved your mother, and I love you.”
“If you loved us, you wouldn’t have left us,” she screamed.
“Your mother didn’t want me, Meghan. She wanted drugs more than she wanted me. The moment I found out that I had a daughter, I came back for you, but I had to clean her up. I couldn’t trust her with you the way she was. She would go off for days on end.”
Meghan didn’t want to think about this, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to take her back to Jonas, so all she could do was hope that Victoria would find him.
Maybe a distraction would be good, since it felt like her heart was breaking into pieces. Similar to chunks of rock that would fall off the side of rock faces at home, her heart felt as if pieces were chipping away, waiting for the next mass to fall into an abyss, never to be seen again. Until eventually, she’d have no heart left to break, and then she’d die.
She glared at her father, wondering if he’d tell her. She’d asked before, and he’d always told her when she was older. “I deserve to know. How did my mom die?”
Ignoring her request again, Reece parallel parked in front of an old brownstone and hopped out. He walked around the front of the vehicle and then opened her door. “Please don’t try anything, Meghan. I’m a cop, remember? And I have a lot more creatus blood in me than you do. You’re not going to be able to overpower or outrun me.” He unlatched the seatbelt and lifted her out of the car by her hips, setting her on the concrete.
She could scream rape, but then he’d just soar up to the roof or something. Better just to wait. He couldn’t watch her around the clock.
Reece held on to her arm and escorted her into the brownstone, up to the top floor. He directed her inside the apartment, which was small, but tastefully decorated in a modern motif. Practically everything in the small space was black, white, or gray. The sparse furnishings consisted of a leather sofa, a glass-top coffee table, granite counters with black-iron barstools underneath, and sleek electronics and appliances all in chrome.
Meghan huffed as she realized this must be Victoria’s place. Her father preferred laid-back, comfortable surroundings, like his beach cottage in SoBe. “So, d’y’all hook-up?”
Reece cocked his head in her direction and narrowed his eyes as he led her to the kitchenette. “Do you mean that in the old-fashioned sense, as in, are we dating? Or in the modern-day sense, as in, did we meet up at a party and have sex?”
Meghan rolled her eyes. She swore, whenever she was around her father, she felt as though she were thirteen again. “As if… I know you better than that, Dad.”
Ignoring her for the third time, he pulled out his phone, swiped his thumb across the screen, and then pressed a number.
“Hang on,” a woman’s voice answered. Emergency vehicle sirens, cries only an injured person made, and deep authoritative voices streamed from her father’s phone.
Oh, God… Please… Please let her have found him.
Reece shook his head and blew out a breath. “What were y’all doing there? Tell me Jonas didn’t blow up that building.”
“Dad…” she whined. “I thought you said you knew him. Jonas has never hurt anyone. He was going there as a favor.”
“A favor? Did he mention anyone’s name?”
She shook her head. “He wouldn’t tell me. All he said was that people high up were on his side.”
Reece ran his hand over his forehead, kneading his temples. “That’s what I was afraid of. But he never mentioned a name?”
“No…” She tugged at the cuffs again. “Are you gonna take off these stupid things?”
“Not until Victoria gets here. I know you, Meg. You’ll run.”
That was true…that she’d run, that is. He didn’t know her…he’d never known her.
“Hey…” Victoria’s voice returned to the line, ragged, as if she’d run. “Oh, Reece. It’s a mess. We’ve been evacuating, but the flames have spread. The building is so old that it lit up like a tinderbox. Does Meghan know what Jonas was trying to do? I can’t imagine him hurting all of these innocent people, most of them elderly.”
“Did you find Jonas?” Meghan screamed.
“No… I’m sorry. I made it to the floor of the explosion before the police got there, but the flames had taken over the corridor. I couldn’t even get on the floor. While I was rushing up the stairs, many of the residents were rushing down them, so I hope there weren’t too many casualties.”
“But…Jonas… Was he…there…” she trailed off, her throat closing up from the tears. God, he couldn’t be gone. But if he were alive, wouldn’t he have called her? Wouldn’t he have sent the text, telling her to run? No…he’d sent Victoria and Reece, so she couldn’t be there for him. What good was all her training if she couldn’t help the only person she’d ever loved?
“I’m sorry, Meghan,” Victoria said. “Maybe he made it out the fire escape.”
Meghan couldn’t restrain the tears, nor her father’s arms as he wrapped them around her. Stupid cuffs still held her wrists together. She strained against them again, letting the metal cut into her wrists. She welcomed the pain. Bleeding was the only way to release the torment inside of her.
Tears didn’t help. Nothing helped. But when her body was in physical pain, at least she couldn’t concentrate on the mental pain as much. Physical pain healed, but her heart would never heal. She could only imagine what her heart must look like.
When she eventually died from her psychological wounds, doctors would cut her open to find scars on her heart. Scars on top of scars, few of them ever even stitched together, but had just sealed up with the inf
ection still inside. All that would remain on the outside of her heart would be red and purple welts from the numerous lacerations that had eventually closed up over her infected, festering broken heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Tag glanced at the caller ID and smiled, happy to be the one in charge for a change.
As if he didn’t care, though, he answered with an indifferent, “Yeah?”
“Is it done?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure Jonas was the one to set it off?”
Tag rolled his eyes. “I watched him walk into the building from across the street. Who else would have gone into that pigsty? I don’t think that lowlife had taken out the trash or washed a dish since he put his mother in that nursing home. And Jonas didn’t come out of the building, so yeah, I’m sure he set it off.”
“And the girl?”
He chewed on his thumbnail. “There’s been a new development with Meghan.”
“What do you mean new development?”
“Well, I was going to take her out right after the building blew, but Vic and her father showed up.”
A disgusted sigh came through the line. “You assured me I could count on you.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know they’d show up? Jonas must have called them, because Meghan fought them. Her father actually had to handcuff her and throw her inside the vehicle.”
“You need to clear out the building, then. She’ll lead them right back to you.”
Tag smiled. “She won’t. She promised Jonas she wouldn’t, and she was crazy about him, even though he was just playing her. Nah. My bet is she comes looking for him. And when she does, I’ll make sure she won’t be able to talk. Bitch got him to knock me around, when she was the one whoring about.”
Another sigh. “Just handle it, Tag. Don’t call me back until you do.”
The line clicked, and Tag tossed the phone on Jonas’ bed—correction—his bed. Corpses didn’t need beds. He walked inside the bathroom and inhaled. He could still smell her. He rifled through the top drawer, looking for the source.
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