23. Gideon
Chapter twenty-three
“ W hat time is it?” Mina asks as she comes down the stairs to join us in the living room.
She’s wearing a cute little flowy dress that comes down to her knees. It’s light pink with white flowers and short sleeves and suits her sweet nature perfectly.
“Three,” I tell her before taking a sip of my earl gray tea.
After she told us all about her brother two days ago, she asked for some time alone. She’s come out for meals, but I noticed she started locking her door at night so nobody could sneak in with her. If Dom and Atlas thought we didn’t know that they took turns going to spend the night with her before that, they were wrong. But it hadn’t bothered me. I was glad she had them there to help her sleep. I wish she wasn’t shutting them out now.
At least they could keep her safe.
“So, what’s the plan to catch Simon and my mom?” she asks, standing in front of us and biting her lip as she looks around the room.
“You leave that to us,” I tell her gently.
But she shakes her head. “No. I want to be involved. I know him, I can help you. I can tell you if I think something will work on him or not. And I know my mom well, too, unfortunately. I feel useless sitting around, please let me help, Gideon.”
“Dear lord!” Tucker mutters as we all watch her latch onto my hand with both of hers, giving me the saddest puppy dog eyes I’ve ever seen.
“Dom…” I say, dragging out his name, not taking my eyes off of her. It’s his decision as our leader and I don’t think I can say no to that face.
He sighs and reaches forward to pull her into his lap, then freezes right before his fingers touch her hips. His eyes look up to hers, then he closes his hands, takes a deep breath and sits back.
“Alright, Mina, you can help,” he tells her with a nod.
When she doesn’t say anything, I look back and see her watching Dom with a little frown on her face. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Hmm?” she mumbles, her eyes darting to me.
“I said, what’s wrong? Why are you frowning?”
“Oh… It’s nothing.”
“I’d like to know, even if it’s nothing,” I say quietly, almost whispering, as if simply talking too loud could spook her.
“It’s just…” she trails off, her eyes returning to Dom as she asks him, “why did you do that?”
“Do what?” he asks in confusion.
“You gave me what I asked for, then you reached for me, but then you… you didn’t touch me.”
“Did you want me to touch you?” he asks for clarity.
“I—I don’t know,” she stammers out.
“That’s why I didn’t touch you, I could see you were hesitant. I want you to want my touch, Mina. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing I would love more than to pull you into my lap right now and cuddle the shit out of you, but I’m not going to do anything you’re not comfortable with, or aren’t certain you want.”
“None of us would,” Jasper adds.
“Just like that? I don’t want you to touch me, and… you don’t?” She sounds confused and frustrated and it breaks my heart. Does she really think she’s not allowed to say no to us, to anyone? Has everyone in her life treated her so poorly that she doesn’t believe she gets a choice in who touches her?
Of course not … look at everything she revealed to us yesterday.
Bullocks. I’ve failed this girl over and over again. I’m the only one who’s seen her mother interact with her, and although I knew something wasn’t quite right there, I missed the fact that she was abusing Mina. Then she came to school with a hole in her arm and lashes across her back and I failed to notice those, too. I’m the one who didn’t pick her up from the classroom in time, which allowed Brad to assault her. And that incident is what led to her mother attacking her.
My brothers wanted to step in earlier, but I helped convince them we couldn’t do that, that it wasn’t the correct way to handle this case. If I had stopped at any point along the way and treated her like a person, instead of a case, then I could have prevented her from getting hurt. But I didn’t, and now I had to live with the fact that she has been repeatedly hurt, and almost killed, because of my neglect.
I have no right being with her, it’s why I’ve been distancing myself since she got home. Besides, she has my six brothers, what would she need me for? I’d just get in the way, anyway.
Not being able to stand the sad look in her eyes, I take a sip of my tea, hoping it will help calm my frazzled nerves. It doesn’t. I’m just thankful she has the others to help calm her when I can’t .
