Quiet Chaos : The Chaos Series- Book #2

by Keta Kendric

  At my words, Arjen closed his eyes. He appeared to meditate for a moment before a deep smile appeared. The sight of him smiling with his eyes closed, rejoicing on what I had admitted, sank in as deeply as the love he had professed to me.

  Forehead to forehead, we sat and breathed each other in, no words, only a buzzing swirl of our emotions, and an outpouring of our affections for each other.

  A soft, lingering kiss breathed enough contentment into me to make me forget about the shoot-out, and the instant family I inherited. Arjen eased back, staring into my eyes.

  “Mecca, we promised that we would be honest with one another. Will you tell me what Silvia was talking about when she mentioned you never letting it be a disability? What was she talking about?”

  I attempted but failed to swallow the damn brick lodged in my throat. Eventually, I would be forced to tell him the secret I had lived with, the one I had managed to keep hidden most of my life.

  Although, I would have preferred to have had this conversation in the comfort of our house, Arjen needed to know. It should have been the first thing I revealed to him, but I had never allowed anything to dictate my life.

  “You asked me a few times if this necklace held meaning. It does.”

  He glanced down at it before returning his gaze back to mine.

  “It gives me something that millions of people take for granted every day.”

  His face tightened in confusion.

  “It gives me sound.”

  His piercing gaze deepened. I pointed at my necklace, specifically at the small circular pendant.

  “This contains the microphone, circuit board, receiver, and antenna.”

  I turned my head and pointed at my earring, the piercing in the inner conch of my right ear to be exact.

  “This is the receiver.”

  He sat for a paused moment putting my words together in his head. When his eyes went wide, I knew he knew my secret.

  “I’m hard of hearing. I’ve been deaf in my left ear since birth. I begin losing my hearing in my right when I was fourteen, after I was beaten and left in that dumpster. The only person that knows is Desiree. Raymond never paid enough attention to notice that anything was wrong. Without a hearing aid, I can hardly hear the sound of my own voice.”

  He scratched the back of his head, staring intensely into my eyes before his gaze drop to the necklace and was lifted back to my ear.

  “Mecca,” he whispered, swallowing hard with his eyes locked on mine now.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t look at me like that, Arjen. It’s why I’ve never told anyone. It’s why I’ve been hiding this since I was a kid. A lot of my teachers, and even the guys I ran with on the streets thought I was being an asshole, not listening and being hardheaded. My problem was that I didn’t hear them 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 the third to last vehicle in what was a fifteen-vehicle convoy.

  One vehicle would veer off at an exit, and a few more at another exit until we were left with us, the SUV I had driven, and the three jeeps that carried Arjen’s usual six-man detail, and Khane.

  We had cleared the wooded area and were on a cleared stretch of low traffic interstate. My tension hadn’t died down, and I remained on edge as we continued to drive. Each time I calmed enough to close my eyes, my senses would take control and cause me to hop up and scan the area like a dog whose nose for trouble was wide open.

  The only time Arjen’s hand wasn’t on me was when we stopped to refuel. He had purchased a bottle of water and a bag of plain chips when he found out I hadn’t eaten all day. I forced myself to eat the chips, not tasting them after he had pleaded for me to eat a few.

  The notion that I had someone willing and wanting to take care of me, at times, was lost on me. Although every cell in my body fought for the independence I was used to, I was mindful to allow him to be the man he wanted to be for me.

  The sight of our house perked me up and had a deep smile spreading over my face. After driving us up to the front of the house versus the garage, Arjen exited, and I could hear his men entering behind us, one vehicle already driving around the side of the house to
park.

  Despite all we had went through today, Arjen walked around, opened my door, and helped me from the vehicle before placing his hand in the spot I liked.

  We were jerked from our state of silent contentment of being home when the sound of a commotion near the gate erupted to the tune of loud shouts and gunfire. Our guns were out and aimed as we ducked behind the jeep and searched the lit exterior of Arjen’s house.

  “Khane?” Arjen shouted, checking on his brother.

