all the time. It caused a lot of my fights growing up. I didn’t have a choice but to start wearing a hearing aid. I’d keep my hair down to hide it, not wanting guys to touch me because I feared they would find it. It wasn’t until I was twenty that I discovered better, more inconspicuous devices.”
He swallowed hard, and I could tell he was fighting the urge to hold back his sorrow.
“Are you going to lose the hearing you have left?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. My doctors are hopeful that I won’t. But, if I lose it all, I wanted to be the strongest I could be, mentally and physically. Lip reading and American Sign Language were the first things I mastered. The orphanage you discovered when you did my background check is for the hearing impaired, and one of the places I disappear to when I go off the grid.”
He stroked my cheek, his eyes strained, still stunned by what I had revealed. I dropped my gaze. How did he feel now that he knew that I might one day not hear anything anymore?
“Don’t you dare think it, Mecca. This does not change a thing between us. We are in this for life, no matter what.”
His comments had me grinning from ear to ear as a rush of emotions stilled me for a moment.
“You know, it’s ironic, I got the nickname, quiet chaos, because the guys said when I killed, it appeared I could go into the quiet and not feel anything. They had no idea how close to the truth they were. There were times if I didn’t want to hear someone screaming before I killed them, I’d turn the sound off. The nickname has always been the gateway to my biggest secret. It also signifies that I could one day end up in the dead quiet of my mind, forever, with nothing but the chaos living in there to keep me company.”
Arjen blew out a heavy breath, his stressed gaze locked on mine. Instead of commenting, he tugged me closer for a slow, sweet kiss. I knew he would need time to soak in all that I had dumped on him, but a big weight was lifted now that he knew.
The pounding beat of a heavy hand against the glass stopped our kiss as Arjen fumbled with the controls so that he could roll the passenger window down. We stared into Hunter’s face, his deep smile greeting us.
He didn’t say a word, but waited for an explanation as to why we had stopped. I glared at Arjen, attempting to gauge his state of mind, but was met with a caressing smile before he placed another sweet kiss on my lips.
“We’re ready,” he told Hunter while patting me on the ass to get up. I climbed from Arjen’s lap and retook my seat. What was up with our roadside stops anyway? Each had ended up bringing us a level of therapeutic bonding that linked us closer as a couple.
There was no way the cabin of this vehicle would contain all the love I fought to contain for a man I never saw coming for my heart. We needed to get home, like yesterday, so I could show him how much I loved him.
The heavy weight of the new and interesting revelations that were dumped on me today had clawed to the surface and latched on to my mind. Up until today, I had rested on the notion that I didn’t have a mother. Not only did I have one, she ran the cartel that supplied us our drugs and was a woman I had known all my life. My uncle was my father. My cousins were my siblings.
Desiree is my sister.
The thick clouds hanging heavily in my mind began to thin the closer we got to home. When you live around enough danger, you had a sixth sense about it. The way it sought you out and clung to you like an irritating itch, you couldn’t reach to scratch.
The hairs on my arms stood up the same way they had on the highway, before me and the guard was ambushed. Danger was near, lingering and waiting to confront me. The weird sensation would not let my mind rest, and all I could think was, what next?
38
Mecca
My eyes popped open and my neck whipped around until my gaze landed on Arjen’s tense posture. He glared in the rearview mirror, his eyes scanning the area. We had been