“She’s not yours!” he spits. “She was never yours!”
Mercedes screams again, scrambling backward as we stumble toward her. “Stop! Please stop!” She’s on her feet, and this time, she doesn’t try to pull her brother away. Instead, she throws herself between us, into me, clinging with arms and legs around me to shield me from her brother.
My arms wrap around her instinctively, her firm, round belly pressed against mine. My eyes search her face, and my chest aches at the sight of it. Sad and broken. I did this to her. I broke her. She was right. She was never in my care. That was my own arrogance. I made her my prisoner. And I broke her.
Santiago tries to drag her away, but she clings to me. He's forced to release her, and she stands between us facing me, our eyes locked. Silence descends in this war room, a strange quiet passing between us. And I know without a doubt that the end that was coming is here. And that tether between us, that ever-precarious thing that I denied time and again, it has snapped. Gone. Severed for good. She feels it too. I see that much on her face. Hear it in the choked sound as her lip quivers, and she sobs quietly until we’re finally interrupted by Santiago’s voice.
“Oh, Jesus. Oh, fuck. No.”
We both turn to face Santiago because we must. There’s a moment when the tips of Mercedes’s fingers search for mine, trembling over my thigh until I weave my fingers with hers. We stand, the pair of us, guilty, as Santiago takes in her state. His beautiful sister wearing the blood of our battle and the consequence of my arrogance.
She will bear the brunt of this. Like she said a long time ago, it’s always the women who pay.
Santiago’s hand lands heavy on the edge of the mantel. He needs it to stand. His eyes are locked on her swollen belly.
“Santi…”
He drags his gaze to hers, and that betrayal I saw earlier is double.
“It was my fault. Not hers. I am guilty. Not her.” My voice sounds strange. I never knew before today that you could hear pain.
Santiago drags his gaze to mine. I see what it costs him to do it. “You’ll marry her. Today.”
Mercedes shakes her head. “No, Santi—”
“You will marry her today!” he roars.
She pulls her fingers away from mine, that soft warmth gone. She takes a step toward him, and Marco, his driver and personal guard, appears in the doorway, confused momentarily at the sight that greets him, then shocked as his gaze settles on Mercedes.
“I won’t marry him,” Mercedes says. I see what it takes for her to steel herself. “You can’t make me anymore.”
It’s the wrong thing to say because her brother turns his rage-darkened eyes to her. But the instant he steps toward her, I am between them, shielding her with my body.
“Get the hell out of my way,” he tells me.
Marco comes into the room. I can take each of them separately. Probably not both at once, though.
“I am responsible, not her. You won’t punish her.”
Santiago’s gaze is cold, jaw set, eyes narrowed. “She will do as I say. And so will you. You will marry her. Today.”
I set my jaw too. How long have we been friends? How much have we been through together? His darkness I know. The violence that killed his father and brother. That ultimately took his mother. That claimed pieces of him. I was there for him through it all.
But my darkness? The truth that lurks inside me? He has never seen my rage, my beast. I have never allowed it. What kind of friend am I? One-sided. He doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know what I’m capable of. If he did, he certainly wouldn’t allow me to marry his sister. He wouldn’t ever have let me near her.
“Do you fucking hear me?” he demands of me.
My heart races, a fresh coat of sweat breaks out over my forehead, and I'm transported back to the punishment room, where I stand watching as my grandfather rages. As he tears into the skin of my mother’s back while his beast roars, all teeth and hate and savagery. And I am paralyzed in the face of his fury.
What did I feel then? Anything? Fear? For myself or her? Fear of him. Fear that I am like him.
I can't keep Mercedes. Because keeping her will inevitably lead her to that place. To stand where my mother stood and bear the consequence of my beast. No. I have to let her go. It’s the only right thing to do, yet I'm not strong enough to do it. It’s why she’s been here so long. Why I’ve kept her even though I’ve known all along it was only a matter of time. I need Santiago to take her away knowing what it means for our friendship, the scraps left of it.
“I can’t do that,” I say, my voice steady but different. Hoarse and with an edge. “But I will take responsibility for the child—”
He eats the space between us, and Mercedes sets her hand at my back when he and I stand nose to nose.
“You will not ruin her.”
What can I say to that? I already have. More than he can know, I think. I feel it in the burning touch of her hand, hear it in her quiet breaths at my back. I’ve seen it on her face too. In her eyes. I was her first. The damage I did goes far deeper than the eye can see.
She is thoroughly and irrevocably ruined.
I have done that.
Is it any comfort that I, too, am destroyed?
I will stand with her, but I can’t take her hand. I can’t do what he asks of me and have her hate me more than she already does. Already should, at least. But that’s the thing with Mercedes. She is so much more fragile, more tenderhearted than anyone knows.
“Judge—”
“I am sorry, Santiago. I cannot.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t believe me. Like he doesn’t know me. And he knows I mean what I’m saying. I see it in the slight slumping of his shoulders. In the crease between his brows. As if my betrayal is slicing deeper still, and he doesn’t understand why.
“Marco. Take my sister to the car.”
Mercedes’s hand trembles at my back, but before Marco takes a step forward, she clears her throat and walks around me. Santiago’s eyes burn into me as I watch her walk away, head held high.
Marco follows her. I look at the closed door, the emptiness, the finality. But it’s not time for that just yet. This isn’t finished yet. And so, I turn to face my best friend. A man I love like a brother. But that’s what brothers do, isn’t it? Mine put a literal knife in my back. What I've done to Santiago is no different.
“Now I understand Vicarius,” he says quietly.
“Do not punish her, Santiago. The fault is mine. Entirely.”
“Your betrayal wounds me like nothing ever has.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and try to breathe.
“I would have welcomed the union of our families. But you choose to shame my sister and, in turn, me. Your punishment will be the severing of our friendship. And you alone are responsible for it. Know that, Judge. You chose this. And may you suffer the consequence of your weakness for the rest of your life.”