16
Mecca
After a few discouraging calls about our waning drug supply and the street starting to dry up, my depression intensified. I had exhausted my efforts, and the quick fixes I had applied, were just that, quick fixes and a loan of the size I needed would raise serious eyebrows.
In the bathroom, I sat on the edge of the tub after a long hot bath, contemplating how I would fix things. Arjen had knocked on the door twice, asking if I was okay. I had unlocked it after getting dressed, but remained in place, consumed by my raging thoughts.
At the sound of the bathroom door opening unexpectantly, I jumped, my body more surprised than my mind. Arjen drew closer, his face squinted in concern. I didn’t stop my pacing until he placed his strong hands on my shoulders to stop me.
A strange mix of sorrow and anger had me high. As much death and destruction as I had caused and was witnessed to, I found it odd that it hadn’t extracted all of my humanity. The ability to express deep sorrow still resided inside me.
“What’s wrong, love? Please, come here. You’re so knotted with tension, I can feel it with the slightest touch.”
The huge bathroom had a sitting area adorned with a comfortable armless leather chair that sat against the wall. Arjen tugged me and my coiled tension along as he took the seat. When he drew me into his lap, setting me across his muscular thighs, I didn’t have the strength to protest. The war of sorrow and anger that raged inside me had weakened me to the point of submission.
“You have to calm down, Mecca? You’re going to make yourself sick. I can’t stand seeing you like this. What’s wrong? Is there someone I need to kill? I’ll be happy to start with Marshawn.”
His comment about Marshawn caused me to smile and release some of my tension. Although I had learned how to swallow it, an unrelenting sadness had my heart hanging heavily in my chest.
Arjen drew me in closer, rubbing his big hand up and down my back, the other sat across my legs, holding me in place. His fresh breath kissed my cheek and brushed my lips whenever he spoke.
“There’s no one you need to kill. I’m stressed, and PMSing. The emotional overload is kicking my ass. I hate it, but it happens.”
Although it had taken me most of my adult life not to equate embracing your emotions, specifically sorrow, to weakness, I still fought the urge to allow it to creep into my heart.
Arjen shook his head. “You’re a Vallin. If there’s something stressing you out, I need to know about it so I can help you take care of it.”
The stress weighing me down caused everything to feel heavy, so it took me a moment to lift my head and meet his gaze.
“You’d help me?”
He squeezed me to his chest, stressing his words. “Of course I would. I’m your husband. It’s my job to help you.”
Was he telling me what I wanted to hear, or were his intentions genuine? I wasn’t used to help being so freely offered to me.
“You’d help me, even if it’s a problem that I believe is my burden to bear?”
“Your burdens are my burdens now. If I can do anything to help you, I want you to let me know.”
He placed a finger under my chin and lifted, making sure I got the full depth of his serious glare.
“Tell me. What’s got you stressed? How can I help?”
Reluctance kept me quiet. The last thing I wanted to do was run to my husband when I couldn’t solve a problem.
“There’s nothing wrong with asking for help. You can’t solve every problem on your own. Everyone needs help from time to time, even me,” he stated. As much as my ego was yelling for me to hold out a little longer, I ignored it and accepted the fact that my ass needed help.
“I assumed I had done well with savings in case something went wrong. I gave two million as a show of good faith four days ago to the Cardenas Cartel, unaware that Raymond owed the cartel for not only the last shipment, but half the money on the one before that. Fifteen million. Plus there is the matter of the ten million you had to pay to get Desiree back from the FA. I have five million, but it’s a third of what I need to set things right.”
“You have five million dollars?” he asked.
A surge of energy quickened my pulse and swelled in my heart at the sight of the apparent pride resting in his smile and shining in his expression at the notion that I had that kind of money.
“Yes, and I could raise another two million if I liquidated some assets. If I was clued into what Raymond was up to, I’d have been better prepared financially.”
Desiree had pointed me to another two million, but I didn’t want to break the bank in case something else popped up.
As far as I knew, only me and Khane knew that Desiree was the Bookkeeper, and if Arjen knew, he had never said anything. Desiree knew secrets that could get her killed. Some that I wouldn’t allow her to tell even to me, as they were extra security blankets for the organization.