Page 41 of Break

Danny: Ok, I’m not talking about right this second. Don’t act like I’m stupid. I’m talking about five fucking minutes ago. So I ask again, WHO THE FUCK WERE YOU TALKING TO? You fucking cheating on me, baby?

Mina: Danny, I’m at home right now. I wasn’t talking to anyone!

Danny: THAT’S A FUCKING LIE - One of my friends told me that you were just at the mother fucking police station trying to file a fucking report on me... ON ME. So, you want to keep lying? I told him he had to have been wrong because there’s nothing that you could possibly need to make a report on, which only leaves the option that you’re having a fucking affair. You fucking around behind my back?

Mina: Danny, please… I was just mistaken. I came straight home. Can we talk when you get home?

Danny: Oh, we’ll fucking talk when I get home, so get your traitor ass ready for that. I’ll be home in 15 minutes.

WITNESS STATEMENT FOR WILHELMINA REED:

After leaving the police station, where I had sought help to leave the home, the police officer who I spoke with contacted Daniel Reed (aka Danny) to let him know what I was trying to do.

He was very angry and sent me a threatening text message (see text message #64) where he accused me of having an affair, which isn’t true, and that we would talk when he got home.

I knew he would be angry because this isn’t the first time I’ve sought help from the police. He warned me that I needed to stop reporting him because “it’s an embarrassment”.

When he returned home, I was in the kitchen and before I had a chance to say anything; he swung his fist and punched me across the left side of my face. The punch was hard enough that when I fell; I blacked out for a moment. By the time I woke up, I was still lying on the floor where I had been standing and he was sitting at the kitchen table with a drink in his hand.

Once he saw that I was awake, he started screaming questions at me like “What did you tell them?”, “Don’t you know that I love you?”, and “Why do you do things like this to me?” He told me I was stupid and ungrateful for the things that he’s done for me. At one point, he threatened to call his friends over to hear from them how “pathetic I am as a wife”.

I tried to calm him down and ask him if he would consider us going to counseling together because I didn’t know how to make this better. He yelled at me and told me that our private business was between the two of us, and that he could handle his “fucking wife on his own”.

At that point, he grabbed me by the hair and started to drag me upstairs, telling me he was going to show me how much he loved me. I knew at this point that he wanted to have sex, but I didn’t want to. I tried to pull away from him and he got even more angry and let my hair go. We were at the top of the stairs at this point. When he released me, I fell down the stairs, which is when I dislocated my shoulder.

I tried to catch my breath from the fall, but he was angry that I had fallen and told me it was my own fault for falling because I was being overly dramatic. At that point, he lost his battle with his temper and started to kick and punch me all over my stomach, arms, and legs.

I begged him to stop, told him he was hurting me. He told me that I’ve been hurting him since the day he married me. Finally, he punched me once more, splitting my lip. My head hit the floor, and I blacked out again.

I don’t know what happened after that, but when I woke up, he was no longer in the house. I was able to get up and run from the house. I just needed to get out of there. Someone driving by saw me and insisted I go to the hospital, where one of the staff members reported everything to the police.

Chapter 18

This Shit is Bananas

Vincent

“There are medical reports in here as well. They pulled her entire health record from when she turned eighteen,” I say distractedly, setting aside her witness statement.

I’m currently forcing myself to look at all the information like I don’t know who it’s about. Like I don’t know who’s fucking hands did every inch of damage or typed every single one of those words to her. I have to, otherwise I’ll lose my goddamn mind.

Ethan is currently reading the pages and pages of text messages that were printed between Danny and Mina, and Max is staring at the photos.

Hundreds of photos.

He hasn’t said a word since he started looking at them. I’m also positive that all he’s doing is flicking through each one and looking at them over and over again, in an endless loop.

“Max,” I say softly, knowing that this is probably triggering him.

His eyes meet mine for a split second, and I’m taken aback by the power of his emotions emanating from them. He’s. Fucking. Devastated.

Ethan hasn’t said a word since we started pouring through the documents. He’s stoic, with no comments to add to the ‘he’s going to fucking die’ rhetoric Max and I have both been contributing to.

Flipping through a few pages, I notice some questionable injuries that she was treated for, then grab her journal. I scan through the dates to see if any of them match up, and they do. There’s a hairline fracture two years ago in her forearm, which she describes how Danny was pissed when she had fallen asleep and missed making dinner. She woke up to him grabbing her arm and pulling her through the house to the kitchen, screaming at her. Asking how he was expected to both work and feed them when she was just sitting at home doing nothing.

There are also a few remarks noted by her provider that expressed concern about her weight loss. That she was bordering on an unhealthy body mass index.

A visit where she sought birth control that didn’t require a daily pill. Another where she requested to beremovedfrom it, less than a year later. Looking at the date, I see those two were within the first year of their marriage.

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