Chapter 694: As Expected...

After days of extremely specific negotiations and guidelines, Mina was finally able to convince Troy to 'allow' Sadie to return to Pan, under the condition that his mother was successfully removed from his family home. Getting his mother's schedule was not hard for Mina because she was not considered important enough to protect. The only reason she was being permitted to stay within the home was because she was a liability.

In the beginning, Mina was afraid that Sadie and Troy would not understand the life she lived, but neither of them even questioned how she had gotten the woman out of the home, something Mina was grateful for because it was a bloody ordeal. Fortunately, only one of her people was injured, and Mina set the whole thing to look like a ransom attempt; one the Loams responded to with a simple 'kill her.'

The reunion between Troy and his mother was emotional, and Mina was glad to know that she was not among the people who had kicked Sadie out of the home, but the best thing that came of the meeting was the fact that Sadie finally made up her mind about returning to Pan. The first thing Mina needed to do was secure housing for the trio. After that, she planned to allow them to franchise one of her chain establishments. The last thing she wanted was to be financially responsible for the couple who were already having trouble accepting her help.

With a course of action detailed and agreed upon, Mina sat her sister down to reveal some potentially heartbreaking news to her sister. For their plan to work, she needed to contact Cylus, but Mina did not want an awkward situation to occur when two unrelated individuals looked like male and female versions of one another.

"Are you telling me that dad cheated on mom?"

"He may have made a mistake before they were married." Sadie rubbed at her temples, hating what she was hearing because her parents made her think they were the perfect images of love, when in reality, they tortured one daughter, neglected the other, and put more effort into being kind to others than into being parents. It was those thoughts they had drilled into Mina from little, and Sadie was glad the woman had finally found her balance.

"And you're not mom's biological daughter?"

"That I don't know, but this…" Mina showed Sadie a photo of Cylus' grandmother and did not even have to complete her sentence; the similarity was uncanny.

"What does he look like? Do you have any photos of him?" Cylus did not actually make many headlines, and while he had his picture taken, they were always from a distance. Fortunately, Mina had downloaded all her memories into a thumb drive that she shared with her sister.

"Wow..." Sadie said. She unconsciously rubbed her belly and Mina found herself worried that the information would send her into labor early. "This information could ruin his family." Mina flinched with her sister's words, and she pulled the screen away from the woman, giving her a very pointed look.

"Without him, I would have killed myself," she said, and Sadie nodded in understanding. It was in her nature to exploit weaknesses, but it was a habit she learned to curb for the sake of the man she loved.

"I understand, and I won't say anything, but I would like to meet him."

----

Cylus spent his morning under Ashlyn who had visited Pan for work. Every time the woman left him, he felt like a small piece of his soul was taken, and although they chatted through text often, it was nothing like the in-person conversations they would have. She was the best at making him smile, even though she was mostly condescending and rude while doing it.

Ash was the kind of woman who people liked because of her personality, and it was because of her that Cylus realized how shallow he had always been. He wondered how many women he turned down or away because of their physical appearance, and he wondered if he would not have already been married with a few children if he had bothered to get to know people mentally before exploring them physically.

Cylus was only just getting out of bed when his phone started to vibrate, and considering the early hour and blocked number, he assumed it was Ash, which was odd since the woman never called him immediately after a 'date night.' She would always text something weird or cheeky, but she would never reach out to him for the conversation so many women he had been with always seemed to want to have. The woman did not want to 'know what they were doing,' but oddly enough, Cylus did.

"Hello?"

"Hello maybe brother." Cylus shot to his feet and his words were caught in his throat. He knew the voice on the line, but it was impossible.

"Who is this, and what do you want?"

"My name is Ami Aych, and I have a business proposal for you." Cylus did not even know when the tears started to fall from his eyes, but he became aware of them when he began to sniffle.

"How do I know this is really you?" His voice cracked several times while he spoke, but he was not embarrassed by it at all. Instead of replying, the woman began to sing, and he could barely contain his emotions. "I don't like making business arrangements over the phone, when can we meet in person?"

----

It was nearing time for David to return from work, so as usual Anne started to prepare dinner. Her entire world had turned cold with the death of Mina, and part of it was the guilt she felt toward her daughter. When Mina was heartbroken and clearly in need of motherly love, she was more focused on making sure her bedroom door was locked. When people from the government had come in to 'talk to' her daughter, she had not even questioned them about why.

