Page 28 of Velvet Deception

“Okay, Mama.” Ramon didn’t argue, but he looked at me as though he was concerned about me, as if he wanted to again offer to have a “first watch” over our home. He glanced at Diego before walking toward his room. “Areyou okay, Diego?”

“Yes, Ramon. Go on. I’ll help your mother clear this up.”

“No.” I whipped my head around to face him. “No. I need to tend to your cut and check that you haven’t worsened anything. You’re still recovering and… and…”

He nodded, holding his hands up to calm me as my voice got panicky. “All right.”

I followed Ramon to his room where he slipped into his pajamas and got into bed. Despite how scared he had to feel, he was yawning already.

Probably the adrenaline crash. After the shock.

He was drifting off as I tucked him in, but I waited an extra moment to kiss his brow twice, fighting hard not to cry on him again.

He’s okay. He’s alive and right here. He hasn’t been taken anywhere and he never will be.

It wasn’t easy to let him out of my sight. But I backed away slowly, urged by the need to check on Diego.

He wasn’t in the bathroom, where I thought he would’ve gone since I told him that I wanted to clean up his wounds. Instead, he picked up the coffee table and began to push the debris of broken things into a pile on the floor.

“Diego. You’re still…” I shook my head, taking his hand to guide him to the bathroom.

Those strong hands had killed. Those fingers had touched the weapons that killed those men who threatened me and my son. This man was my hero. Gratitude swelled, bringing a fresh wave of tears to burn and leak down my cheeks as I wetted a cloth and cleaned the blood from the row of neat stitches I’d put on the gash on his arm.

The rush of emotions swarmed again, and I sniffled, trying to stop the tears. Crying wasn’t how I survived. Even in my darkest days and worst moments, I didn’t cry. Something broke metoday, though, and I just couldn’t snap out of it and be strong like the woman I knew I could be. Brave. Stern. Pragmatic.

My fingers shook and trembled as I tried to clear the blood from his cut. Lifting the small scissors to the frayed and opened thread seemed risky with how unsteady my grip was. My nerves were frayed. Shot and frazzled. I couldn’t think straight, much less focus with the precision and attention to detail that I had to consider when I used a needle on someone.

After I dropped the scissors and picked them up three times over, Diego sighed. Shifting from his stance against the bathroom vanity counter, he turned to face me. Instead of propping his butt against the ledge of the small, cracked, and stained counter that was so outdated it was embarrassing, he turned to face me. No longer giving me access to the arm I wanted to restitch, he put his hand over mine and held on to my unsteady fingers.

“Sofia.”

I cried harder, yet still silently. He said my name with such reverence, such calm, gentle patience, that it was too tender of a moment for me to accept and not break down even more.

This man, this stranger, had saved me today. The enormity of all that happened was simply too much to process.

“Sofia,” he repeated, sterner and with more authority as he held my hand. “You need to stop. You’re in shock and you need to snap out of it.”

I wanted to. I knew I had to break this control over me. It was a mental thing. It was physical. It was a combination of defense mechanisms that I couldn’t override. Even though he was right, I didn’t know how to snap out of this shock.

“Sofia,” he said again, sterner.

I squeezed my eyes shut as he stepped into my space. The firm pressure of his thumb and finger under my chin had me acquiescing to his silent demand that I lift my face to him and address him.

“Sofia.” This time was all command. “Look at me.”

I opened my eyes, blinking at the blurriness my tears left behind.

“Calm down,” he urged.

I breathed harder and faster, as if he’d spoken with the magic of reverse psychology.

“You need to stop. Just breathe through it and?—”

I can’t.I shook my head again, closing my eyes and dipping my chin again.

I didn’t manage it. I wanted to avoid the tenderness and authority I saw on his face.

But he wasn’t in the mood for that.

---