Page 68 of Velvet Deception

Juan came with her here and there, helping to pick up stuff that had fallen in the living room. The Cartel men had made an outright mess of it all.

The only thing I could do was sit there and stare.

Stuck in this sadness and despair, I let the hopelessness win.

Without energy to get up, without the power to think straight, I stared and willed time to pass with more mercy, that somehow, each minute would move forward and make this all hurt less.

“Up.” Señora Vasquez barked at me as she entered the kitchen again. “Up. Get up.” She clapped her hands and gestured at me to snap into obedience. “Up, Sofia.”

I shook my head.

“Move. Get up. Walk around. Get fresh air.” She tugged on my hand and didn’t quit. “Get. Up.Now.”

I sighed, standing. I still didn’t see the point, but I didn’t protest when she prodded me to step outside with her.

“You need to move. Breathe in,” she ordered once I followed her out onto the sidewalk leading to the front door. “Breathe out.”

I only sighed again.

She growled, shaking her head. “I said to breathe in, Sofia.” Again, she demonstrated, putting her hand on her stomach and acting out a deep inhale.

I made the mistake of lifting my hand to my stomach, mirroring her, but it was the arm Sebastian had broken. I winced and lowered it.

Señora Vasquez scolded me, but as the droning whine of a moped approached, I frowned and wondered where it was coming from.

“Sofia,” she scolded just as a small bike rolled closer and closer. I tugged her hand to pull her out of the way from the moped that sped in a swerving path along the street. In and out of yards, back on the road, then mostly on the sidewalk, the rider nearly crashed into a garbage can. The handle scraped along a parked car, then took out a string of Christmas lights attached to a low fence.

“Look out!” Señora Vasquez hollered as I yanked her out of the way.

“Ahh!” The rider’s voice carried past us until the small bike hit a young tree and forced him to crash into a bush.

I blinked once. Twice.

I couldn’t breathe.

I knew that voice, that cry of alarm that would one day probably be an adult-like curse.

“Ramon?” Juan had stepped out of the house, pausing from his abuela mandating him to offer to clean.

Is it…?

How is?—

My baby?

The young rider groaned and crawled out from the bush as the moped’s engine droned on steadily. It wasn’t going anywhere, upside down and spinning in a circle to wear out the grass. As he shuffled out from the leaves, on his hands and knees and shaking his head full of thick brown hair…

“Ramon!” I screeched it, stupefied and overjoyed to see my son.

I ran to him, stunned and rocked back in disbelief that it was him. He washere. He was back.

“Mama!” he cried out in reply as he staggered to his feet and brushed off the debris from his legs. “Mama!”

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God!” I fell to my knees, hauling him into a hug. My arm screamed in pain, but it didn’t stop me from hugging my precious boy close. Nothing could stop me from clinging to him and crying happy tears that he was alive. And here. Not taken away.

I hadn’t lost him.

He was here!

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