I reached for Jonah’s hand and turned, then dragged him to the back room so we could have some privacy. When we got to the back, he immediately came into my arms once more. I held him close while he burrowed into me. Jonah was becoming more affectionate with each day we spent together, but didn’t seem to be a toucher naturally. I, however, was. Since we met, I’d been finding ways to be close.
This was different.
Wrong, different.
Unbearable pain oozed from every single one of his pores as he shook.
I reached for his face and he lifted his head.
There was only one word I could come up with for the scorn and desperation coating the features of Jonah’s handsome face.
Ravaged.
Something broke my man today. No, shattered him.
Staring into his broken, beautiful face, I had trouble getting the words out, fear replacing all the light and happiness I’d soaked up from Rory. “What happened?”
For a long time he just stared at me as though he were cataloguing the details of my face. Then his eyes filled with tears and they fell in tandem.
“He got to her.” The words came out sounding as though his throat had been scraped by sandpaper.
“Who, baby? You’re scaring me,” I choked out, tears filling my own eyes at seeing the raw, gut-wrenching pain spilling from his own.
“Helen.” The name was said in a gritty tone filled to the brim with tortured emotion.
“Helen, your ex? Who got her, honey?” I kept my hands to his cheeks and his gaze on mine.
“The Strangler.” He closed his eyes and more tears spilled down his cheeks, wetting my palms.
I gasped as what he said dawned on me.
His next statement confirmed it.
“He killed my ex-wife and left her dead, desecrated, naked body for me to find in your car.”
Instantly I reached out and wrapped my arms around him holding him so close you couldn’t have slipped even a piece of paper between us. I tightened my grip wanting him to feel me and my strength straight through to his bones.
“Hold on to me, baby. Just hold on to me. And breathe. Hold on and breathe.”
“I won’t let him have you.”
This was the first thing he’d said since I led him out and into Ryan’s SUV, got him home, and wrapped around me, fully clothed and in his bed, covers and all. Though I did remove our shoes. Ryan had come in twice. Once to bring Jonah a full glass of whiskey, setting it on the nightstand. He hadn’t touched it. He popped in again to see if I wanted him to order food. I told him pizza because everyone loves pizza. It was one of those foods that’s practically impossible to hate, unless you were one of those people that freaked out if there was pineapple on your pizza. I’ve found that particular ingredient has caused some serious wars between friends, and on social media. Me, I didn’t care one way or the other. My mom liked broccoli on pizza. That item I could argue was far stranger than pineapple, but what did I know. I liked most things, even broccoli and, yes, pineapple, on my pizza.
I ran my fingers through his hair over and over in the same pattern, hoping to soothe and comfort him.
“He’s not going to get to me,” I murmured at the crown of his head.
Jonah was tucked to my side, my right hand in his hair, the other across his chest. He was tracing the lines of my fingers one at a time then up my forearm and back down again.
“I’m off the case.” He let out a long breath, his body shuddering with the exhalation.
“Probably for the best. You need to grieve.”
“This is personal now. And it gets worse. What he etched across her chest.” He shook his head and sat up abruptly, reached for the whiskey, and downed at least half in one drink. He wiped the wet from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Tell me,” I urged.
He shook his head. “It’s bad, baby. You don’t need that in your head.”
I reached for his hand and squeezed. “You don’t either, but my guy is beyond hurting. I need to know everything in order to help you get through it. We need to get past this together.”
He gritted his teeth and scowled so fiercely I almost didn’t recognize him. “He’s either following us and saw the fight we had outside my parents’ house last night, or he looked me up and found out about my ex-wife and our divorce through the county recorder’s office. Hell, an online search these days can bring up half the details of someone’s life.” He sucked back more whiskey.
“Okay, so what else is there that you aren’t telling me? Did he, um, did he violate her?” My words were spoken so low I could barely process them myself.
“Not as far as we can tell even though her body was naked. We’ll have to see what the autopsy reveals. It was obvious she was strangled.” His head fell forward, his chin to his chest, shoulders drooping. He looked exhausted, as though the last ten years of his life had been lived in a single day.
“What was the message?”
His voice shook when he said, “You’re Welcome.”
I gasped and covered my shock with my hand over my mouth. “No. Jonah do not take this on. You did not ask for this. Just like I did not ask for Katrina to be killed in my apartment or any of those other women.”
“It was a gift.” He said it as though the words seared his very soul. “To me. Killing my bitch of an ex-wife and displaying her in my new girlfriend’s car like a fucking trophy.”
I was so never touching that car again.
I placed both of my hands on his shoulders. “Look at me, Jonah.”
He ignored me.
“Look at me, honey. Please.”
Either the please or the honey got him to look up.
“You had nothing to do with his decision to kill Helen. Did you want her dead?”
His entire face turned an angry red. “Fuck no! I wanted her to hurt like I did when she obliterated our marriage by sleeping with my fucking brother, but I didn’t want her dead.” He stood up, swung his arm back, and threw the whiskey glass against the brick wall opposite his bed. It smashed on impact, glass shards going all over the wood floor, golden-colored liquid dripping down the wall.
“Fuck!” He roared, his hands going into his hair and tugging on the roots. “He killed Helen! He wrapped his hands around her neck and snuffed the life right out of her. The first woman I ever loved. A woman I planned on raising children with, growing old with. And now he wants to do the same to you. He will not stop until he’s got you. And he’ll start by picking off other people we love. No one is safe. Not my parents, your sisters or your mom. No one.”
I knee-walked across the bed until I could reach him. Then I tugged his shoulders until he slumped back in a sitting position, his elbows to his knees, his head in his hands.
I plastered myself against his back, wrapping my arms around him the best I could. When I got my hands in front of him, he grabbed them and kissed them repeatedly before pressing them to his heart.
“What do you need me to do?”
“I don’t know. Just don’t leave me. You’re not to be out of my sight until this man goes down. Understand?”
I nodded against his neck. “What do we need to do to keep our families safe?”
“Get them the hell out of town. Maybe out of the country.”