CHAPTER 2

And for every minute that passed, every meter that the car moved forward, Isela felt farther away from her destination. She had to find her husband before the police did.

“Pick up, pick up, Enrique!” Isela said, putting up her cell phone.

The truth was that she didn't know where in the whole country she was going to find him. Her husband could not go to jail.

Then suddenly she remembered. Enrique had talked many times about going to a warehouse outside the city to do some kind of business. He must be there so, speeding up a little more, she drove on, not knowing that the police were already on their way too, having tracked the cell phone of one of the thieves.

Above all things he was her husband no matter what evil he had done.

In one of the most luxurious houses that could belong to the Barrera family, more than 500 guests were waiting to see the bride arrive. And among them Stefan was the most nervous, not because he was getting married, but because his wife had taken too long, the maids at home had already told him that she had been out for a long time.

Something bad was happening. He could feel it, even the people could sense that something was going on because there were those who were starting to leave. More than forty minutes had passed and she had not arrived.

“Calm down, Stefan, you're very nervous," said his best friend.

“Elisa hasn't arrived. Something bad happened, I'm sure.”

“Don't say that, she must be on her way.”

“Something tells me she's not well. Something tells me. I don't know but I'm going out running to look for her.”

“Relax, remember that on days like these, accidents happen.”

“What kind of accidents?” Stefan asked, startled.

Ricardo laughed. “I see that love has hit you hard. I meant accidents like, I don't know, the car got a flat tire or something like that.”

“You think so?”

“Of course I do! Remember that bad news is the first to come.”

Stefan sighed, looking at his friend. He had never failed him, he had to trust him.

Path of roses and thorns was that, it was a total lie, happiness had never been as easy to achieve as she had believed it to be a couple of hours ago, when she saw herself in her white dress.

“Please let me go, please, my husband can give you all the money you want, please.”

The men looked at her mockingly. “Do you really think things are going to be that easy?”

“Please, just let me go.”

The cell phone of one of them rang, making all the others pay attention to it. Maybe the call they were not expecting had arrived, the same one that would tell them where and how to deliver the woman so they would not be discovered.

“Yes, hello?”

An agitated voice from the other end. “The police, you have to get out of there..., the police are on their way!”

Those words brought Elisa back to life. The police were already near, if she fought a little to distract them until the police arrived, they would go to jail and she would be rescued, so being that way, Elisa got up from the floor. She went against one of the men who were there.

She hit him, scratched him, shouted things at him, bit him while the other men pulled her off him.

“Get this idiot off me!” the man shouted.

And being in a moment of desperation and nervousness at being told that the police were near, Enrique pointed his gun at Elisa and without thinking more, shot her right in the side.

Everything died in silence.

Only the burst of a bullet that had left in a hurry.

A white wedding dress that was stained with her own blood, the shot by a man who acted without thinking and around them, only silence as they watched Elisa's body fall straight down. The pain was unbearable, so unbearable that it was taking her out of reality.

Finally, the car stopped in the middle of a desert if that was what she could call it, forgetting everything, Isela ran towards the warehouse without knowing that this could be her last breath, even though she was scared, Elisa felt she had the strength to fight. She had to get out of there as fast as possible together with Enrique.

“Enrique!” She shouted with all her strength, entering the cellar.

And without her having expected it, thinking that for the first time the victory would belong to the people who had behaved badly and in this case, she being the heroine of the story, the disappointment was bigger than she thought at the moment she realized that there was no one there, except for the woman in a wedding dress submerged in a pool of her own blood. She was delirious.

Isela put her hands to her mouth before rushing to her.

“Miss. Miss, please stay with me, please don't die, I will call the police," said Isela holding Elisa's head in her lap.

Elisa was already dying.

“Please don't make any effort.”

“Stefan... Stefan... Stefan," said Elisa repeatedly.

“Please, miss, don't talk, the police should be on their way," said Isela just to reassure her.

“Stefan," she repeated again.

“Please, miss, you can't die, not today," Isela asked crying while her hands were stained with blood, trying to hold back the blood that was coming out of Elisa.

Now that she was looking at her with her eyes she realized that this would be her wedding day. The happiest day of her life.

