Page 16 of Velvet Deception

Still, she hesitated to answer me.

“Sofia? I can’t understand why you didn’t contact the authorities or?—”

She scoffed, looking away and smirking. “The authorities?”

She was nervous, and I had to know why. A headache crept closer, and already, just being awake more than usual today had me tired out tonight. But I had to know. Taking a risk, I reached out and snagged her hand gently.

When she didn’t flinch or startle, I relaxed. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her. It seemed that we’d mutually acclimated to each other’s touch, though, from her tending to my injuries.

“Sofia?”

“Because I wasn’t sure who to trust,” she replied quietly, looking me straight in the eye before slipping away toward her room.

Trust? How could she not know who to trust? The police should be a simple source of help in an emergency. The hospital staff should’ve been an immediate answer for a medical situation.

I trusted her. But for the first time as I tried to understand why she’d be nervous about what I asked, I worried it might be a mistake to be this gullible when nothing else made sense at all.

7

SOFIA

Letting Diego stay at my home was a work in progress. He progressed, slowly but steadily. He rested on the couch and let his body heal. I tried my best to adjust to both the newness and weirdness of having a man in my house.

He wasn’t just a man, not in any sense that I’daskedhim over. Diego hadn’t been invited.

No. I’d dragged him there. I carried him, grunting and waddling backward with him unconscious in my arms until he was in my house.

And I wasn’t warming up to his staying there for good.

As I clocked in at the clinic again, yawning because I just couldn’t sleep well last night, I rubbed my stomach and grimaced at the pangs there. It wasn’t hunger. I’d forced down a hurried breakfast like usual. This deep, gnawing sensation was uneasiness. Not quite anxiety, but something funky that kept me tense.

Diego had yet to recall any memories, and I knew it would take time. How much time, though? That was what kept me up late, worrying and wondering.

The longer that he rested on my couch, it was that much more time that someone could find out I was hiding him in my home. Every day and night that passed with his being there was another round of risking it all.

If someone found him there, I would have a lot of questions to answer, but most of all, I feared that the Cartel would come for him there.

What if they come to finish the job?

I went about my routine at the clinic, ignoring Pamela and Selena as I kept my hands busy. My mind worked in overdrive as well because I couldn’t stop thinking about what Diego had asked me last night when I brought him soup. Chewing too much aggravated his head, it seemed, and soup was easier to make for me, anyway, easy to make a lot of it and store for leftovers.

Last night, he tried to puzzle out something I couldn’t answer.

“Who could have done this?” he’d wondered aloud.

When he looked at me and I realized he was asking me, not merely musing about it, I replied honestly. “I don’t know, but I do know the Cartel is the usual culprit for most violence around here.”And I know that firsthand.

He didn’t react one way or the other. He just shrugged. “True. But I don’t know…” A deep sigh left his lips. “I don’t know anything.”

It was my first guess, though, that if anyone had attacked a doctor near the hospital, it would be someone from the notorious crime family that ruled here.

Having a target of the Cartel in my home, near Ramon, bothered me, but I felt like I’d gotten myself into this situation out of goodness. I wouldn’t have been proud of myself if I’d left Diego to die in that alley, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if someone found out Diego was there and came to handle their unfinished business.

Ramon was adapting as well as I imagined he could. While he was naturally quiet, preferring to observe before acting or speaking up, he had to be confused. He’d heard me tell Diego the same story over and over and over again. I wasn’t lying when I explained how I’d found him. I had no reason to lie. I couldn’t speak up about my fears of the Cartel and give him the story about how I had been traumatized by them. I had yet to find the courage to tellanyoneabout that horrendous time of my life.

I’d noticed that Diego wasn’t bothered when Ramon was near, and he seemed to respect my son for helping out. He gave him water and food. I smiled in the background when I witnessed him leaving his little magazines for the man.

When I was at work, Ramon was at school or with Señora Vasquez, like usual. I couldn’t let the older woman wonder why Ramon was home “alone”, and I couldn’t trust her enough to tell her about Diego. Regardless, Diego was still a risk.

---