If Only She Knew

36. Control

A few months ago...

Bernard Johnson already knew he was under the police's radar, and they would be looking for him soon. That's why he was no longer in UK. He appointed Aaron Johnson, Ariana's older brother to preside over Johnson's Electronics  while he went on his expensive, secretive vacation. Ariana, his own daughter, did him. That's why he had always disagreed to her being a detective; he had thought she'd somehow get intertwined with his business. Her mother's murder, with an unfound killer, had marked her though, and there was nothing he could do to stop her from picking up that career. He was certain she didn't remember nothing from the incident with her mother years ago, he had, after all, used Julien to erase her memories - just before he somehow managed to escape. And he knew everything. Where that guy was, now, he couldn't know. He had tried in vain to find him and capture him back all of these years, but that guy could erase memories and he was practically unstoppable if he knew how to use that superpower smartly. Julien was, as far as he knew and his research went, the only human being with that power. His parents and grandfather also shared it, but he'd killed all of them. Bernard Johnson still couldn't pinpoint where that power started, or why Julien's bloodline had it, but he was close to getting injected with a microchip that contained the necessary DNA, and would be soon the possessor of that power. He smiled as he was arranging his tie in the mirror, while he heard his maid come in with his food.

"Good afternoon, Sir,"  she said, and left.

 Bernard gritted his teeth, as he turned around and walked through the room. They wouldn't catch him, no. They couldn't learn he had killed his wife years ago. If they ever got close to the truth, he'd make someone else fall for it; and they were.

He'd let Ariana do her bid. He wouldn't care anymore about her feelings, or his affections for her - she'd always resembled her mother way too much, especially in that painting of hers, so he had always had an uneasy feeling seeing her. She was like a clone of her mother's, and didn't resemble him at all. If he'd ever feel she posed a threat to him, he'd discard her, too.

*

Ariana...

After watching that evidence that pointed her father as the mastermind behind VELLA alongside  Michael she was walking home, alone, through The Queen's Park. She had to admit, she had missed little Small Bucharest while she had been on her expeditions up in Scotland. It was a small town which didn't buzz with so many tourists and traffic. It couldn't be denied that it did buzz with more criminal activity and unrest than those things, and it wasn't good, but she had gotten used so well to criminal activity, murder and the stench of death that it was second nature, she had gotten so used it was eerie. Michael had given that evidence over to higher-ups, demanding an arrest warrant, and she didn't want to be there when they'd arrest her father, so she wasn't involved in it no longer. She had hoped, too soon, that it would be over, that this would bring her father down as the Big B. murders killer wanted, and that no one else would die by murder.

 Just then, her phone buzzed inside her bag. She then, dreadfully, took it out. The killer texted her, as she was expecting he would. She read his messages with a deep disgust for her own job:

"Heyo, Ariana."

"No need to be scared now, you."

She frowned at his messages. Scared? She was anything but scared, she was telling herself, while she felt like throwing up.

 "No, really girl. I am actually proud of you, very proud. You did what you could. Jeez, I'm actually so proud I have a surprise for you..."  Reading that last line, she shut her eyes tightly, with pain, on instinct. She knew his surprises were never good. She only then realized, too, that she had stopped walking and was just standing in the middle of the road, looking strange, so she picked up walking leisurely, but in reality, restive. She was anxiously waiting his next message. But hearing the next modification, she opened her eyes. She read his next message.