49. Ben
Chapter forty-nine
W e all look up from where we’re seated around the meeting room when Atlas comes storming through the door.
“Okay, we’re all here, can you please tell us what was so important that you needed us all here?” Dom asks Chief Walters, and we all look at him expectantly.
“And why Mina couldn’t be here with us?” Tucker asks with his arms crossed on the table in front of him.
Walters stands at the end of the table and leans down, placing his palms on the surface, taking a moment to look at each of us. “Look boys, this is a bit of a delicate situation. You know we ran Simon’s DNA, and it matched what was found on all the rape victims.” I nod, knowing this information already.
“Because of how many victims were involved, I decided to have them run everything found at the scene. That included all the blood found on Simon and Helen. And we found something interesting.” He pauses, looking around at us.
“Come on, Chief, don’t leave us in suspense like this,” I grumble.
“The DNA evidence confirms that Helen is Simon’s biological mother. ”
“We knew that,” Max says with agitation, leaning back in his chair, his foot tapping away on the floor. I glance at Tucker and see him flipping his lucky coin through his knuckles. Atlas’s hand is in his pocket, probably gripping his switchblade. We’re all on edge. We can feel the tension radiating from the Chief, we’re just waiting for him to get on with it.
“Some of the blood on Simon belonged to Mina. It confirmed he is her half brother, but it also revealed that Helen is not her mother.”
We knew Simon and Mina were half siblings, Paul told us that. But he said Simon wasn’t his, not that Mina wasn’t Helen’s.
“If Mina and Simon are half siblings, and Helen is his mother and not hers, that means they share the same dad,” I say, trying to piece it all together.
“Paul,” Gideon says, looking up at me with a frown. It doesn’t make sense.
“There’s more,” Walters says, making us all go quiet. “The results show an abnormally high level of genetic similarity between Simon’s maternal and paternal DNA.”
“Shit,” I say with wide eyes.
“What does that mean?” Max asks.
“It means that Simon’s biological parents are closely related… Likely full siblings,” I say, my stomach turning at the thought.
“Paul and Helen are siblings?” Max says with wide eyes.
“If Simon and Mina share a father. And it’s Paul…. Then Paul slept with his sister, Helen. And they had Simon. Then Paul slept with someone else who gave birth to Mina.”
“I don’t understand. Paul told us he had a DNA test done, that Simon wasn’t his,” Jasper says, glancing around at each of us .
“Did anybody ever ask how Paul found Simon and Mina in the forest before we got there?” I ask as I glance around at everyone.
They stare at me and their confusion quickly turns to worry. Suddenly, Atlas slams the door open and storms out of the room.
Tucker
I jog to keep up with Atlas, with Ben on my heels. We’re all silent as we exit the police station, the information we just learned circling through our heads. I couldn’t understand why Paul would lie, and I’m sure after we talk to him and get his DNA, it will all make sense.
Halfway scores the street, Atlas starts to run fast, and we pick up our pace, unsure of the threat but not willing to wait to find out, especially where our girl is concerned.
He pushes the door open so hard it bangs into the wall, making everyone in the coffee shop jump in surprise.
He turns to the right, where there’s an empty table with two coffee cups, then his hard eyes move around the room.
“They’re gone,” he growls.
“What? What do you mean, gone ?” I ask, as I follow him out the door.
“I left them sitting at that table not ten minutes ago. She knew she shouldn’t leave with him.” He pauses on the sidewalk and looks up and down the street.
“I can track her, one sec… This way!” Ben yells, phone in hand, as he takes off down the street. We keep pace behind him and I pull out my phone, hitting Dom’s name.
“Tucker?” he answers instantly.
“She’s gone. Ben’s tracking her right now, she’s moving North down Rosewood,” I tell him, panting as I try to keep up with the other two while talking .
“We’re coming,” he answers before hanging up.
We continue to follow Ben down the street until he slows and looks up. I don’t see her or Paul anywhere. After a few more steps, Ben stops and turns around, looking at his phone, then back around him again in confusion.
“ Fuck, ” he whispers before bending down and picking something up off the ground.
When he turns and shows it to us, I suck in a sharp breath. “No,” I whisper, seeing her smart watch in his hand.
We turn at the sound of pounding footsteps and see our four brothers running towards us.
“Where is she?” Max yells.
I turn to Ben, who holds out the watch, staring down at it with pain in his eyes.
“He took her,” Ben says in a tone that says he can’t believe it.
I grab his shoulders and give them a little shake, making him look up at me.
“Ben. Listen, we will get her back. Do you hear me? There is nothing that will stop the seven of us from getting to her. And we need your tracking skills to help us find her. So I need you to snap out of it and help us get our girl. You hear me, brother?”
He looks at me for a moment, then nods slowly, followed by another sharper nod. “Yes, thanks, I can do this. Let’s go back to the police station, I’m sure we can use their help.”
