Page 98 of Shattered Silence Duet

“Then I’ll adopt her,” Dom states. If my eyes were open right now, they’d be the size of saucers.

The CPA agent stutters for a second before she speaks. “Y-you can’t just adopt her like that. She’ll have to get approved for the adoption process first, as will you. It could take months.”

“Then I’ll be her foster parent.”

She sighs. “It’s the same thing. It will take months to get you approved.”

“She’ll be eighteen before we can go through any of these channels!” Tucker’s southern voice chimes in.

“Well, then you may as well wait. She’ll only be in foster care for a few months. Then, when she turns eighteen, she can move in with whomever she wants. But only when she’s eighteen and not a moment before.”

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!” Max exclaims, sounding frustrated. I feel the same way, too. But I also feel so cared for, knowing the guys were trying every angle they could think of to be able to get me to stay with them.

“Her ID isn’t even real. You can’t place her in foster care if you don’t know her real identity,” Ben tells them, sounding just as frustrated as the others.He knows my ID is fake?

“Well, we will look into that. It’s all part of our process,” she tells them. “Now, if you will kindly give us some space, we need to speak with the doctor.”

“You want us to leave? You can’t even prove who she is. You don’t know her, butwedo. We’re not leaving you alone with her,” Jasper spits out, sounding angry.

“I’m sorry, but it’s time for you to leave her in our care. I assure you, we’ll take good care of her, and I will have her call you to let you know she’s okay.”No, don’t leave me!

“She can’t even speak!”

“We’re not leaving her.”

“Over my dead body.”

A chorus of angry voices rise around the room on my behalf. If there was a time for me to wake up and tell the truth, it would be now. Squeezing Max’s hand as hard as I can, I use his reaffirming grip to give me strength as I grapple to open my eyes. It takes me longer than I’d like, my eyelids as heavy as lead when I try to blink.

I hear Max’s whispered voice, sounding like he’s inches from my face. “Sweetheart? Are you in there? Are you coming back to me? To us? This would be a really good time for you to wake up.”

I squeeze his hand to let him know I heard him and he softly gasps. “Mina?” I try to turn my head towards his voice, but I don’t think it moves at all. I try to pry my eyes open, but it’s just so hard, like being stuck in that state between sleep and awake. Tears of frustration start to build, but I try to fight through it.I can do this.

Voices continue arguing around me, but Max’s voice is a steady anchor in my ear. “That’s it, Sweetheart, you can do it. Come back to me now. It’s been a little rude of you to sleep through the first few days of being my girlfriend, but I can probably find it in my heart to forgive you.”

A smile tries to form on my lips, and the room seems to go quiet.

“Now, I know I didn’t actually ask you, but I was going to, and you sort of decided to take a long nap, so I had to make the decision for you. You should have heard how mad Atlas was when I told him. He had the biggest pout on his face.”

I can picture it, and it makes me want to smile even more. I keep trying to pry my eyes open, and the tiniest sliver of light breaks through before everything goes dark again.

“It’s not my fault, though! When Ben proclaimed himself your husband, I knew I had to act quick to be hubby number two. Since Dom is going to adopt you, I guess that makes him your daddy, so then he’ll be my daddy-in-law. And since Jasper is my twin, we’re a package deal. You knew that, of course, so that’s four of us. Then the others can either get in line to be brother husbands, or they can be your daddies too. Whatever floats their boat, you know?”

“Max, if you ever call me daddy, I swear to god I’ll stab you in the dick,” Atlas growls.

“Atlas! I can’t believe you just said that. Did you forget she was stabbed?Multipletimes?”

The room falls silent and tension simmers in the air.

“Shit, I’m sorry Malishka, I didn’t mean it,” Atlas says from my other side.

“Come on, Sweetheart, open those gorgeous green eyes. I want to see you.”

I take several deep breaths and push all my energy into opening my eyes. They strain and flutter as I finally start to blink heavily. I open and close them for a minute, but everything is blurry. I keep blinking until things finally start to come into focus. The first thing I’m able to see clearly is Max’s smiling face looking down at me.

“Hi, gorgeous,” he says with a huge smile. He looks exhausted and his hair’s a mess. Usually it’s in his signature bun on the top of his head, but it hangs limply around his face right now, like he couldn’t be bothered to style it.

I can’t help but smile up at him. I suddenly notice how dry my throat is and try to move my hand to touch it, but my arms won’t budge. I turn my head to look at them, but nothing seems to be restraining me.