Page 61 of Velvet Deception

I wanted to comfort her. My heart ached to hold her, to appease her and just magically make everything better. But I couldn’t. The only thing I could do—that I had to do—was get her boy back.

I bumped into someone at the door, so in the zone at seeing my love in distress.

“Oh!” An older woman raised her brows at me, startled. Then she frowned as she heard the sounds of Sofia’s cries. “I thought I heard…”

“Vasquez?” I guessed, my tone hard. It had to be the old woman next door.

“Yes, I heard?—”

“Help her,” I ordered, placating myself with the minuscule comfort that I wasn’t actually abandoning Sofia like I'd promised not to. I wasn’t taking off and leaving her to suffer alone. This neighbor could help.

Because I would be back. I would return.

With Ramon.

I turned and ran out into the beginning streaks of rain, ready to hunt for the boy who never should’ve been captured.

25

SOFIA

“Sofia.”

It wasn’t him talking to me again.

Diego had gone.

Everyone wasgone.

The scene of those men dragging Ramon kicking and screaming out the front door replayed in my mind.

Over and over and over.

Keeping my eyes closed left me seeing the full visual, the details of his distraught face, lined and red from screaming. The redness on his cheeks already wet from fallen tears. The flail of his arms and legs as he resisted being captured. But he was only a boy, a small child and unable to get free from the strong men.

If I wrenched my lids open and let the air sting my eyes, so irritated and raw from crying, I heard it in my mind. His wailing cries for me. The desperate demands and begs to release him. And the mournful sobs as he realized he had no power to break free.

“Sofia?”

I didn’t move, lying still and zoning out at the baseboard of the wall nearest to me.

I couldn’t do anything.

Sebastian swore it. He announced it like a decree no one could dare to overthrow.

I was powerless. Defeated.

And no longer willing to carry on.

My life, as I knew it, wasover.

I’d lost the one thing I swore on my life to protect. I’d watched my most beloved child be cruelly taken from me. All because the nasty old drunk who’d forced me to take his wretched dick was a Cartel leader. A boss. An overlord. Someone who could swoop in and say that my son belonged with those cretins and assholes.

“Sofia!”

It wasn’t Diego’s stern and commanding voice steering me back to focus.

This was sharper. Somehow, with more authority of a different kind. Amomvoice, used toward children prone to trying to talk back or get their way.

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