Dean jumps in before Jonah can attack, and they grapple. The fight turns vicious, and I scream at Dean to stop as he gets the upper hand, his fist smashing into Jonah’s bloodied face, then wailing his injured arm each time Jonah tries to fight back. But he won’t stop. I hold the knife poised, waiting for a moment when Dean won’t be in danger.
Suddenly, Jonah gains control. They roll to the side, Jonah’s wide back facing up toward me. I leap toward him and plunge the knife down right as my father runs out toward us.
Jonah lets out a scream and thrashes as Dean rolls away from him. Jonah stumbles to his feet unsteadily, fingers clawing at the grass as he tries to stand. He nearly makes it out from where Dean and I are, but Dad steps in and swings hard, smashing his fist across Jonah’s jaw, causing him to fall back to the ground. He tries to get back up, but he’s surrounded on all sides.
Jonah’s eyes burn with hatred at the three of us.
“It’s over, Jonah. I beat you,” I spit. “I beat both of you.”
“You little—”
I punch him in the face, and he crumples to the ground, semi-conscious.
“Do you have any more handcuffs?” Dad asks.
I shake my head.
“No, that was my only pair. Sam and Eric aren’t here, and Jonah’s hands are bloody.”
“We’ll find them. But we have to take care of him first.”
Dad reaches down and yanks Jonah up by his hair. Jonah’s eyes open, a trickle of blood streaming from his forehead over one of them as he stares at my father. Suddenly, my gun is out of my Dad’s pocket and pointed at the center of Jonah’s head, his finger on the trigger.
“Dad, no,” I say, the words coming out of me before I can even think them.
“Why not?” he shouts, not taking his eyes or the gun off Jonah. “You know what he’s capable of. He’s the reason your mother is dead. He has caused countless deaths and destruction. There’s no reason for him to be on this Earth.”
“No, there’s not,” I say, my voice level and calm in spite of myself. “But it won’t do you any good to kill him now. Make him face justice. Make him stand in a courtroom and listen to everything he’s done. Then toss him into maximum security and see how well he does,” I plead. “No more secrets. No more sweeping it under the rug. I want the truth to come out. All of it.”
Jonah glares at me with a bloodied face.
“I would have shot me,” he says.
“I know you would have,” I tell him, moving closer and leaning down to bring my face close to his. “But I wasn’t raised like that.”
Epilogue
“We truly believed he was dead,” Dad says as we walk slowly through the house, reclaiming moments and memories we left behind. “It didn’t seem possible for anyone to survive something like that. And there was a body in the car. And we decided right then to rewrite history. I hadn’t wanted anything to do with him in a long time, and I didn’t want you growing up knowing about him. I know it was hard on your grandparents, but they agreed. We removed every reminder of him. Every indication we could that he ever existed and went on with our lives.”
“Did I ever know him?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“No. We were estranged for years before you were born. I started noticing his behavior becoming more erratic. He went off to prison for a bit. I talked to him. Tried to get him some help. But something in those years changed him. Even more than before. He started spewing disturbing, dangerous rhetoric. Destruction breeding new life. Chaos making life worth living.”
“He’d discovered Leviathan,” I note.
“I know that now. I’d figured it was just some prison gang he started running with. Not like this. But it was years before I started figuring that out. And when I thought he was dead, I believed that was the end of it. I just wanted us to be able to move forward. Then Natalia died.”
“You always knew Dean was Jonah’s, didn’t you?” I ask.
“Yes,” he nods. “But Natalia didn’t want him to know. She never wanted him to know about your mother rescuing her, or how we were trying to help her rebuild her life. She didn’t want to scare him or make him feel guilty about anything. For a few years there, she didn’t want much to do with us. Your mother worried she was going to go back to her ex, or to the same sort of lifestyle she had. But we kept an eye on her from a distance. Then she was murdered. I remember my first thought being that Jonah must have tired of her and killed her. And it was such a strange thought because by then we assumed he was dead for ten years. I think that was the first glimmer of instinct that something was not right.”
“What about after that?”
“I started looking into it more and digging deeper. I couldn’t find anything conclusive, but I found enough that suggested Jonah was still alive and had risen to the top of Leviathan. I still didn’t know all the details about the organization. I still don’t. But I knew enough to understand the danger it represented. I knew he was going to come after you again. I had to protect you, and I had to stop him before he spiraled out of control.”
“So, you left me,” I say, a turbulent swell of emotions rising up in me. “Without even saying goodbye.”
“Emma, please understand, I didn’t do it to abandon you. I didn’t want to leave you behind. What I had to do was unbelievably dangerous. I couldn’t put
