I looked up to meet her tear-filled eyes. "Mia, what's wrong?"
"He wanted to turn me into a prostitute. The last house I was at, that's why I left them all together. I used shelters, and other means to stay off the streets, but also to stay away from him. I was scared what he'd do if he found me again."
Anger boiled in my stomach. I cupped her cheek with a hand. "Where?" Just the thought of someone else touching her angered me beyond words, but the thought that someone had tried to make her into something like that more than angered me. "Did he make any of the other girls who were there?"
She nodded her headed slowly not looking at me. "Most of them didn't fight him. They just did what he told them too, because they were scared of what he would do to them if they didn't. He could have had them thrown out the group home and put some place even worse. It would have been as simple as him telling the cops that he had caught them stealing from him and they would have been sent to juvenile detention. He threatened me with so many times that I lost count."
I stood up slowly, bringing her with me. "His name Mia, and a location."
"I can take you." She said quietly. "Just promise me one thing."
"Anything."
Her gaze met mine in a soft yet solemn stare. "I want to be the one who walks him out to Houtter. I want him to know that it was someone that he tried to do it to that was finally the one who made sure that he couldn't do it to anyone else ever again."
I smiled widely. "Of course."
I started out of the room with her hand tightly in mine. As we made our way into the foyer again, I stopped looking around. "Alex, Axle, Dimitri!!".
All three seemed to appear to appear out of nowhere. "What's up?" Axle asked.
I smiled eagerly. "Go get the car. We're going to pay a visit to someone who deserves some pain. On the way there call Houtter, he should like this one as well."
Mia and I climbed into her car and the rest of the guys followed in a couple other cars. Once what we were going for got out there was no stopping some of them.
Flashback
Deacon's POV
"What's going on Deacon? " Axel asked. "You said that we're heading out to take care of something but you still haven't told us what or who is involved in all this. And that I know of Houtter hasn't called to arrange anything with us lately."
"The reason that I haven't explained any of this is because it is not for me to explain, so, Mia, if you wouldn't mind, the floor is yours." I said stepping aside, allowing her to gain the full attention of the men that I had gathered.
Leaning in I placed my hand on her shoulder as she looked back to me. "You can do this Mia, many of these men have followed your leadership before. The only difference between then and now is that this is personal for you. Convey that to them, many of of them have daughters of their own. They will follow you, because I will follow you. They will not judge you or look down on you. I'll be right here the entire time if you need me, I swear."
Nodding she looked out over the group that had been gathered in front of us. Taking a deep breath she stood straight and tried her best to show that even though this was part of her past, that it was also something that needed to be ended regardless.
"As many of you here have heard before, my childhood was not the happiest that a child could have growing up. Much of it was spent being bounced foster home to foster home from the time that I was an infant. After I turned fourteen, the decision was made that I would be sent to the first of three group homes that I would end up living in. The first two although dreary and overly occupied they weren't horrible.
Deacon has told her that it was at the age sixteen that I left the group homes altogether, it was actually when I was fifteen. Although I was closer to sixteen than I was fifteen by that time. Up until the point I left the group homes, even in the situation that I was in my life was relatively normal. School, homework a part-time job so that I could afford things that I wanted that I knew the group home wouldn't pay for.
It was the third group home that I was sent to that is the reason that you have all been gathered here today actually.
This group home was run by a man named Brady James Barerock, at first he seemed just like the rest of the group home leaders, maybe just a tad bit stricter when it came to certain things such as; grades, work schedules things like that. What I didn't realize is that what he portrayed himself to be to everyone important, was not who he really was. The person that he proved was the real him, ended up being a disgusting, vile and violent human being. Who found no greater joy in his life than to harass, belittle and influence the young girls that were under his care until they bent to his will.
In the short time that I stayed there I watched as he did this to a minimum of a dozen girls. He forced them to abandon getting their formal means of education, after which he then would use his so called influence in the community to get them what he said would be good jobs, unfortunately what they received were not good jobs that they were awarded for listening to him. The jobs that they were all gifted with were the same, they were made to go out in the evenings to spend hours upon hours selling themselves as goods just to come back and have the money taken from them by Brady.
What he was doing was using the group home in order to expand his clientele for his actual line of work. He made these young girls prostitutes."
I heard Mia's voice crack slightly as she finished the sentence, making me reach out to her, taking her hand tightly into my own and pulling her into my side reassuring her that I was there and that we would all stand with her.
"Eventually he made his way to me, and when I refused to fall in line with his demands he became extremely aggressive and violent towards me, to the point that he would tell me daily that by the time I was eighteen that I would be used up and thrown aside just the way I was meant to be. He tried over and over again to make me fall in line, but I couldn't. Brady even went to the extent that he accepted money from a man who he told that I would sleep with him for $300.00, all he had to do was pick me up from the diner that I worked at and tell me that Brady sent him to bring me home. That was the night that I felt the group homes altogether, using shelters and other means by which to stay off the streets and under his radar. This also meant that because I was moving around at such as rapid pace that I had to give up my own education in order to get by without him finding me, which also meant that there was no way that I could enroll in any classes in order to get the equivalent as well.
I'm not asking you to pity me, it was my choice to do so, and I don't regret it, because it led me to where I stand today, here with my family, people to care about me and with you and I could never ask for more out of this life than this for myself. What I am asking you for today, right now is to help me, no, help us, take this man off the streets and help the young girls that have been under his thumbs both in the past and presently, by showing them that there are people that care enough to stop people like him, that there are options out there for them, and that even forgotten and discarded girls like us have the potential to be anything that they can dream of.
I ask that you do not cause him mortal harm, as when the dust settles, I want him to see my face as I hand him over to Sergeant Houtter. I want these girls both past and present to see my face and know that they are not alone and that someone knows what they've went through, what they've been forced to endure and that there is not just someone, but that there are so many people out there that they can ask for help from.
Up until now I realize that it has always been Deacon, Alex or Declan who has been shown as the face of actions like this. While we all let them take that spot, knowing that they do not seek fame and that we all will be justly compensated even if it is not monetarily. Today, for the first time, I will take that step as your Donna, stepping into that position in order to bring a close to this man's reign of terror.
All I ask is that those of you who are standing here right now, stand with me and help me do this."
End Flashback
Mia and I climbed into her car and the rest of the guys followed in a couple other cars. Once what we were going for got out there was no stopping some of them. They were all more than happy and more than willing to give their time to a cause such as this. Many especially because of Mia's experience and the way that she approached them with it.
I couldn't have been more proud of her as when she spoke to them then. She spoke was grace, humility and honesty. You were able to feel her heart and soul as she spoke to them, even though while doing so she inadvertently revealed at least one thing that I know of that I don't believe that she had even told me. Because I had never known that she had not been able to finish her high school education. Looking at her sitting next to me, the way that she carries herself everyday, the way that speaks I don't know if I would have ever known or if anyone would have ever figured it out for themselves if it had not been for her saying it out loud today.
Although I wouldn't say anything now, I would wait until we were home and in the privacy of our own room, but I wanted to give her the chance that she had never gotten to have. She deserved to be able to say that she finished her education whether that meant that she walked in a cap and gown in an actual graduation ceremony or whether she simply took the equivalent test. I wanted her to know that she had been and still was capable of doing it, and that she was capable to furthering that should she so choose to, no matter she chose to pursue that we would all stand behind her.