Chapter 53: Homecoming

Outside of the room, Ian pressed a button and a bookshelf fully covered the doors. He put his gun in his waistband and turned to look at the familiar girl Mina was trying to protect. He took a deep breath not wanting to blow up at the girl.

"Ellie, what are you doing?" He asked. His words were drawn out and said in a patronizing tone. Ellie snorted, "brother, are you not happy to see me?" Ian's eyes grew soft as he said.

"Does Nan know you're in town?" The question although simple was laced with a hint of a threat.

"Are you going to tell her?" Ellie quipped. Grabbing Ellie by the arm he pulled her toward his study and forced her to sit in a chair.

"Tell me. What did you just give that woman?" Ellie scoffed. Surely, he had to know what they were, but Ellie decided to play this game anyway.

"Brother," she said. "Do you know what I found when I entered that room?" Ian did not speak, he simply narrowed his eyes and allowed Ellie to continue. Ellie stood up and clasped her hands behind her back, she paced around the way intimidating individuals do in television films. The corner of Ian's mouth lifted. Ellie was always a character and no matter how mad he was, she always knew how to calm him down. Ellie continued speaking.

"When I entered that room, I found a half-naked woman sleeping in the bathroom. Do you know why?" Ian was truly at a loss. Mina had been in solitary confinement for two weeks now and she was probably on the verge of insanity. He had no idea what would cause her to do such a strange thing. Ellie raised an eyebrow at her brother as she leaned on his desk.

"Brother, do you know what it means to be a woman?" Once again Ian was confused. He shook his head in the negative.

"I see," said Ellie. "Well then, the woman you have locked up had a wound on her body. Those things on the floor were bandages." Ian stood and slammed his hands on his desk.

"Damn it! Ellie this is not funny. What did you give her?" Rolling her eyes, Ellie finally told her brother what she had given Mina. He had never kept a female prisoner for long enough to remember that they were plagued by a monthly ailment.

The embarrassed look on Mina's face flashed in Ian's mind and he suddenly felt like an as*hole. He had pointed a gun in her face because his little sister gave her a few sanitary pads. He sat down in his chair and leaned all the way back with his eyes closed.

"Ian, who is that woman?" Ellie asked her brother with concern in her voice. She had not been home in nearly two years, but when she received a text from Zane saying that he was worried about Ian she dropped everything to come running. Using her unique skills, she tracked her brother's odd behavior back to the woman being held captive. For the past two days, she had been trying to coax Mina to tell her why she was being locked up, but the girl refused to speak to her. She returned to the room several times before she caught Mina sleeping in the bathroom. Today, she had planned to win the girls trust with an act of kindness, but all she could get out of her was her name and the fact that there had been a misunderstanding between herself and president Lee.

Ellie had approached Mina in servants' attire, so Mina had no reason to believe she was not under the Lee family's employ. She did not seem to suspect Ellie, but something was keeping her from speaking.

Ian did not answer his little sister's question. Instead, he reminded her that she had not been home in a few years and she should visit her parents. He knew Ellie was reluctant to meet with them, so he tried to force her hand. He picked up his phone to call his nan, but Ellie quickly grabbed his phone.

"If you call mom, how do we explain my visit? I should be studying for finals during this period. We would not want mom to know what school you sent me to. Would we?" Ian's face fell.

When Ellie was just twelve, her parents sent her overseas to study. However, after just three months, Ellie called her brother and asked him to come fetch her. At the time, Ian was only eighteen years old, but he knew that if Ellie was calling him to pick her up, it was because she could not call her parents.

When Ian arrived at the school, the faculty was taken aback by his youth, and only when they learned that he was Ian Lee of the Lee family did they agree to sit and talk to him.

The school principal explained to Ian that Ellie had assaulted another student and caused the person serious injury. 'Calling you was the least I could do,' he said. 'The other parents wanted to have her arrested!' When Ian glanced at his sister, a guilty expression was written all over her face, she smiled up at him and said, 'I may have overreacted.' Ian, ever insightful asked the principal why the altercation had ensued, and the man chalked it up to Ellie being unable to handle being teased.

Ian knowing his sister well was not buying that story. Ellie had spent the first years of her education in military school. She was only sent to study abroad when her mother started to fear her daughter would never get married. Her personality was tough and more like a boy than a young lady. Ellie was teased constantly by the other boys in her school but if they did not touch her, she did not touch them. Ian pressed his sister for the truth and as she spoke, his expression darkened.