Page 2 of Velvet Deception

After I watched him walk inside, I sighed and prayed he would have a good day with his classmates.

A horn beeped behind me, jolting me out of my reverie. Someone else was eager to drop off their child, and here I was sitting too long and being overly wistful. “All right. All right. I’m going. I’m going.” That was the goal, at least. My car sputtered and resisted the momentum of being driven again, and I stalled.

“Dammit.” I gritted my teeth and tried to coax the car to start again. I’d be late for work now, and?—

“Hurry it up!”

I growled, ignoring the holler behind me, and focused on getting my car to go. I didn’t have time to fix it, much less replace it, but maybe if I got a decent Christmas bonus, I could have some faulty parts replaced.

Leaving my woes to dwell on later, I sped toward the clinic. The streets were congested, like they always were, and the idle time of sitting at lights gave me too much of an opportunity to fall right back into this crummy mood I didn’t want on a day that should only end in festivity and excitement.

I detested feeling so stuck in life, to be this trapped in our circumstances and struggling to survive and get by. If I could move us and know we’d have a chance to thrive, I would’ve doneso a long time ago. If I could work somewhere else and make more than what I did at the small clinic I pulled up to twenty minutes later, I would.

Just… not there.I got out of my car and eyed the tall structures of the bigger hospital in the area. It loomed like skyscrapers further into the heart of the city, but I wouldn’t ever try to return to my former job there.

Inside, I clocked in and checked in with Pamela, another nurse who worked at this low-income clinic. This understaffed clinic. Most of the crew here harbored the same love-and-hate attitude about our jobs at this facility, but we always tried to team up and stay positive.

At least we had jobs. I was grateful for mine. And they were jobs mostly free from outside influence.

Like the Cartel.

I resisted a scowl at the thought of the organization that ruled in these parts. Determined to be positive, I smiled as I pulled my long brown hair into a ponytail. “Good morning, Pamela.”

“Itisa good morning,” she gushed, smiling prettily. She sighed, a pure sound of contentment as she smoothed back her hair slicked into a tight braided bun. “I can’t ever have a bad morning waking up next to Enrique.”

A slow, silent groan filled my head.Here we go again.

“Marriage is simply,” she said, huffing a blissful laugh, “perfect!”

I was glad she’d found a decent man to love and marry. I wished them well. But for the love of God, I was so,sotired of her talking about it. If she was making a habit of referencing her new husband out of spite, just to rub it in my face that I wassingle, that would be uncalled for. Pamela wasn’t mean, though. Instead, it seemed that telling EnriqueI dotransformed her whole identity. She was no longer Pamela, my nurse coworker at this clinic. She was only Enrique’s wife, a newlywed with limited capacity to realize life still carried on the same old for everyone else.

“Aww.” I patted her back. “I’m glad.”

“And so busy, too.” She gave me a coy, naughty smile. “I’m shocked I’m even awake and standing here now, with how little sleep he lets me get.”

Precious.This time, my smile and co-conspiring giggle probably fell short. “Oh, my,” I replied neutrally, hoping she’d quit this small talk and get on to the patients I’d be assigned.

“We’re trying to have a baby.” She lowered her head, so demure, and rested her hand on her flat stomach. “Perhaps it will be our Christmas miracle, to start our little family.”

Family was everything. I had Ramon. Even though she was focusing on the concept of a family in a way I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—didn’t matter. We all deserved family. We all should have the blessing of loved ones in our lives, regardless of it being Christmastime or not. The ability and courage to survive and struggle through the hardships of our lives was one thing, but to strike out for love and treasure it was something even more special.

I smiled and nodded. “That is wonderful news, Pamela. Wonderful.”

But deep down, I tried to ignore the little morsel of pain and heartache thatIwould never be able to say the same thing, that my husband and I wanted to grow a family.

Because I was forever scarred and far too scared to ever trust a man in my life again.

2

DIEGO

Machines beeped from every room. Another pair of nurses hurried a gurney past me, the patient on the bed wincing in agony and clutching the top of the sheet. It didn’t matter which way I turned, how quickly I walked down every hallway. Every inch of this hospital looked exactly the same.

Where the fuck are you, Rodriguez?

Searching for a target wasn’t that complicated. Hunting for a dead man walking was a skill I’d developed and strengthened over many years of practice. In all the twenty years I’d worked for the Cartel, I’d done a lot of dirty work. Often, whatever task Stefan, the boss, wanted me to complete came with difficulties.

But they were never unsurmountable. I could track anyone. I could sleuth out hidden caches. I was adept at silencing the enemy. And I was damned good at blending in, no matter the disguise or the location.

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