Page 60 of Velvet Deception

Still nothing but cries as she steeled herself into a pretzel position, keeping me out and depriving me of looking her in the eye.

“Ramon!” I yelled again, desperate for his help with his mother.

“He’s gone.”

She whispered it so shakily that I strained to follow her message.

“He’s gone,” she repeated, not opening her eyes or melting into my embrace.

“Who—”

“He’s gone!” She screamed it that time, redder in the face with spittle flying out. The force with which she yelled it up to me seemed to sap all her energy.

“What do you mean, he’s gone?” I felt instantly stupid to ask. It wasn’t that hard to figure out.

Ramon had yet to rush in here and help me calm his mother. She had expressed her deep fear of this scenario ever happening. And now… it had.

Ramon was gone.

I didn’t need her to spell it out. Nothing else could have impacted her this severely. The loss of anything or anyone else in the world couldn’t have made her crumple into this sobbing mess.

“What—”

She squirmed, rocking her body from side to side but not letting go of her arm as she tucked it to her chest. Baring her gnashed teeth, she growled then sobbed, seeming unable to tell me or otherwise indicate that she wanted to be out of my arms. To avoid my touch.

I wasn’t sure she was aware of her actions, much less her words or thoughts. Like a rabid, wounded animal of prey, she hunkered into a ball on the floor.

“They came for him and took him away.”

“Who?”

“The Cartel. That drunk bastard came to takehisson.” She sniffled as she rested her cheek on the floor.

No. Fuck! No, it couldn’t be true.

I’d sworn to watch over them. They were supposed to be my future. My new hope. This little family I’d protect.

Ramon was gone.

And I felt the impact of loss as the news sliced my heart in half. Sorrow could fully come later. Regret and agony could braid in with it.

In this moment, though, I let the rage take over instead. Trembling and vibrating, I didn’t fight the wave of anger sweeping through me and superheating my veins.

“He came and took him away because he said he belongs to the Cartel,” she added between deep, labored breaths.

I should’ve been here. I should’ve been here to watch over both of them. If I had been, none of this would’ve happened. None of it.

I didn’t have the luxury of time to excuse myself. Sofia had come home early. Ramon had too, apparently. I hadn’t been informed of the changes, and since I thought I had a chance to investigate further in this crusade to learn more about my past, I had been driving around, looking for a goddamn needle in a haystack.

“I…” I staggered back, knowing better than to offer her comfort. She’d shied away from my touch, and while I hated that distance, while I was crestfallen from her rejection, I understood that she was burrowing in and hiding behind whatever walls she needed to throw up and erect against the horror of this freshest and worst trauma.

All I could offer her was justice. All I could give her was the ability to avenge Ramon and get him back.

I couldn’t be sure of what my affiliation was with the Cartel. That mystery loomed too large. But it didn’t matter if I was actually connected to them at all. I was coming for them. I was coming for Ramon. And no matter what I might have done to, with, or for the Cartel before the night I lost my identity, they would haveto answer to my wrath for taking Ramon from Sofia. For ripping a son out of his mother’s arms.

If I was a bona fide enemy of the Cartel, then I would weave through and fight back against every single member until I retrieved Ramon and had him returned to his weeping, broken shell of a mother as she tried to live through the pain of her nightmare coming true.

I backed up, unsteady on my feet as I tore my gaze from her.

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