Page 74 of Velvet Deception

I couldn’t be. I couldn’t. I had too much to live for. I told Diego that I’d rather die than live without my son, but that wasn’t it. I had to live for this love Diego and I had fought to build. I had to live for this baby in my stomach so Ramon could have a sibling. I knew that now and would vow to remember it forever.

However long myforevermight last.

He drove the knife down, and I screamed, pinned in place and unable to move away from the searing slice of my skin tearing open. Blood spilled free, emptying out of me that much faster with this red-hot rage making my blood pressure shoot up high.

I couldn’t die. I couldn’t. Ramon needed his mother. Diego had my heart. And the new life growing inside would do well with me alive and here too.

Please, no.I just couldn’t die yet.

“Sofia!”

A gunshot was fired from the front door.

30

DIEGO

Idrove as fast as I could to get back to the house. The SUV came equipped with two guns under the seat, and I took one as I ran out to the front door. Stefan had offered for me to take however many men I wanted, but I hadn’t slowed enough to ask or figure that one. I operated the best when I was alone, anyway. The second I stepped inside and saw Antonio driving a knife down at Sofia, pinned beneath him, I didn’t think. Thoughts ceased to matter. All that could enter my mind was the dark evil that flared to the surface.

“Sofia!” I aimed the gun at Antonio. He pinned Sofia to the floor, a knife in his hand. And I fired.

He rolled off her, dodging the bullet and coming back up on one knee to face me and fire back with a gun he pulled out of a holster at his ankle. Fast. Almost too fast. The bullet whirred past my face.

I ducked, creeping along the couch. Gunfire wasn’t ideal in here. Sofia could be hit. Ramon too. I searched for the boy, relieved when he seemed dazed from the hit against the wall, but notshot. Shakily, Ramon got up from the other wall, and I nodded at him. “Go. Help your mother. Help her out of here.”

He didn’t wait, rushing toward Sofia at the same time that Antonio leaped around the couch and fired at me again. I slid to the side, avoiding his shots and pulling the trigger to hit him too. Moving out and to the left, I kicked out the coffee table to make him trip, but my gun skidded out over the floor, out of my reach.

“You fucker!” He fell back, losing his grip on his gun, too. “You goddamn motherfucker.”

I darted toward him, pummeling his face with my fists. I unleashed all my rage on him, all the pent-up frustration I’d felt for him my whole life.

“You think you can try to kill me?” I dodged his hits as we rolled over the floor. “You hit me at the hospital. You dumped me outside and left me to die. All because you wanted the glory of killing Rodriguez.”

“Because it was supposed to be mine,” he shot back. “The boss said he needed someone for the job and he thought you needed a ‘break’ from working so hard. I told him I could do it.”

“That doesn’t mean he wanted you to have the job. He gave it to me.”

Growling and straining to reach his gun, he fought harder and almost shoved me off. “Just like everything else. He gave you Maria when she was already flirting with me.”

He proved what Stefan and I had speculated. That he’d been dead set on taking what he thought he was owed.

“And now this. I’ve been watching this kid for years because he’s my fucking son. I fucked her, Diego. Not Sebastian. I fucked her, and that boy is mine.”

“Not anymore,” I growled, still holding him down.

“I always spied on him here, in case I wanted to demand that she be my bitch again. After she ran away like a coward the first time.”

I squeezed my fingers around his neck, straining to choke the life out of him.

“And since I already checked in on this area, I noticedyou. Risen from the supposed dead. I saw you with her. And withmy bastard son!”

“Diego!” Ramon cried out. “Mama’s bleeding too fast.”

“Help her.”

“I hope she dies. I hope she fucking dies,” Antonio sneered, trying to hold me off him. “Then that’ll be something else I can take from you. You wanna fuck her and play house with her? Too damn bad.”

“Diego,” Sofia said, sitting up slightly as she held her bloody hand to her side. Ramon pressed her shirt to the wound as she stretched to reach for my gun. Her fingers caught it, but she winced at the lean to get it.

---