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Mercedes senses the shift in my body and looks up at me. My hands move over the swell of her stomach, and I see her confused face in my periphery. Because my eyes are locked on him. The gunman who pushes the robe back, the weapon catching the light, polished metal glinting as shiny as it is deadly.
All the noise and laughter become background. A throbbing, muted thing as Vincent Douglas raises his arm, the robe falling away fully. A choked no escapes me as I push Mercedes behind me, and I swear I see the burst of light as the gun fires.
A scream. Someone finally screams.
No, that’s not right. The scream comes after. After the white-hot pain. After I’m falling. Mercedes.
A man calls out. There are two more pops, then a third. More shrieks, people confused and afraid.
“Judge!” It’s Mercedes. Her voice sounds strange, not like herself. She’s shaking me. “Judge! No! You can’t do this to me! I just got you back.”
I want to reach out for her, but I can’t seem to move. Can’t open my eyes. I want to tell her it will be okay, but I don’t think it will. I think it’s too late for that. Too late to have a marriage with the woman I love. Too late for our little family. For me to be the man I was meant to be all along.
It’s when she’s dragged off me that I feel the cold loss of her, and finally, finally, the throbbing pain subsides, and I am gone.
22
Santiago
Mercedes kicks and screams, thrusting her elbows into my gut as I hand her off to Marco. “Take them home! Lock her in her room if you have to!”
Ivy is already in the car and he’s hauling Mercedes into it. He pushes in beside her and the driver takes off before he’s even closed the door. I see her nearly crawl over his lap to get out. To get to her husband. And the misery on her face breaks my heart.
She just got this. They just got here. After everything, they finally arrived at the start of their happily ever after. But I don’t know if a De La Rosa or a Montgomery is destined to have a happy ending. I hope I’m wrong for my sister’s sake. For my daughter’s sake. But I don’t trust fate. And as I drop to my knees beside my friend, I send a curse up to the heavens for what they’ve allowed to happen on this night of all nights.
“Call a motherfucking ambulance!”
“It’s on its way,” a man says as I rip away Judge’s tie, his shirt. He’s going to fucking choke. There’s so much blood I can’t fucking tell where it’s coming from. “Mr. De La Rosa, stop,” the same man says as I give Judge a shake. “You’ll do more harm than good. Move back.”
I realize it’s Dr. Barnes, and he’s pressing a bloodred cloth to the wound on Judge’s head.
Blood red. It’s the handkerchief from Judge’s pocket. It was to match my sister’s wedding dress. But the red was never meant to be fucking blood.
“Judge, you wake the hell up, you hear me!”
“Someone get him away from here!” Barnes orders angrily, and two sets of arms haul me up as the sirens that were too distant just minutes ago are close enough to drown out the screams of the women.
For a moment, I’m transported back in time to the night of the masquerade ball. The night similar sounds broke into that of elegant music and crystal flutes overflowing with champagne clinking together in celebration. The night I almost died.
“He’s not breathing,” a paramedic calls out as I’m hauled away from my friend, but I realize he’s not the only one hurt. The other man, the one who shot Vincent Douglas dead, he’s the one who’s not breathing.
“Jesus Christ. Get the fuck off me!” I rip away from the men holding me and take in the gruesome sight at the bottom of the stairs. Vincent Douglas lies dead, half his face blown off. And beside him, the masked, cloaked man who shot him. Who probably saved my sister’s life. Judge’s too. If he survives.
I bend to push off his mask as the paramedics work, yelling for me to back away. I recognize him although it’s been years. At least five. More?
“Theron?”
“Sir, move away.”
I look behind me to find a stretcher being rolled over and watch as they lift Theron’s limp body onto it on the count of three. They push past me, two stretchers going toward the waiting ambulance, both brothers quiet, unmoving.
I go after them, grab a paramedic by the arm and make him face me. “Are they going to make it?”
The other man slams the door.
“Sir, we need to go. Now!”
“I’m riding with you.”
