Page 16 of Silent Betrayal

“Because you’re incredible, Angel. You’re the smartest, sweetest person I’ve ever met, and I’m honored just to know you,” Jasper says with a small smile.

“You are literally the light in my days, and I find you so genuine and sweet. And it doesn’t hurt that you’re ridiculously sexy, too!” Max adds with a grin from the foot of my bed, making me blush.

“Princess, to survive what you’ve been through, you’d have to have an incredibly strong spirit to keep going. You’re brave and fierce. The fact that you’ve been through all that and you aren’t angry and jaded, you’re just this sweet little thing… It blows my mind. You’re amazing, Mina,” Ben finishes.

“Now, we don’t want to hear you ever say negative words like that about yourself again. Do you hear me?” Dom says, his tone firm.

I nod, unsure if I can actually do that, but wanting to agree with him.

“I don’t even want you thinking about them. If you do, I want you to let us know so we can distract you. Can you do that for me?”

I nod again and hope I can actually do that.

Dom picks up the phone and unlocks the screen for me so I can type.

“Where is she now?”I watch as they exchange nervous glances until finally Gideon answers my question.

“We saw her leave your house right before we arrived, and that’s the last anyone has seen of her. Nobody has been able to find her.”

Am I surprised she attacked me and took off? No, not really. But she made it sound like she was coming back. Maybe she saw the guys at the house and knows I’m not there and assumes she’ll get arrested if she comes back.

“Mina, I know you have more to tell us, but before we go into that, we need to confirm your real identity, to get CPA off our case,” Ben says, changing the subject. He was right. There’s a lot more I need to tell them, I’ve barely scratched the surface. But I definitely don’t want to see anyone from CPA ever again. “Do you have a different name? Or do you know your real birthday? The city you were born in? Anything? I haven’t been able to find anything on you so far.”

How was he searching for information on me? I realize I still don’t know what he does for a living, but I’m starting to think it’s something to do with computers or technology.

Dom picks up the phone and unlocks the screen for me so I can type.

“Mina Stevens, Waco, May 13, 2004.”

Ben gives me a huge smile and squeezes my hand. “Thank you, Princess. I’m going to find out who you are, so we can make sure nobody can legally take you again, understand?” I nod at him in thanks.

Dom starts to rub my arms gently as my eyelids grow heavy.

“I think she’s getting tired,” someone says, and I nod, agreeing with them. Dom helps to turn me sideways against him and I lean my cheekagainst his chest, closing my eyes and sighing in contentment. I feel so warm and protected in his arms, I wish I could sleep like this every night.

Chapter seven

Igently stroke Mina’s arm as I hold her against me. She feels so small and delicate in my arms. She was always thin, but since being in the hospital, she’s lost even more weight.

“We need to get her eating, she’s too thin,” I quietly tell the others, not wanting to wake her. She needs to sleep as much as possible right now. She’s been through a lot, and we don’t even know the full story.

“Agreed. I’ll go get food for her. What we got won’t be enough,” Atlas says, standing and heading for the door.

“I’ll come too, so we can get a bunch of different things for her to try,” Tucker adds, following him out.

“I should go file this paperwork with the hospital, then I’ll start looking into her identity,” Ben says, standing with the papers in his hand.

“I can hand that in. I imagine you’re itching to pull out your laptop and do some digging?” Gideon asks as he takes the papers from Ben with a smirk.

“Yeah, actually, that’d be great, thanks.”

“No problem, brother,” Gideon says with a squeeze of Ben’s shoulder as he exits.

Ben pulls his laptop from his bag and takes a seat on one of the couches, and starts clicking away at the keyboard.

I look at the twins, who are now both sitting on either side of the end of her bed, staring at her sleeping against me. “You two know what your job is now, right?”

Max glances at Jasper quickly before looking back at me as he responds, “uhhhh, no?”

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