Page 56 of Silent Desires

“We know she suffers from them. It might not have been related to your question. Anything can set them off. We just don’t know,” Gideon adds.

“And now we can’t even ask,” Max grumbles.

“It’s probably best we don’t. She’s clearly not ready to talk about it,” Dom states.

“Shit, guys, we have to get back to school. Lunch is almost over, and you have class,” Gideon tells us, looking angry that he has to leave. I feel the same way, I don’t want to leave her now, not in this state. I want to make sure she’s okay and not upset with me.

I hold Mina tighter against my chest, kiss her head, and softly nuzzle where her neck meets her shoulder, taking in her scent to get me through until I see her again. As I stand up, I lift her in my arms.

Ben steps in front of me. “Alright, man, time to hand her over. You can’t take her back like this.” He gives me a small smirk, and I pass her gentlyinto his arms. I watch her for a minute to make sure she’s still breathing, then kiss her forehead before heading back to school. I hope I can see her in gym class. I need to see with my own eyes that she’s okay.

Chapter thirty-seven

Ilook down at the sleeping beauty in my arms as I lean back on the couch. Dom sits beside me, holding her tiny feet in his hands, and Atlas sits on my other side, his fingers playing with her hair like it’s the most delicate thing in the world.

“Dom, we have to figure out a way to get her out of that house,” I say with a sigh.

“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” he says, his eyes glued to her unconscious body.

“I know we still need to have the conversation, but I don’t think I can wait until she turns eighteen, what if she’s being hurt at home?”

“Yeah, I know,” he says, dropping his head back and scrubbing his hand down in face in obvious frustration from the situation. “I wish she’d just talk to us.”

I take a breath before I speak, not sure how they will take this piece of information. “You know… The legal age of consent in this state is sixteen.” I feel them both look at me as I continue. “But she isn’t considered an adult until she’s eighteen.”

“Exactly. We aren’t talking about sleeping with her, we’re talking about getting her out of that place. She’s a minor until she’s eighteen, which is still months away,” Atlas states, and I nod in agreement.

“Okay, so… Options?” Dom asks us.

“There’s emancipation,” I suggest. Dom nods as he considers it.

“But that would take time and have to go through the proper legal channels. Not exactly ideal when her family is in the middle of our investigation.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t work,” he agrees, scratching his stubble in thought.

“Let’s just kidnap her,” Atlas says after a few minutes of silence, and I look at him, raising an eyebrow in question. “She can just stay here with us. She doesn’t even need to go to school. She’ll learn way faster here, anyway. It’s not like she went to school before. If her mother is up to what we think she is, she’s not going to the police to look for her. We know her identity is somewhat fake anyway, there are no records of her before six weeks ago.”

I realize he’s being serious right now. I look at Dom. Could it work? Could we just… keep her? It couldn’t be that easy.

“It could trigger the killer to do something bad,” Dom says slowly.

“He’s already killing people. At least she’d be safe,” Atlas adds, making Dom nods.

A sudden thought makes me stiffen. “Wait, what if she’s in witness protection?”

“Shit,” Atlas mumbles, his eyes widening as we all consider it.

“Think about it, her mother is overprotective, there is no record of them, we know Helen has assumed multiple identities, she was witnessed being seen with a son, which makes sense, if you didn’t want anyone to look for a mother and daughter, disguising them as a mother and son would be a great disguise,” I tell them as some of the pieces click into place.

“And Jeff,” Dom says, staring at the wall across the room as he adds his own thoughts into the mix. “He could be the agent assigned to them, that’s why he’s not always there, he doesn’t live there, he just checks in on them.”

“It explains why she doesn’t have a phone, they don’t want her to contact anyone from her old life,” I add. “But what do we do if that’s true? If the serial killer we’ve been tracking is targeting Mina, shouldn’t we talk to the FBI?”

“They aren’t going to give over information about anyone in witness protection to us,” Dom tells us, frowning. “It makes sense why Mina won’t tell us anything.”

“And why she has panic attacks and seems so sheltered,” I add, trying to figure out if there was a way to find out if she really was in witness protection, but they don’t even keep that info online, so it can’t be hacked.

“Something probably happened, maybe she was a victim that got away,” Dom suggests.

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