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“He told me what he knows because he trusts me,” she says. “I don’t want to lose his trust.”
“You won’t, because none of us will tell,” I say in a calmer tone than I feel. “Think about it this way, the good outweighs the bad in this situation. Do you think he’ll be mad if what you disclose will help his beloved cousin?”
“Well, I don’t think so.” She releases her bag’s zipper and straightens. “Okay, so Kill has always avoided this subject whenever it comes up, but a few days ago, after the show you put on, something changed.”
Thank fuck.
I don’t say that out loud, though, or my attempts at rehabilitating my image with my siblings would take a sharp dive toward the worst.
I actually like that they don’t wear expressions of dread or disgust whenever I’m in their field of vision. They actually come to hang out in my room without me forcing them to—in Bran’s case it’s more to keep an eye on me.
They’re tangible proof that, yes, I controlled them over the years, but despite my godly logic, that process never produced a great relationship. This softer version, while not my favorite, is able to generate better results.
“In what sense did it change?” Bran asks.
Glyn leans forward in her seat. “So he was livid, understandably, since you apparently called her a mute upon first seeing her.”
“An ancient mistake,” I say.
“Killian doesn’t see it that way. He feels that you’re unable to respect that part of her. So I probed a bit more and he told me what he knows. The story happened when Killian was nine and Mia was about eight years old. Maya and Mia were being driven home when they were attacked in the middle of the road. One bodyguard got killed, but the other managed to protect the girls. However, one of the assailants reached in and took both of them. Mia struggled, kicked, and bit his hand until he released Maya. In the end, she was the only one who got kidnapped. The other bodyguard managed to get Maya home safely. For three days, they didn’t have any news. Her parents expected a ransom call, but they didn’t get one in the beginning.
“Killian said that was the darkest time for their family. Her parents mobilized the entirety of their resources in the Russian mafia to find her. They closed New York and flipped it upside down in search of the assailant, but they came up empty. Just when they were about to go crazy, they got a call. The kidnapper wanted twenty-five million sent to an offshore bank account, and only when they made the transfer would he tell them her location. If they didn’t agree to his demands, he would’ve still told them her location, but she would have been dead. Naturally, they made the transfer, and he sent them a GPS location. They found Mia balled up in a fetal position inside a dark, humid basement. She was starved and had a bloody lip and welts on her body, but she wasn’t crying. The doctor said that while she was hit, thankfully, she wasn’t sexually assaulted. But ever since then, she’s never spoken a word, and the professionals ruled it as mental rather than physical.”
My fingers tighten on the bottle so hard, I’m surprised I don’t crush it to pieces and watch my blood spill on the ground.
Just listening to what happened to her triggers an avalanche of feelings I know so well. It’s similar to when those twats made Bran the joke of the school, but these emotions are a lot stronger in intensity and could only be categorized as black rage.
Someone had the audacity not only to terrorize my Mia but also to threaten and traumatize her enough to steal her voice for a whole decade.
“She went through a lot,” Bran comments with a hunch in his shoulders.
“What else?” I ask in a slightly tight tone that even I don’t recognize.
Glyn watches me carefully. “That’s all. Mia’s parents searched all over the world for her kidnapper but found no trace of him. They suspected it could have been one of the bodyguards who disclosed the route since only they and her parents knew about it, but one of them died and the one who survived brought Maya home while badly injured, so if he had been in on it, he would’ve had Maya taken as well. They’ve been at a stalemate since then. It doesn’t help that Mia never disclosed any details about what happened.”
Because she was threatened by the fucking bastard who’ll wish he was dead the moment I find him.
“Does her family have any theories? Suspects?”
Glyn lifts her shoulders. “Not really. They definitely suspect it was an enemy of either or both of them, but that’s apparently a given in the mafia. Even Annika, Jeremy’s sister, was nearly kidnapped a few times. This is the only time they’ve gotten away with it, though.”
No, they haven’t.
If my calculations are correct, there’s one possible theory that none of them seem to have considered. But in order for that possibility to work, I need to confirm a few things first.
“Not sure if that helps…” Glyn trails off.
“It does.” I abandon my beer, then stand and ruffle her hair. “Thanks, little princess.”
She stares up at me with a parted mouth before she nods and lets her lips pull in a smile. “Sure.”
I head to my walk-in. “Feel free to hang out with the drama king, Remi, or Creigh if he’s around. I’m going out.”
“I’ll ask the girls to join me,” Glyn throws back and I hear her footsteps retreating from the room.
Other footsteps, however, approach me. I remove my shirt and dunk it in the laundry bin, then stare at my brother.
Bran leans against the doorframe, arms and ankles crossed. A rare gleam and subtle smugness shine through his eyes.