We quickly head back to the station and let the chief know what’s happened. He puts an APB out for both of them and helps us get set up in a large room with several of his best detectives and tech guys .
“Okay boys, we need to find everything we can on Paul Stevens,” the chief tells his men.
Ben tries to track Mina’s phone, and when we find the signal stopped only a street away, Atlas and Jasper go with a couple cops to check it out. They return quickly with the phone and no Mina. Apparently, Paul was throwing her stuff out the window, knowing we could track her with it.
“When we get her back, I’m implanting a tracker in her arm,” Ben grumbles as he clicks away on his laptop he retrieved from the SUV. My wide eyes meet Gideon’s. I’m not sure if Ben is serious or not, but I’m kind of okay with that.
I pace the room, unsure how to help right now. I can’t stop thinking about how scared she must be right now. And even worse, what does Paul want with her? All signs point to her being his biological daughter, so what was his plan here?
“Hey!” I say, an idea coming to me. “He kept talking about wanting her to go back to California with him, maybe he’s planning on driving there?”
“Good point,” Dom says with a nod.
“Why would Mina go with him?” Max asks, immediately shaking his head as he realizes what a stupid question that is. “Dumb question, sorry. I’m just stressed. She obviously didn’t go willingly, he threw her phone and watch out the window, she never would have allowed that.”
“Got it!” one of the police techs, Jordan says excitedly.
“You got the footage?” Ben asks, rolling his chair beside him to look at his screen.
“Yes, the outside cameras are pointing at the street outside. Let’s see what we’ve got. ”
I join the others, standing behind him as he rewinds the footage, pressing play when we see Atlas walking across the street to the station.
He fast forwards slowly until we see the two of them exit the coffee shop. “There!” Several of us all yell at once and he slows it down to normal speed.
We all watch as Paul puts his arm around her. Even through the grainy security footage, I can see her tensing. Paul doesn’t seem to notice, though. Or he does, but he doesn’t care. They move to a car parked a few spots down and when he opens the trunk, I find myself gripping Ben’s shoulder, knowing we’re not going to like what we see.
We watch his hand move to her neck, then she starts to crumble, and within seconds he throws her in the trunk and slams it shut.
“Fuck, I can’t believe he did that right in front of my station,” the chief says, running his hand through his hair.
“Chief, I’m not finding anything on Stevens since his stint in rehab. It’s like he’s been a ghost for the past fifteen years. I found the police report he filled with Mina went missing and then… nothing.”
“That’s not good news,” the chief says, his eyes scanning us like he’s afraid we’re going to tear his station apart.
“I had the same problem finding him originally. The only thing I had to locate him in the first place was his phone number on the missing persons report for Mina. It was still active even after all this time,” Ben tells the chief.
“Jordan, see if the number is traceable,” the chief orders. Ben gives him the number and we all wait to see what he can find.
It doesn’t take long before we reach another dead end. “Sorry,” Jordan says grimacing. “That was a burner phone, and it’s been completely deactivated now. He probably tossed it, too. ”
“There’s something else,” Ben says, clicking away as he speaks. “So, we already know that Mina’s birth certificate lists Paul Stevens and Helen Bennett as her birth parents.” I nod, Bennett was her mother’s maiden name. “Well, I’ve found a death certificate for Helen Bennett, and it’s dated two weeks after Mina was born.”
“So the Helen who raised Mina had stolen her identity,” Gideon surmises.
“So who is she, really?” I ask.
“My money is on Mary Stevens,” the tech pipes up, reading from his screen. “Twin sister to Paul Stevens and an assumed runaway twenty-one years ago.”
“This just gets more and more fucked up,” I saw swiping my hand down my face.
“This would explain why there is no record of Simon’s birth, they didn’t want anyone to know they had a baby together,” Dom adds, pacing the room.
“Does any of this explain why he would take Mina though?” Max asks an important question.
“He’s obsessed with her. She was the perfect child after having Simon,” Atlas says with frustration, his knife spinning in his palm. He’s obviously too wound up to care he has a weapon out in the police station right now, and I don’t think the chief cares since he’s the one that pulled Atlas away from Mina and allowed Paul to take her.
Gideon’s eyes meet mine and I see my own pain and fear reflected there. “What are we gonna do?” he whispers to me. “What if we can’t—”
“We will ,” I tell him firmly. “We’ll get her back and everything will be fine, you’ll see.” I pat him on the back, trying to make him feel better as I give him a small smile of hope .
Internally, I’m a fucking mess. Hasn’t our girl already been through enough shit to last a lifetime? What did Paul want from her? What was he doing to her? Was she terrified? She didn’t have her watch or phone to contact us this time, she must be terrified.
Just hold on, Sugar. We’ll find you.