Chapter 679: Criminally

Recovery was difficult for Mina who was plagued by nightmares, not of the men she killed, or of the sound of the gun, but of her own family and the things they used to say about her. She had always kept it to herself, how hurtful their words were, and many times they did not even know she had heard them, but she did, and each time was more painful than the next.

No matter how hard Mina tried to prove that she genuinely loved her family and would never hurt them, they did not see it that way. Sadie was the only person who she believed saw her for who she truly was, but unfortunately, even Sadie turned her back on her toward the end, and it was all over money and a man.

Mina awoke after yet another nightmare, only this time she was not screaming. The dreams were antagonistic and hard to deal with, but she had no other choice. Neal and Leal typically did not wake her the way President Lee would have. They would just make sure to be there for her when she woke, and in some ways, she was grateful they were letting her address her issues on her own.

Still, there were times when Mina wished the brothers would just wake her out of her sleep, so she did not have to deal with the nightmares, but as time went on, she became numb to the sadness she felt. She became numb to the pain of leaving her family behind, and she became numb to the pain of loving a man who likely did not love her back. She had become a new person, someone who she had once been afraid of becoming.

Mina had embraced the woman her parents always thought she would become without 'help', the woman she likely had no way of stopping from turning into and she was much happier because of it. People did not talk to her anyway they felt like it, people were not intentionally mean to her, and people addressed her with respect because they knew what she was capable of. Even Nael was more respectful of her.

Mina's killing had not just stopped with the two men who attacked Nael and Leal, but their friends as well. They had come for retribution, and once again, Mina found herself with a gun in her hand, shooting at people, something she would have never done in the past. She was a full-fledged criminal; a murderer, someone who killed without remorse, and she was okay with that.

Nael had shown her what true evil was; he had let her pour through many of the recordings he had secretly taken of men and women who wanted family members and spouses killed for no other reason than greed. There were a few who wanted revenge for previous indiscretions, and even a few who were genuinely trying to escape bad situations, but those people were very rare. Most of them wanted their loved ones or significant others killed for money, business rights, or inheritances.

Mina had only heard of such things from Mills and Ashlyn who confided in her about their individual experiences with family rifts caused by money, and now, Mina was starting to realize how widespread true evil was in the world. Unlike what her parents believed, she was nowhere near that kind of person, and if they had only known what else was outside of their small town, it was likely they would have never locked her up.

Even if they had, they would have been able to see that she was a good daughter to them. She was not perfect, but she did not kill for no reason, she did not steal for sport, and she only did bad things for good causes. Other's committed crimes because they could, and Mina hated that it took her living with a man who was one of the most ruthless she had ever known to show her that. It meant that without everything bad that passed, she would have continued hating herself.

In order to accept who she was as a person, Mina had to fall in love, have her heart broken and then finally explore the world of killers. Dr Witt once told her that she was an exceptional case, so she knew she had qualities that did not make sense to the man, and she planned to keep most of those. As a person who was always kind, it was a part of her nature to continue being that way, however she no longer believed that people deserve kindness from the beginning.

Mina now felt that kindness was earned over time through actions of good faith. That is what she had been doing and she was making a lot of money while doing it. She exploited the secrets she knew about the Lee group and when Nael had seen how much she made herself, he gave her access to both of his accounts. She had taken the money from them, which was already a lot, and turned it into more money than either man had ever had.

Their estranged father had access to those accounts, so Mina set up an offshore account for them where she had her own money hidden. It could not be traced, and even if someone wasted their time trying to find it, they would hit a dead end because the bank was in a country big on privacy. Its banks did not believe in violating the rights of their citizens to adhere to any governmental laws, and those protections extended to non-citizens as well.

It was why Mina had chosen the institution in the first place. She learned about it through Doctor Sancho, whose wife was originally from that particular country. It was a land of the free; anarchy, as citizens of Pan would call it. However, now that Mina was an adult, she saw the appeal in living in a place where people could do whatever they want.

