Chapter 624: No Longer the Enemy

It had been a long time, and when Peter finally emerged from Olivia's room, he did so with red rimmed eyes that were indicative of crying. He could barely make eye contact with Cylus, and fearing the worst, Mina ran into Olivia's room, where she found the woman seated on her bed, fumbling with something in her hands as her breath hitched.

Mina felt terrible for her friend, who she could see was struggling to relax, and she wanted nothing more but to whisk the woman to safety, but she could not. As president Lee had insinuated, everyone was better off without her, and although she knew her friends needed her, she had to separate herself from the women. She had been planning to lie to everyone, but she suddenly felt like the truth was a better option to avoid heartache in the future.

"Olivia," Mina called out, knowing that asking if she were okay was a dumb question. It was obvious that she was not.

"He wants to take the baby from me," Olivia whispered.

"He can't: I won't let him."

"Can you stop him?"

"Yes," Mina replied. She sat next to her friend who leaned on her shoulder. "Mina, who are you, really?"

"I work for the Lee group, but not because I want to. Something happened and I was in the middle of it. Over time, President Lee and I have become friendly, but we did not start out that way. Right now, he and I have a lot of common interests." Olivia could not put a timeline on Mina's relationship with President Lee, so she assumed the woman was talking about the distant past because to her, the man had always been friendly toward Mina.

"What would you do if you were in my shoes, and he was in Peter's?" Mina could feel her heart rate quicken as Olivia mentioned a hypothetical that could have been a reality.

"I guess I would do whatever I had to do to keep my baby with me, but Olivia, Peter made his choice, and it wasn't you."

"He said that nothing happened with Mary. He called her right in front of me and she had the same story."

"She could have been lying," Mina added.

"But without prompting she thanked him for sending her to her parents instead of to the apartment she shared with her fiancé. Their conversation was natural and not forced. She wasn't lying."

Mina could tell that her friend had made a decision in her heart even if her mind was fighting against it. She told Olivia to do whatever she felt was right, and she promised that she would support any decision she made. After a few minutes of silence, the woman picked up her phone and called Peter who answered at once.

Olivia told Peter that she would do as he had asked, but she did not want to marry him. She was okay with moving in with his family, but she wanted to meet them first. She even added that the baby's name would stay Ollie, and Peter agreed to all her terms.

By the end of the conversation, Cylus was standing in the doorway with Emma and Jay, and Mina used the opportunity to offer them new accommodations. She told them that the apartment was no longer safe, and with Olivia moving out, and Willow barely home, she wanted to split them up to make it appear as though their friendship had dissolved.

"Mina you don't have to rent a place for us. Our mother has been begging us to come home, but because of Olivia we have been refusing, and let's face it, Willow is probably going to leave as well. We all have options, but thank you for telling us instead of just disappearing again." Mina frowned at the women, who had obviously grown suspicious of her excuses.

----

Ian pulled up in front of Mina's apartment complex, expecting to find the woman more broken up than she was. She climbed into his car with a guilty expression that told him that she had done something with which he would not agree. Instead of guessing, the man asked her what she had done, and she sank into the passenger seat.

"I did not tell them that I'm moving," Mina said, making Ian sigh.

"I knew you wouldn't, but thank you for telling me." Mina looked at the man curiously and he responded by asking her what she told them, knowing that she had said something. "I told them that they weren't safe and needed to move out."

Ian was shocked; he had not expected Mina to go that far. He was aware that it was the best option, but because he believed the woman would not have agreed to him making such an extreme suggestion, he did not say anything. Now, Mina was telling him that she had made the decision on her own, and while he could tell there was more weighing on her, he wisely chose to ignore her secrecy, especially when her phone rang and she absentmindedly answered it.

Mina held the device to her ear, sighing heavily as whoever she was speaking to spoke. When she had enough of listening, she interjected, telling the person that she would need more time to think. Curious, Ian asked who had called, and Mina truthfully told him that it was Brayden, asking to salvage their relationship. Ian rolled his eyes, and Mina chuckled at the action.

"He isn't as bad as you think he is," she said, staring down at her phone as several text messages from Brayden lit up the screen. "He is like me in a way. He is all his mother has and his outburst was because he was worried about who would take care of her." Ian shook his head at the woman, and he could not understand how she survived so long without him.

