Page 22 of Silent Betrayal

“Told us what?” Tucker asks.

She looks at the doc and nods. He sighs before speaking. “She has several marks across her back, possibly from a belt. There were a few that looked maybe a week or two old when she came in. But I saw scarring of healing ones that were probably from months before, and some even longer.”

“Your mother whipped you with a belt?” Jasper asks her sadly. She nods. “Recently?” She nods again.

“When?” I ask, needing to know. Praying it wasn’t after we met her.

She types her response.“I think it was the end of my second week at school.”

“Fuck, Sweetheart.” The thought of her being hurt like that, practically under our noses is like a punch to the gut. Not only did we not help prevent it, but we didn’t even know about it. How many times had I hugged her and caused her pain?

“You should have told us, we could have helped,” Jasper says softly. I can see him trying not to look disappointed, but if she had told us, whatwas going on, how bad it really was, we could have gotten her out of there before it got to this point.

“I’m s-sorry,” she whispers, using her shoulder to wipe away a tear.

She turns to the doctor as she rasps out, “when can I go home?”

“Do you have somewhere to go where you can recover?”

“Yes, she’ll be living with us,” Dom tells him firmly.

“Well then, I see no reason to keep you any longer. You are healing nicely and it’s clear you will be well taken care of at home. And I think having seven fewer bodies in this hall would be a good thing for the staff. It’s starting to get a little crowded.”

We all smile and thank the doctor and watch him leave, then I turn to Mina as I ask, “well, Sweetheart, you ready to go to your new home?”

Chapter ten

As soon as the doctor leaves my room, two police officers enter, one of them being the nice woman who questioned me about the incident with Brad. That feels like such a long time ago now.

“Hello, Mina. I would say it’s nice to see you again, but it isn’t really under these circumstances.” I give her a tight-lipped smile to be polite.

“I’m glad to see you’re finally awake. We’re going to need to take your statement about what happened now.”

She pulls out a pad of paper and hands it to me, as I reply, “okay.”

She looks at me in surprise. “You can speak now?”

“She seems to have broken through that barrier since waking up,” Ben tells her, holding my hand. “But she can only speak one or two words at a time, and shouldn’t overdo it.”

“Well, that’s good news, at least. Are you ready to tell me what happened?” I nod at her, wanting to get this over with.

“Shall we clear the room out so you can talk to me in private?” she asks quietly, sitting in a chair beside me. But I shake my head, I don’t want them going anywhere, and I want them to hear the story too, I’d rather not repeat it.

Using Ben’s phone to type my message and have it read aloud, I tell them all exactly what happened. From the moment I stepped into thebasement and she called me a whore, to her stabbing the knife in my shoulder and telling me if I survived the night, there would be a first aid kit waiting for me upstairs. I don’t leave out any details, and even though I have tears rolling down my cheeks as I type, it feels good to finally tell someone. Not only that, but they look angry on my behalf.

When I finally finish, I realize mine aren’t the only wet eyes in the room. Nobody says anything as each of them takes turns giving me a hug.

“Thank you for giving us all that detail. We were already looking for her, but with this information, we will get a warrant out for her arrest immediately.”

She turns to leave, but Jasper stops her. “Wait! What about—” His eyes dart to me for a moment and he licks his lips nervously before looking back at her. “What will happen to Jeff?”

“We will be releasing him right away, as, based on the statement we both just heard, he had no part in this.”

“He might not have helped, but he was still in the house while it happened, knowing what was going on. Besides, he’s helped hurt Mina other times,” Jasper says, almost begging for them to arrest Jeff, too.

“Is that true, Mina?” I swallow nervously, afraid of where this was heading, and nod my head quickly. She steps back up to the side of bed and pulls her notebook back out as her partner opens his phone up, likely to record the conversation again. “Do you want to tell me what happened? Maybe start with the date, even approximate?”

I use Ben’s phone to type my message and read it aloud.“You guys don’t have to stay for this.”I instantly see the frowns on their faces and feel guilty.

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