Hitched & Hitched Again: A Comedy of Marital Mayhem novel Chapter 1814

The minutes ticked by in agonizing slow motion.

Tarquin chain-smoked, lighting one cigarette off the embers of the last.

His mind drifted back over the years, replaying the countless memories he shared with Lowell and Axel.

Axel had always been a man of few words. If he could convey his thoughts with a look, he wouldn't bother opening his mouth. He was so intensely quiet that, back in the day, Tarquin and Lowell often wondered if he was actually mute.

Lowell would frequently strike up random conversations with him, just to force Axel to move his lips and make some sort of sound. He was genuinely terrified that if Axel didn't use his vocal cords, he'd forget how to speak altogether.

Axel really was just that silent.

He didn't talk, he didn't laugh, and he didn't cry. He walked through life with an icy, expressionless mask.

The only time he ever showed emotion was when they were kids; he would occasionally cry in his sleep from whatever horrors haunted his nightmares. But while awake, he never shed a single tear.

In truth, Tarquin shared far more similarities with Axel than he did with Lowell.

The three of them had grown up together, secretly learning how to fight, and later enduring grueling survival camps.

No matter how brutal the training got, Tarquin and Axel always pushed through. As long as they weren't dead, they gritted their teeth and kept going.

Lowell, on the other hand, was entirely different. The second he found a chance to slack off, he took it.

Lowell was easily the weakest of the three, but he also had the best temperament.

Lowell had a soft heart, whereas Tarquin and Axel were both utterly ruthless. They were decisive and never hesitated to pull the trigger.

It all stemmed from their backgrounds and what they had endured.

Both Tarquin and Axel harbored deep, bloody vendettas. Neither of them feared death; they only stayed alive long enough to exact their revenge.

Lowell, however, was terrified of dying. He lived purely out of self-preservation.

All three of them were orphans without a drop of shared blood. Finding each other on the unforgiving streets had been pure fate.

Over twenty years ago, Tarquin had stumbled across Axel by pure chance.

Axel couldn't have been more than six or seven at the time. He was dressed in rags, wandering barefoot through the grime, his face just as filthy as the pavement he walked on.

But it only took one glance for Tarquin to be captivated.

It was the look in the kid's eyes.

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