Page 55 of Silent Betrayal

“So, what’s the plan to catch Simon and my mom?” she asks, standing in front of us and biting her lip as she looks around the room.

“You leave that to us,” I tell her gently.

But she shakes her head. “No. I want to be involved. I know him, I can help you. I can tell you if I think something will work onhim or not. And I know my mom well, too, unfortunately. I feel useless sitting around, please let me help, Gideon.”

“Dear lord!” Tucker mutters as we all watch her latch onto my hand with both of hers, giving me the saddest puppy dog eyes I’ve ever seen.

“Dom…” I say, dragging out his name, not taking my eyes off of her. It’s his decision as our leader and I don’t think I can say no to that face.

He sighs and reaches forward to pull her into his lap, then freezes right before his fingers touch her hips. His eyes look up to hers, then he closes his hands, takes a deep breath and sits back.

“Alright, Mina, you can help,” he tells her with a nod.

When she doesn’t say anything, I look back and see her watching Dom with a little frown on her face. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Hmm?” she mumbles, her eyes darting to me.

“I said, what’s wrong? Why are you frowning?”

“Oh… It’s nothing.”

“I’d like to know, even if it’s nothing,” I say quietly, almost whispering, as if simply talking too loud could spook her.

“It’s just…” she trails off, her eyes returning to Dom as she asks him, “why did you do that?”

“Do what?” he asks in confusion.

“You gave me what I asked for, then you reached for me, but then you… you didn’t touch me.”

“Did you want me to touch you?” he asks for clarity.

“I—I don’t know,” she stammers out.

“That’s why I didn’t touch you, I could see you were hesitant. I want you towantmy touch, Mina. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing I would love more than to pull you into my lap right now and cuddle theshit out of you, but I’m not going to do anything you’re not comfortable with, or aren’t certain you want.”

“None of us would,” Jasper adds.

“Just like that? I don’t want you to touch me, and… you don’t?” She sounds confused and frustrated and it breaks my heart. Does she really think she’s not allowed to say no to us, to anyone? Has everyone in her life treated her so poorly that she doesn’t believe she gets a choice in who touches her?

Of course not… look at everything she revealed to us yesterday.

Bullocks.I’ve failed this girl over and over again. I’m the only one who’s seen her mother interact with her, and although I knew something wasn’t quite right there, I missed the fact that she was abusing Mina. Then she came to school with a hole in her arm and lashes across her back and I failed to notice those, too. I’m the one who didn’t pick her up from the classroom in time, which allowed Brad to assault her. And that incident is what led to her mother attacking her.

My brothers wanted to step in earlier, but I helped convince them we couldn’t do that, that it wasn’t the correct way to handle this case. If I had stopped at any point along the way and treated her like a person, instead of a case, then I could have prevented her from getting hurt. But I didn’t, and now I had to live with the fact that she has been repeatedly hurt, and almost killed, because of my neglect.

I have no right being with her, it’s why I’ve been distancing myself since she got home. Besides, she has my six brothers, what would she need me for? I’d just get in the way, anyway.

Not being able to stand the sad look in her eyes, I take a sip of my tea, hoping it will help calm my frazzled nerves. It doesn’t. I’m just thankful she has the others to help calm her when I can’t.

“Angel, we will never touch you if you don’t want us to,” Jasper says, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he looks at her. “You must realize that by now, that we don’t want to do anything to hurt you or upset you.”

“And you should know it’s killing us to hold back right now,” Max says, pushing his hands under his ass so he doesn’t accidentally reach for her.

“Yeah, I’m starting to get that,” she mumbles.

“Do you want to take a seat and we can start brainstorming ideas for how to catch Simon and Helen,” Ben suggests and her eyebrows raise in surprise.

“Really?”

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