Mina was kind and forgiving, but she was also a lot of other things, like impulsive and overly loyal. He did not understand how she had lived in the city without being taken advantage of frequently, and when he thought about their past experience with one another, it was likely a long time coming for the woman. He now felt that the couple who had commissioned her to sneak into his room probably did so with the intention of having her take the fall for them.

The Youngs' must have assumed that Mina would go to the grave without mentioning their name, which was incorrect on their part, because she had spilled everything to him the second she realized who he was. If he had only taken her word back then and had her moved to a more secure facility for proper questioning, they would not be in the situation they were in, and once again Ian found himself playing the 'what if' game surrounding Mina.

When the pair arrived at his mansion, Mina sluggishly exited the car, and Ian could tell she had a lot on her mind. She had let him in on some of it, but he could tell there was more. Mina was not the kind of girl who would tell him everything in one shot, but he appreciated her attempt at full honesty. It told him that she was no longer looking at him as the enemy.

----

Mina arrived at Director Porter's office ready to complete the scene selection process with him. Peter had not come into work because he was still reeling over finding out he was going to be a father, and apparently the man had come clean to his family the same night he found out, prompting his parents to want to meet Olivia immediately. Peter was nearing thirty, and while Director Porter had little dealings with his family, something Mina was curious about but never questioned, Peter had the pressure of his mother and father wanting him to get married.

The news of a grandchild was received well by the couple, and Mina knew from text shared between herself and Cylus that the breakfast they had with the Twan family was friendly, respectful, and most importantly they had offered to put Olivia in a separate room until she was ready to make a decision regarding their son. The Twans' had even shut down the idea of Peter using a custodial battle to blackmail Olivia into a relationship, and they explained to him that everything bad could have been avoided if he had chosen a better lifestyle.

Mina found herself liking the couple, although she had never met them, and with the distraction of not knowing how Olivia was doing far from her mind, she was able to fully commit to scene selection.

"Be prepared to visit The Four Cities. The teaser episodes we released were better received over there and we need to make an appearance," Director Porter said.

-----

Ian was inside of his office when a familiar number appeared on his screen. With Mina away with Dom and James, he struggled to come up with an excuse he could tell the person he knew was on the other end of the line, but by the time he got the courage to answer, the call had dropped. He considered waiting for Mina's return flight, which was scheduled to land in the evening, to call the couple back, finding it the best choice.

"Who was that?" Zane asked, seeing that his friend had turned into a ghost. The man looked pale, and from where Zane sat, he could swear that Ian was sweating.

"It was one of Mina's parents." Zane flinched, standing up to inspect the number before hitting the contact and making the phone ring. He tossed the device back to Ian who fumbled with it wearing a terrified expression.

"Might as well own up to whatever they are calling about," Zane said, thinking that Mina's parents had finally realized that their daughter was living with the man.

"Hello… Hello," a female voice that Ian recognized as Mina's mother called out, and Ian slowly put his phone to his ear.

"You called Mrs. Harlow?" Ian said. He absolutely hated his choice of words because obviously the woman had called, he had seen her number appear on his phone. Anne broke down, telling him that she had not been able to reach her daughter in weeks, which made Ian confused.

Mina was working but she was not unreachable, and she rarely ignored a call from her parents. Using his office phone, Ian dialed Mina's number and it jumped to voicemail, but he expected that to happen. She had flown domestically, and her phone had likely been switched off. He was not worried because she was with Dom and other guards who had travelled covertly.

"Mina is out of the country on business. Is there something I can help you with?" The woman paused for a long time, and Ian gently pressed her. She finally told him that her husband was being denied care at the hospital, and the last time it happened, only their daughter was able to get the man seen by a doctor.

Ian calmed the woman as much as possible, telling her that she had nothing to worry about. He sent a message to Mina's phone, knowing that she would see it as soon as the plane landed. Taking a deep breath Ian grabbed his keys and headed to the hospital where Anne Harlow had told him she and her husband were waiting. He was terrified of meeting the couple, but he knew that Mina would mentally self-destruct if she knew that her family had been trying to reach her for weeks regarding a medical emergency.

It took him three hours, but he arrived, and when he stepped into the hospital waiting room, David Harlow did not look good. Signaling to a nurse, who could sense he was not of ordinary standing, Ian demanded a bed for the man.