“Angel, we will never touch you if you don’t want us to,” Jasper says, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he looks at her. “You must realize that by now, that we don’t want to do anything to hurt you or upset you.”
“And you should know it’s killing us to hold back right now,” Max says, pushing his hands under his ass so he doesn’t accidentally reach for her.
“Yeah, I’m starting to get that,” she mumbles.
“Do you want to take a seat and we can start brainstorming ideas for how to catch Simon and Helen,” Ben suggests and her eyebrows raise in surprise.
“Really?”
“Of course, let’s start with everyone offering up ideas, I’ll type them out, no bad ideas right now. Then we can go back through the list and talk about how each would play out.”
Two hours later, with bellies full of pizza, we’ve had a dozen ideas, but nothing seems right.
“Okay, we know who he is and what type of victim he goes after. But we don’t know exactly why. We don’t know where he stays or even if he’s still in town.” Dom starts laying out the facts. “As for Helen. We know she has held her son in high regard while keeping her daughter under lock and key. But what is her goal in all of this? Why is she helping him and why does she really hate Mina so much?”
“Paul,” Ben says, and we all look at him. “Him leaving was the catalyst for everything.”
“I need to talk to him,” Mina says, surprising me, as she stares at the floor.
“Mina, are you sure? You don’t have to.”
She looks up at me and nods once. “It’s time. I need to do it at some point, anyway. May as well get it over with and possibly get some information from him. If he turns out to be as horrible as the rest of my family…” She trails off, obviously unsure what she’ll actually do if that’s the case.
“Then you’ll be right where you are now, with us as your family,” Atlas says, staring at her intently.
“Okay, if you’re sure? I’ll make the call,” Dom asks her.
“Actually, I think I should be the one to call, if that’s okay with you?” she asks shyly. This girl continued to amaze me. She wasn’t even talking three weeks ago, and now she’s going to call a father she didn’t even realize was still alive, unknowing what his reaction is going to be.
“Of course. Out here or in the office?”
She thinks for a second before answering. “Here.”
He nods and his phone rings before he even pulls it out.
“Chief?” he answers. “What is it?” He looks surprised at whatever he hears in response.
“What? Uh huh…. Yeah… Okay… Thanks, bye.”
He takes a second to collect himself, then looks around at us, his gaze landing on Mina.
“It’s Brad. He’s dead.”
She gasps, her hand flying to cover her mouth in surprise .
“He was released on bail this morning and they found him dead on the side of the road. He was stabbed and strangled.” Her eyes go wide with fear as the others let out a series of curses.
“Was it Simon?” Mina asks worriedly.
“I don’t know, but it’s likely,” Dom says with a frown.
“Why would he change his MO like that? It can’t be a coincidence that Brad attacked her and ended up dead,” Max asks.
“If he’s doing it for Mina, because Brad hurt her, then why isn’t her mom dead?” Jasper adds.
“Maybe she is,” Tucker says with a shrug.
“It’s probably a sexual thing. Her mother didn’t assault her like that, but Brad did,” I say, giving her a sympathetic glance.
“Doesn’t that mean you guys are at risk then too?” she asks, her eyes bouncing around the room.
Nobody says anything as we think about her question. Brad’s advances weren’t wanted. That could be the difference. Or he just doesn’t know about us yet. But the twins have been showering her with affection at the school since day one. Is he just biding his time until he goes after us?
Nobody has much else to add, so we decide to leave it for now.
“Are you ready to call Paul?” Ben asks her. We aren’t sure if she’s ready to call him dad yet or if she ever will, he’s been missing from her life for fifteen years.
She nods and Dom dials the number Ben found, then hands her the phone.
She surprises me by settling back against me and pulling my arm around her shoulder. She looks up at me with a worried smile, so I smile back and give her shoulder a little squeeze to let her know I’m here for her.
Atlas moves closer to her other side and holds his hand out, palm up. She threads her fingers through his and squeezes tight, then looks down at the phone and pressing the button to dial before putting it on speaker.
We all hear it ring and wait anxiously to see if he answers.