The other man slams the door.

“Sir, we need to go. Now!”

“I’m riding with you.”

“There’s no room!” The other door is slammed shut, and the driver takes off.

“Fuck!” I push my hands into my hair and look around at the chaos of my sister’s wedding. A night that’s turned the courtyard of IVI bloodier than it’s ever been. Bloodier than perhaps that scaffold that stands concealed but ready in the small, grassy area behind The Tribunal building.

I need a car. I need a fucking car.

“Sir! Santiago!” I spin to find Raul, Judge’s driver, rushing toward me. “I’ll take you to the hospital. This way.”

I follow him to his Rolls—the one Judge and Mercedes rode in—and we drive at breakneck speed toward the hospital, the sirens that were fading growing louder when we pull into the lot just as they’re unloading the Montgomery brothers.

Fuck. Both of them like this. Both unconscious. Surely, the gods cannot be this cruel, but they are. I know that well.

“Thank you,” I tell Raul.

“Sir, his wife?” he asks. “He’ll want her here.”

I stop, think, then nod. “Yes. Okay. I’ll make a call. She’s at De La Rosa Manor.”

“I’ll bring her.”

I text Marco as I rush into the hospital to let him know Raul is coming for Mercedes. I can just imagine how crazed she must be right now. How panicked. She was prepared to raise her children on her own. It took so long for Judge to get to this point. To marry her. And it feels like fate has betrayed her doubly. To hang that future in front of her eyes only to snatch it away so violently.

No. I cannot think like this.

He will survive. He will make it. He has to. His brother, though, he looked really bad, the skin of his face an unnatural gray.

“Where are the Montgomery brothers? They were in the ambulance that just came in,” I say to the woman at the reception desk. She should know them. This is a Society hospital.

She takes a look at me, and I glance down, seeing the smear of Judge’s blood on me. Given that and the half-skull tattoo on my face, I understand the panic on hers. But I don’t care. I slam my hands on the counter.

“Where the fuck are they?”

“Surgery. Surgery rooms six and seven.”

“Mr. De La Rosa.” I turn to find Dr. Barnes hurrying in through the sliding glass doors. He gives the woman at the desk a nod and takes my arm. “Come with me. I’ll take you where we can wait.”

“My sister. She’s on her way.”

He turns to the woman at the desk. “Make sure Mrs. Montgomery is taken to waiting room one.”