Page 79 of Silent Girl

“Shit, get up. Get dressed.” Aliyah panics.

I’ve just gotten my belt done up when her bedroom door slams open. I jump in front of her, not knowing what the hell is going on.

“I’m sorry, Lia. You have to go in,” Vinny says.

I glance over my shoulder at Aliyah. She looks petrified. “What the fuck is going on?” I ask.

“There’s a panic room, in the back of her closet. Get her in there. Now,” her brother tells me in an eerily calm voice. There are more sounds going off throughout the house, which I now recognize as gunshots.

I turn to Aliyah. “Babe, come on.” I take hold of her hands.

Aliyah shakes her head. “I can’t.”

“You have to. Come on, Lia. I need to go and help the guys before we all get slaughtered here. Go in there. Use the phone to call Dad,” Vinny says and then looks to me. “Get her in there. The code to open the door is Gray’s jersey number.”

Before I can respond, he disappears down the hall. It’s not until I watch his retreating back that I notice the two pistols in his hands. When the sounds of shots being fired, glass breaking, and men slinging insults at each other increase, I turn around and pick Aliyah up. I need to get her in that room. I throw her over a shoulder, run towards the back of her closet, and find the little keypad on the wall. I type in her brother’s number, twenty-two, and the wall opens up.

Then I enter the room, the wall clicks back in place, and I set Aliyah down on her feet. “No, get me out of here. Let me out. I need to get out.” Aliyah bangs on the door. She’s screaming, tears pouring down her face.

I wrap my arms around her. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. Aliyah, calm down. It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, hoping like fuck that it isin factgoing to be okay.

“It’s not. I need to get out. Don’t let her shut me in here again,” Aliyah sobs. She starts grabbing at her chest. She’s fucking hyperventilating. I have no idea what’s happening. I feel fucking helpless right now.

“Aliyah, you need to calm down. Breathe slowly. In and out. Come on, babe.” I pick her up again and sit down on the floor with her in my lap. I hold her face in my palms. “Please, just listen to me. Listen to my voice. Breathe in.” She stares at me with watery, fear-stricken eyes and it fucking breaks my heart. But she does listen and takes a huge breath. “That’s it. Good. Now out slowly. Again, breathe in.” We repeat this process until her body starts to relax and her breathing evens out. Her fingers are gripping my forearms, her nails digging into my skin, but I don’t care. “You’re okay. I’m here with you. You are not alone, Aliyah. We’re here, just you and me,” I tell her.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“It’s okay,” I reply, my eyes flicking around the room. It’s small. There’s a little sofa in one corner, a bar fridge against the wall, and above it hangs an old-school telephone. Then I remember what Vinny said. “Should we call your dad? Your brother said to call him.”

Aliyah nods her head but she doesn’t move. Her grip on me has loosened slightly but she’s still holding on tight.

“What is it about this room that made you panic?” I ask, while stroking my hand through her hair.

“She used to lock me in here. My mother,” she says so quietly, almost like speaking the words will somehow make the woman appear. “Sometimes, when my dad was gone for the night, she wouldn’t let me out till the morning.”

Holy fucking shit, I wish I could bring this woman back just to strangle her myself. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I freaked out.”

“Don’t be. Come on, let’s call your father.” I want to get out of this room and disappear with Aliyah. I want to take her away from her fucked-up family so she’s never put in danger again. But the reality of the situation is that she’ll always be Jacob Monroe’s daughter, and somehow I think she’s probably safer under his watchful eye than off on the run.

Aliyah picks up the phone. “Daddy, they’re here,” she says and then listens to whatever he has to tell her. She nods her head but doesn’t reply. Then she holds the phone out to me. “He wants to talk to you,” she says.

“Hello.”

“King, do not leave that room until either I or one of my sons opens the door for you. No one can get in there. You two are safe as long as you stay put.”

“How long?” I ask.

“How is she?”

“Not good,” I tell him.

I hear him exhale and curse a few times. “I’m on my way. It won’t be long. Just distract her,” he says.

Something tells me the way I usually distract his daughter isn’t what he has in mind right now. “I’ve got her. Just get us the fuck out of here,” I say, before hanging up and placing the phone back on its receptacle on the wall. I look over to Aliyah and smirk, letting my eyes roam up and down her body. “Your dad told me to distract you.”

“I don’t think he meant what you’re thinking,” she says.

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