  “Cass,” Arjen called out again. “What the fuck is going on out there?”

  Every light inside and outside the house went black. Next thing I knew, we were being handed NVG’s, night vision goggles, from one of the men. The bright moonlight added to what I presumed were emergency lights in the hedges at our backs. It was just enough to make the goggles ineffective at our current location.

  “How the fuck did they get in? Who are they?”

  From Arjen’s side of the conversation, it sounded like there were men inside our well-protected property with us. If that were the case, they had already been here waiting on us. They had taken advantage of Arjen, taking away all of his men to rescue me.

  Although the house was protected by a high tech security system and a gated and guarded community, determined adversaries had trumped the security measures and found their way to our home anyway.

  We remained crouched in our positions, waiting. What the fuck was going on?

  Multiple gun blasts sounded around us, carried by a breeze winding its way through the dark sky. Arjen had his hand to his ear, attempting to hear whatever was being reported.

  “They have us surrounded, at least twenty. Stay close, love.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  This was not the time for me to prove anything. I would fight, to the death if I had to, but I was also going to stay close to Arjen like he had suggested.

  The last time my hardheaded ass hadn’t listened, I had run off and almost initiated a war with a cartel. If fate hadn’t made plans between Raymond and Silvia, twenty-six years ago, I would be dead.

  A shrieking whistle hovered in the air like a low flying fighter jet.

  “Down! Down! Down!” Arjen yelled before shoving me to the ground. His big body landed on top of mine, crushing me to the paved driveway.

  The loud boom rocked the ground beneath us, shaking up my crushed insides. A big crater was blown into his front yard, uprooting grass and dirt about a hundred feet to the right of us. The impact of our fall had knocked one of my heels clean off my foot as dirt and grass rained down on us.

  Arjen jerked me up by the arm, lifting my entire body in the process before setting me on my feet. No sooner than I regained my equilibrium, did two men came up on us out of nowhere.

  One caught Arjen off-guard, sending a hard lick from his weapon to the side of his head that caused him to stagger away a few paces. The other man stood in front of me aiming his weapon at my face.

  “On your knees and toss the fucking weapon!” he shouted. I complied, but my mind was running through hundreds of scenarios on how to get on the right side of this wrong. The sight of HB skidding across the concrete and landing just out of my reach put a deep ache in my heart.

  The man standing over me was supposed to be keeping me in check, but he was distracted by Arjen and his buddy who were now trading punches. Since he obviously didn’t see me as a threat, I didn’t waste the opportunity he didn’t know he was giving me. My upward kick connected with his weapon, knocking it away, but not out of his hand.

  The impact of the kick caused a deep gash to open on the part of my bare foot that connected with the metal. I sent my bloody foot into the weapon a second time causing it to fly up and strike the ground behind the man.

  Arjen continued to fight with the man that had hit him, both tussling to gain control of the gun they gripped. Their deathly fight and wild movements had rounds firing off in random directions.

  I didn’t wait around for the man near me to regain control of his gun. I took a firm grip of the one scraped up heel that was barely clinging to my foot and slung it with all my might at his head.

  The hard hit stunned him enough for me to stand and hit him again, sending the heel of the shoe into his temple. The lick had drawn blood and pissed him off enough that he slung wild punches at me that I was thankfully quick enough to dodge.

  One of his heavy handed punches would put me on my ass, so I was ducking and dodging like my life depended on it. The sight of blood pouring out of the side of his head caused a devious smirk to crease my lips.

  The next few blows had him woozy enough for me to tangle my leg with his and we went down, thankfully with me falling on top of him. Half atop his chest, I spun my body so that I had a hand and a foot aimed at his head. With the heel placed at his temple, I held it in place and used the back of the bloody heel of my foot to hammer the heel into the side of his head.

  The man fought me with flailing arms and erratic kicks, but the trauma to his head had his motor functions sluggish. In his weakened state, I stood and used more strength to stomp the heel deeper into his head.

  The moment I felt something give, was when I knew his skull was starting to cave. Blood squirted and gushed from the hole I was determined to drill in his head.

