“You’re going to fucking kill him!”

“He deserves no less!” He shoves Mercedes back, and she stumbles over the toppled table, falling into the broken glass, screaming as it cuts into her palms.

Santiago stops when he hears her. He turns. And it’s when he takes a step toward her that I grab him by his shirt collar and haul him back.

“Not her. You don’t touch her!” I throw him sideways, but my desk breaks his fall, and his rage is back. He hurls himself at me, and this time, I do fight him.

“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.”