Outside, two cars pulled up in a hurry, the sirens of the patrol cars made Isela feel safe.

“You have to hold on a little longer, miss, help is here," Isela asked while tears were falling.

“S-Stefan... S-Stefan... S-Stefan," she stuttered.

“Please, don't talk anymore.”

And suddenly, from Elisa's mouth blood began to flow. The end was coming.

“No, no, stay with me!”

Suddenly four policemen pointed their guns at Isela as she entered the cellar.

“Put your hands up now!” they shouted.

At that moment Isela realized that the policemen thought she was going to be blamed for everything.

“No please, I didn't do anything, I just found this woman," she said. “Ma'am, ma'am, tell them that and I haven't done anything," she asked the woman in his lap.

And all her eyes saw a second later was the way in which the woman in her lap ended up fighting for a life that would no longer be hers because death had succeeded, she closed her eyes forever, making everyone witness her death.

“No!" cried Isela with all her strength.

Even if she had never seen her before in her life, she felt the pain of losing her, for her it was on the happiest day of her life that she was dying.

“You are under arrest for the murder of Miss Elisa Avila!” One of the policemen continued.

“No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to stand here with my arms crossed. Elisa has an hour, a damn hour since she left home!” Stefan said. There are hardly any guests even.

“Maybe she doesn't want to marry you," laughed his friend.

This time that joke did get on Stefan's nerves.

“I'm sorry, I thought you were going to laugh.”

“Well, you saw that I wasn't.”

At that moment Stefan's cell phone started ringing.

“This is Stefan de la Barrera, yes, hello?”

“Mr. de la Barrera, we're talking about Angeles Hospital.”

“What's going on?”

“It's about your girlfriend, Miss Elisa Avila.”

“What about my wife? What happened to her?”

“Sir, Miss Avila is seriously injured at the Angeles Hospital, we need you to come immediately.”

“No, that can't be true! Not that!”

In a hurry, running all over the place, Stefan arrived together with his best friend, who couldn't believe what had just happened. The white corridors looked like nothing more than a dungeon where she could not find anyone who could tell her what was going on.

His eyes from so much crying on the road did not allow him to see the place clearly.

“You have to calm down, Stefan.”

“How can I calm down, Ricardo, my wife was found almost dying from a gunshot wound! How? At what point?!”

“Relax, I'll go check over there. You stay here. You stay here.”

Ricardo immediately went to the receptionist so he could tell him about his best friend's wife.

“Excuse me, Miss, we need information about Miss Elisa Avila.”

“Elisa Avila?”

“Yes, Elisa Avila!”

“Oh! Right over there is the doctor," said the woman.

“Family members of Miss Elisa Avila?” asked the doctor.

Immediately Ricardo and Stefan approached.

“It's me, I am Elisa's husband. How is my wife?”

The doctor sighed. He didn't even know how to begin. He, like all the policemen, had realized that this was the happiest day of his life. They were getting married. Why was life so unfair?

“Tell me, how is my wife?!”

“Mr. de la Barrera, I'm very sorry, but...”

“But! But what?!”

“I'm very sorry, Mr. de la Barrera, but your wife just passed away, we are very sorry, we couldn't do anything, the blood loss was too much. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”

“No!" cried Stefan as his heart broke into a thousand pieces as he fell to the ground.

And Ricardo, he had never seen a man like him before suffering the way Stefan was suffering for a woman who was no longer in this world.

With her hands cuffed behind her back, being escorted by two policemen, Isela could not stop crying as she screamed at the policemen that she was not the guilty one, she had done nothing wrong.

With her brown coat stained with blood, her face also stained with blood and her hair a mess, Isela arrived.

“Please, I didn't do anything, I don't know who did it, I didn't do anything, let me free, please," she continued shouting until she reached one of the police stations so that the investigation could begin. “Get me out of here!”

In bad time she had to get to that place where the bride was dying, there was nothing she could do but think over and over that this woman had left the world without telling them that Isela had not committed any crime.

So many thoughts came to her mind at that moment. It wasn't possible that her husband had done that, was it? Something had to get out of control, her husband wasn't the kind of man who would kill someone, she just had to let him know but how if she was locked in a place where no one could hear her?