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“But I’m not a person,” he hissed through his teeth. His mouth, so wide and disconcerting, stretched far across his thin features. “I’m a god. I’m untouchable. And you’re going to prove that for me, Matilda. You’re my test. Can I own a person?” He dug his fingernails into my flesh until I cried out, fighting against him on instinct. “I think I can.”
This lunatic really had sunk deeper into his own madness than I’d realized. “You can try,” I huffed, angling away from him. “Go for it.” Blood trickled from his fingernails to my elbow.
Jonathon released me suddenly, pushing me against the glass and walking away like he hadn’t just gone Mr. Hyde on me. “I thought about this, actually. This idea I had of owning a person. Of collecting one. You’re a perfect example of why it could never work,” he explained, gesturing to me as he circled a Ming Dynasty vase. “People don’t like being caged.”
“Imagine that,” I muttered. I clasped my left hand around my right wrist, trying to stem the weak flow of blood from his nail imprints in my skin.
“And then it occurred to me,” Jonathon stopped, facing me through the double panes of the protective glass around the vase. The reflection threw refracted fragments of his face around the glass, causing his expression to waver with an inhuman quality. “I have to make you want it.”
My body tensed suddenly, snapping my senses to attention. Want it?
“I have to take your will to be away. Clearly, I want you to be you. To be alive. To walk and breathe and talk and exist, but I don’t want you to think.” He smiled, his enthusiasm evident in the way his thick eyebrows reached for his hairline. “That’s when it hit me.” Jonathon leaned to the side so he could see me without the impediment of the glass between us. “A lobotomy.”
Ice trickled through my veins. I couldn’t have heard that right. “Sorry?”
“I know, dramatic, right?” Jonathon’s face didn’t match his words. His feverish excitement escaped his desire to remain cool and collected as he straightened and took a step toward me. “But think about it. A little snip to your white matter,” he made a snipping gesture with his fingers, “and all your worries will vanish.”
I stumbled to the side, backing away before I was forced to stand for another second through Jonathon’s crazed diatribe. “You’re—that’s—”
“Insane?” Jonathon prompted. His laugh allowed some of his instability to bubble out. “Aren’t all geniuses a little of that? Imagine it for a moment, though. Think of how ethereal you would become. An orphic display of humanity. Beautiful, untouchable, undisturbed by anything. I can’t believe I’m the first to think of it.”
I could. Because it was fucking certifiable. And then it occurred to me suddenly why Jonathon wasn’t worried about Kael finding me. Why he didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the idea of a cutthroat mercenary coming to rescue me.
It wouldn’t matter. Because Kael wouldn’t get here in time.
Two hands clamped around my arms, and just as the sharp, piercing pain of a needle stabbed through my neck, I managed to gust out a breathless, “No.”
Jonathon watched me go down, his hands behind his back and his quiet, manic excitement filling the silence with deafening clarity. My vision blurred, and I only had a moment to digest the fact that my time here on the earth as me was up. The drugs swept through my system, fogging my thoughts and turning my limbs to gelatin.
He won’t make it, I thought as the world tilted and I fell into darkness. And it will break him.
Was this what insanity felt like? As if my mind had been trapped in a mythological maze, my thoughts ran in zigzags until they either slammed to a halt at a dead end or carried on and on down a dark corridor haunted by fear and monsters. I couldn’t seem to make sense of anything—each new avenue of thought only led me deeper into Minos’ labyrinth.
Tabitha sent me little sideways looks of concern, her two laptops open on her legs as I drove us through the city and down to New Jersey where a private jet waited for us. I still had favors I could call in, and that was as far as my tattered thoughts had managed to get me at the moment. She clicked on her laptop, scrolling with her finger on the screen through the listings she’d pulled up. “He has… Jesus. One hundred forty-two properties around the world.”
The city lights blurred past us, and I hit the gas, crossing the Hudson River and heading away from the populated area. “Narrow it down to which ones he spends the most time at.” Faster. Do it faster. She could be on a plane somewhere right now. I had to stop thinking panicked, useless thoughts like that, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.
“This is going to take me hours, Kael,” Tabitha said seriously, pulling up several tabs on her browser. “I can comb social media and interviews, but it’s going to take time.”
I couldn’t think straight. Instead of productive problem solving, my brain kept conjuring images of Mattie tied and gagged. Mattie being hit. Mattie being raped. Mattie crying and afraid. I shook my head. “Which ones are in the U.S.?”
Tabitha ran her eyes over the list. “Two in California, one in Texas, one here in New York, and one in Florida.”
“Gunther is still here in New York. Give me the address and I’ll send him there.”
Tabitha shook her head. “Kael, even if you pull every operative out of retirement, we aren’t going to hit all of these quickly enough. It’ll take weeks.”
“We don’t have weeks.” I didn’t know why I thought we had a short window of time, but I just knew. My instincts had warned me that something was off with Jonathon Cohen, and I’d ignored them. I couldn’t afford to do it again. “Just give me the address.”
We made fast time getting to the airfield, which was nestled between cookie-cutter home developments and patches of rural farmlands in the tiny state. I drove us straight to the waiting jet, which Nathan had running for me and ready with the steps down and a flight attendant present at the base of the stairs. On our drive, Tabitha and I had been able to narrow down where Cohen spent most of his time. He’d been most noted in California, his château in France, and a lodge resort in Switzerland. Those destinations were a hell of a lot different, so I knew Nathan would need some time to prepare and gain prior authorization to wherever we decided to go. Which was fine because I needed time to find the bastard. He could have taken her anywhere.
I parked, killed the engine, and then strode with long, rapid strides to the boarding stairs. Tabitha followed close behind, juggling two laptop bags and her personal backpack, so I reached over and took them from her.
Nathan poked his head out of the open doorway. “Well, if it isn’t Ghost. You look nice. Did you crash a wedding or something?”
That earned him a dark look from me. “It wasn’t a wedding. And he stole my person, so if there’s crashing to be done, it will be into his house.”
Nathan glanced at his gorgeous Global 7500 with a nervous eye bounce. “Crash what now?”