  The mess I was making had called Arjen’s attention. He had shot and killed the man he was fighting and was watching me with a wide eyed expression fixed on his face like the devil was set loose to rain hell on earth.

  Determination had fueled my blood and I didn’t stop my attack until I had the length of the heel as deep as it would go into the man’s skull. The first thing I did was find HB and take up a position to return fire.

  Arjen took a quick scan of the area, searching for more gunmen as the sound of gunfire popping off continued around the property. His gaze dropped to the man I had hammered my heel into. The muscles in his body continued to convulse as blood continue to flow from his damaged head.

  “Damn. You really fucked him up,” he said before eyeing me with a proud glint flashing in his gaze.

  He put a finger to his ear, listing to something his men were telling him as we hunched low near the back end of his jeep.

  “You remember how to get into the armory?” he asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “I need you to get to it and take out what we may not be able to see. They have a way to block us from night vision and from detecting their heat signatures,” he said.

  He handed me an extra magazine.

  “Reload love. You only have one round left.”

  I dropped and reloaded with ease, not questioning his count.

  “When I tell you to go, run for the house, we’ll cover you.” He was talking while letting off rounds in the direction of muzzle flashes.

  I turned, staying low, and readied myself to run to the house.

  Once inside the house, I would be able to get to the armory of weapons Arjen had in the basement, spot the enemy using the security monitors and sensors, and help take out what they couldn’t see.

  “Go now, Mecca!” Arjen shouted. His voice carried above the broken drumbeats of constant gun blasts. With my sights set on the front door, I took off like a bat out of hell, my finger kissing HB’s trigger, ready to release hot led if necessary.

  Breaths getting away from me, I crouched low and twisted the doorknob with the strength of a linebacker. The air of danger behind me was like a person chasing me with a gun aimed at my back, but I knew it was my mind readying me for what may have strayed my way.

  I tumbled into the living room, leaving the door open. There was no need to close it because anyone that wasn’t Arjen or his men were getting their brains blown out. I ran in the direction of the armory-security room, my hip bumping the couch in my haste and making me grunt.

  When I turned the sharp corner into the small nook that would lead me down to the room, the air in my lungs released on a loud suffocating gasp. I had shoved HB down the back of my pants, assu
ming I was safe inside the house.

  Standing in front of the door that led down to the security room was a graying, thin man dressed head to toe in black tactical gear. He stood as tall as Arjen, but was gangly like a starved dog. His haggard face with its sunken jaws was oddly familiar.

  The nine-millimeter he aimed at my head was gripped tight by his boney fingers. His exploring eyes and sadistic smirk revealed part of the evil that lurked within him.

  I didn’t need my danger senses to know that this man was pure evil, the kind that made me a saint when I was far from one. He was the kind of evil that tortured kids and small animals.

  “Turn around,” he hissed between rotten and broken teeth. His voice was cast low, but the sound was like glass raking over my skin.

  He had a deep and vicious scar across his throat like he was hung before and died, but even Death had turned him away. He was clearly blind in one eye, the sight reminding me of the original Terminator after he had surgically removed his prosthetic eye and revealed the cybernetic one.

  “Turn the fuck around. I won’t say it again.” His eyes twitched like raising his voice had spurred a nervous tick.

  “I’d rather face my death, you mangy diseased-looking asshole.” I spat what was likely my last words at him. I was a stubborn bitch, unwilling to bend to death no matter how it was presented. The itch to reach back and grab HB was so intense my hands shook.

  His smile deepened and turned from sinister to teasing. With the speed of a striking cobra, it took him two quick steps to reach out and grip my arm. He swiveled me around with a strength that didn’t match his frail body.

  A sinister laugh climbed out of his throat while he slung a boney arm around my neck. He jerked HB from the back of my pants, and his arm tightening around me was like being wrapped in razor wire.

  Why the fuck were we just standing there, breathing and listening to the cadence of gunfire? The notion hit me that the monster behind me knew why I had come into the house. He didn’t want me to help the men.