Since then, her relationship with David was strained, and despite regular monthly allowances that came in from Mina's insurance policy, the man spent more time at work than he did at home. He claimed that the house reminded him too much of his lost children, but Anne knew he was also avoiding her.

With that said, she was not shocked to get a call from her husband, telling her that he had an emergency at work, but what did confuse her was that he asked her to pick him up using the car given to them before Mina died. Several times, they had attempted to have someone from the Lee group collect the vehicle, but so far, they received no response.

Ignoring her confusion, and worried that something serious may have happened to her husband, Anne got behind the wheel, twenty years out of practice, and although slow, she made it to her husband's job. Oddly enough, the man was not there, but another person handed a phone where David told her that she needed to switch to another car.

After switching cars several times over, Anne was beginning to feel anxious. She was being driven around by hard looking men who did not speak, and when she was unable to recognize her surroundings completely, she almost went into a full-blown panic.

"What is this place? Where have you taken me? Where is my husband?" All three of her questions went unanswered, and when she tried to call the police from her cell, she realized that she had zero bars of service.

Anne's mind travelled to its darkest corners and back, but her fears were relieved when the car finally stopped in a well-lit garage where David was waiting for her. She was let out of the car, and she ran to her husband who embraced her tightly for the first time in months. He looked as though he had been crying, and Anne prepared for him to tell her that Mina's remains were found. She was led into a large office, where a woman with all too familiar features sat staring at her.

"S-Sa-Sadie?" Anne shook as she approached her daughter, and she only allowed herself to feel after she rested her hand on her daughter's cheek.

"Hello mother." Anne's heart clenched. That was how Sadie always greeted her, and while it started off as a joke, it quickly stuck. Only Mina called her mommy, but she dropped the endearment and started to call her mom just before she killed herself.

"Is this really you? And look… you're pregnant." Anne felt her legs grow weak, but her husband was already waiting to support her, along with another person who Anne turned to face in shock.

"M-Mina?" Her once emotional mood was instantly made sour by the sight of her daughter, who had made her suffer for nearly a year. "What is this?" Anne questioned, pushing Mina's hand away from her arms. "What have you done?"

"Mother?" Sadie responded. "Ren would have killed me, I had to get away to survive." The sisters had already decided to leave the 'using Troy as a ticket to freedom' parts of the story out, but in some ways, Sadie wanted their parents to know how miserable she was, and she was not even treated badly by them.

"You did this," Anne said while pointing at Mina. "You put her up to it. You made me think that I failed my daughter." Mina smirked at the accusation because she knew it was coming. Anytime Sadie fought or even did poorly on a test it was somehow her fault.

"Anne, this isn't the time."

"What do you mean 'isn't the time?' Do you know how depressed I've been? How can you just accept this?"

"Because I'm choosing to focus on the fact that my daughters are alive and I'm a grandpa." Guilt once again washed over Anne. She nodded slowly at her husband who kept talking her down from her initial shock. She turned back to Sadie and opened her arms for a hug that she never in her wildest dreams thought she would ever be able to feel again. She then looked for Mina, but the woman was gone, so she chose to focus on the daughter that 'stayed.'

----

Just as she had guessed, her mother had accused her of being the reason Sadie had faked her death, and while she knew she was completely to blame for her own actions, Mina could not understand how her mother could ever think she would have sent her undereducated sister out into the world with only a few thousand dollars in savings.

The odd part about the interaction for Mina, was not the fact that her mother reacted harshly toward her, it was the fact that it still hurt even though she had emotionally prepared for it.

"Min?" Mina turned to see her father slowly approaching where she had chosen to stand, but she said nothing before turning back to the wall she was staring at. "Your mother-"

"It doesn't matter," Mina interjected. "I've learned to embrace the monster inside of me, so I don't expect either of you to love me anymore than you have."

"That isn't-"

"Daddy, please leave me alone for a while. I kind of need a few minutes to myself." David sent a nod to his daughter, understanding that she too had no idea Sadie was alive, but Anne had not even let the girls explain that before she started to point the finger. "If you don't mind, tell mom that no one can know either of us are alive if she wants to keep Sadie around."

"Mina, your mother cares about you too."

"Yeah, she does; that's why I'm out here, and she's over there."

"Min..."

"Not to worry daddy, after I've settled everything, you can try your luck at getting Sadie to take care of you."