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?”