My sister deliberately sprayed me with something she knew I was allergic to, and I ended up in the ER; hours later, my father stormed in, hit me, and yelled, “Just tell your husband to buy her the SUV.” I didn’t argue. I only pressed the nurse call button… and when he saw who appeared in the doorway, he went completely still.

Three months later.

The Third Criminal Court of Mexico City was housed in a massive, gray stone building near the center of the city. Inside Courtroom 4B, the air was thick with the scent of old paper, leather, and impending judgment.

I sat at the prosecution table beside Alejandro and our lead legal counsel, Licenciada Sofía Ramírez—a brilliant, sharp-tongued prosecutor whom Alejandro had hired from one of the top criminal defense firms in Latin America.

Across the aisle sat my family.

They were barely recognizable as the arrogant, demanding people who had ambushed me in Valle de Bravo three months ago.

My father wore a cheap, ill-fitting suit he had bought for court; his hair was unkempt, graying rapidly at the temples, and his face was lined with deep furrows of stress. My mother sat beside him, looking frail, thin, and terrified, her fingers nervously clutching a plastic rosary.

And then there was Fernanda.

She wore a dark blue prison jumpsuit beneath an oversized cardigan, her hands tethered to a leather belly-chain. Her long, manicured nails were gone, bitten down to the quick. She sat between two public defenders—her previous private lawyers having abandoned the case when my father’s accounts were frozen due to mounting civil lawsuits—and stared at her lap, refusing to look in my direction.

"All rise for the Honorable Judge Ricardo Mendoza," the bailiff announced.

We stood as the judge, a stern man in his late fifties with silver hair and razor-sharp eyes, took his seat at the high wooden bench. He adjusted his glasses, opened a thick black binder containing the final evidence, and looked down at the defense table.

"Before I deliver my verdict," Judge Mendoza began, his voice echoing off the high ceilings, "I want to state for the record that in my twenty-four years on the bench, I have rarely witnessed a display of familial cruelty as calculating and callous as the one presented in this case."

My mother let out a small, stifled sob, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders. My father kept his head down, staring blankly at the wooden floor.

"The defense has argued," Judge Mendoza continued, turning a page, "that the defendant, Fernanda Hernández, was merely engaging in a reckless prank, and that the defendants Roberto and Patricia Hernández panicked under extreme emotional duress. However, the forensic evidence, the text message records, and the crystal-clear audio-visual recordings from the estate tell a completely different story."

The judge looked directly at Fernanda.

"The forensic analysis of the spray bottle recovered from the scene proved that the liquid inside was not a commercial body mist. It was a concentrated solution of synthetic almond oil, deliberately mixed into a high-pressure atomizer. This demonstrates clear premeditation. You knew your sister possessed a life-threatening anaphylactic allergy, and you prepared a weapon specifically designed to exploit that vulnerability when she refused your extortionate demands."

Fernanda let out a low, pathetic whimper, burying her face in her chained hands.

"Furthermore," Judge Mendoza snapped, turning his gaze to my parents, "the behavior of Roberto and Patricia Hernández following the assault was not that of panicked parents, but of accomplices fleeing a crime scene. You did not dial 911. You did not seek medical assistance. You left your eldest daughter to suffocate on the floor while you attempted to secure your own escape and later continued to attempt to extort money from her fiancé."

The judge banged his gavel once—a sharp, deafening sound that made everyone in the gallery jump.

"On the count of Aggravated Criminal Assault and Attempted Manslaughter, I find the defendant, Fernanda Hernández, GUILTY," Judge Mendoza read. "She is hereby sentenced to eight years at the Santa Martha Acatitla Women's Penitentiary, without the possibility of early parole."

Fernanda shrieked, a high-pitched, desperate sound of pure terror, as her public defender tried to whisper words of comfort to her.

"On the counts of Conspiracy to Commit Extortion, Obstruction of Justice, and Failure to Render Aid, I find the defendant, Roberto Hernández, GUILTY," the judge continued smoothly. "He is sentenced to four years at the Reclusorio Norte. I find the defendant, Patricia Hernández, GUILTY of Failure to Render Aid and Complicity, and sentence her to two years of house arrest accompanied by five hundred hours of mandatory community service."

Judge Mendoza looked up from his papers, fixing my parents with a look of utter disgust.

"In addition, this court approves the full civil restitution order requested by the prosecution. All liquid assets belonging to Roberto Hernández, as well as his equity in the family home in Santa Fe, are hereby seized to pay for the medical expenses, security costs, and legal fees incurred by the victim."

My father gasped, raising his head in absolute horror. "My house?! You're taking my house?!"

"You forfeited your right to that house when you used it as collateral to harbor a criminal, Don Roberto," Judge Mendoza said coldly. "This court is adjourned."

BAM.

The gavel fell one final time.

The courtroom exploded into chaos. Police officers stepped forward to drag Fernanda toward the side door leading to the holding cells. She thrashed against her chains, screaming my name over and over again.

"Valeria! Please! Tell them to stop! I'm your sister! Vale! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" she shrieked, her voice echoing down the stone corridor until the heavy steel door slammed shut behind her.

My father was lifted out of his chair by two bailiffs. He looked at me across the aisle—his eyes filled not with anger anymore, but with a deep, hopeless, terrifying realization of his own ruin. He opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out. He was led away in handcuffs, his boots dragging uselessly along the floor.

My mother remained sitting in her chair, weeping silently into her hands, completely alone.

Alejandro stood beside me, gently sliding his hand into mine. I looked up at him, breathing in the scent of pine and clean rain that always seemed to follow him.

"Are you okay, Vale?" he asked softly.