It was like a more extreme version of the four cities, where laws were not targeted against a specific group and citizens basically governed themselves. While it may have seemed lawless, it was not. Serious crimes had equal punishments, while lesser crimes were addressed appropriately. People who stole food or clothing did not get jail time for being hungry or poor. They received counseling and job training. That made more sense to Mina, who could not understand why similar justice systems did not exist everywhere.

If ever she got the chance, that was the country Mina wished to call home, but as things were, she was not comfortable enough with trying to fly anywhere. Willow had given her false identity papers, but so far, she was too afraid to use them and end up in a place where President Lee was likely to find her and kill her for what she was doing to him.

----

Mina woke to Nael poking at her forehead. She kicked her foot out at the man, who chuckled mischievously. He had changed from the person he was, and the trust between them had increased. More than a month had passed since she had taken her first set of lives and in that time Nael and Leal took care of her in shifts. Only weeks ago, neither brother allowed her to be alone, forcing her to sleep on the couch. Leal kept telling her it was about his money, but she now knew it was a little more than that. He had taken her as family, but Nael was harder to read.

"What?" She growled.

"I have a surprise for you," Neal replied. Mina sat up, rubbing at her eyes which were becoming irritated by her contacts. The man dropped a box on her lap, and she looked up at him in confusion. He had been buying her lots of gifts, and she did not understand where the gestures were coming from, because it could not have been affection.

Slowly, Mina opened the package and withdrew something that looked like a mask that she noticed would only cover one side of her face. It was black, and the only way she could describe it was metal lace.

Standing up, Mina slid the mask over her face and secured it at the back of her head. It almost looked like a crown across her forehead, and she loved the way one side spread over her bandages.

"I love it," Mina said, turning to hug Nael who stiffened with the gesture.

"Can I wear it in Bal?"

"You, Madam Ami, can do whatever you like." Nael bowed deeply and Mina chuckled at the man's antics, which sparked memories of Ashlyn, and all her other friends. The mask did look like it was fit for an old-fashioned ballroom, so she knew it was a coincidence. "Shall we?" He continued.

"We shan't." Mina mocked, making Nael raise a brow in confusion.

"What the hell is shan't?" Mina chuckled and changed the subject.

"I want to dress up for my new mask," she said, pushing the man out of her room. "I need a shower."

"You showered yesterday," Nael teased.

"I feel like I didn't get all the blood off though."

"Look at you, being all criminally and not having a nervous breakdown," Nael said with a wink. He was very aware that Ami had issues with pointless killing and he expected her to have a negative reaction to the events that transpired the night before. He had gotten drunk, said a few rude words to someone's 'woman' and bullets literally started to fly. When they found her, she was buried under two men, one who died of a gunshot wound, and the other a knife wound to the heart, courtesy of Ami.

"I didn't do anything wrong, and you know it. I told you what he was trying to do." Mina was big on making sure anytime she used her knife, or her gun was to protect herself or someone else and never just because. She may have accepted the fact that she was a monster, but it did not mean that she liked it.

"Have you thought about what I asked?" Mina suddenly sprang the question on Nael, who she wanted to purchase a condominium in Bal. She needed to start cleaning up the money he made in earnest, especially since it was now in the hundreds of millions. However, he was having reservations about it

Nael would tell Leal that he wanted to get out of the life they were living, but everything he did kept them on the ship. Mina understood why, there was something freeing about having no one know where you are, and because Nael's crew operated small scale, they did not attract much attention from the authorities. They were free to move in and out because they raised very little suspicion.

Aside from his illegal activities, Nael was wise enough to do some legal things. He shipped items from one country to another for small businesses that could not afford the freight rates of high-end companies. That was not Mina's idea, but she did help him turn it into a legitimate practice that eventually helped clean a lot of the money that would go on to start 'Ela's Fish Market.'

"I thought about it," Nael said. "But I don't think I'm ready to give up on my sea legs." That was the most honest the man had ever been with her about his intentions for leaving the ship. She accepted his answer and moved on.

"Okay now get out of my room. I still want a shower.

"Ami," You are going to take forever."

"I promise I won't be long this time. Look at my nails, do you want this in your breakfast?" Neal cringed at the thought of blood in his food, and he rolled his eyes leaving the woman to do what she wanted.