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?
Walking from one place to the next, not knowing what to do, Enrique was holding his head over and over again. Everything had become complicated in a second, they only hoped that the woman was really dead because if not, she was going to say who were the people who kidnapped her and shot her. Enrique had to leave the country, but what about his wife? Poor Isela, he had to go to the house and leave together, maybe in time he would explain to her what happened. “What do we do, boss?” asked one of the men who had helped with everything. “We have to go anywhere and not be anywhere near where it all happened.” “What about the necklace?” “When I sell it myself, I'll give them your share. Now get out. I'll get my wife and we'll leave together, I swear I'll be back to give you your share.” “I think it's too late for that, sir," said the third man. “What are you talking about?” “The police have arrested your wife.” “What? What on earth are you talking about? “Seems like your wife arriv
TWO MONTHS LATER Seconds, minutes, hours, hours that made up days, days that were never going to return. The tears were gone from her, her soul seemed to be drying up as time went by. As the days went by, as the hatred grew in her heart, Isela realized only one thing. She had married in love, she was willing to do anything for him, she was even willing to blame herself for everything that had happened only to have in her mind the name of two people who had hurt her. Stefan de la Barrera, who had accused her of murder by paying a lot of money and her husband, Enrique, who left her to her fate and not enough with that, he accused her of something she would never have dared to do. It was too soon to think about the day it would all be over. It was too early to think about that morning and yet, she already had only one plan. “In eight years my sentence is up," she said to the lawyer in front of her. Now Antonio knew that Stefan de la Barrera, the most powerful man in that country, own
Slowly she began to study her enemy and all that she was going to do so that she could get close to him. She had never seen his face before but it was already said that he was a very handsome and intelligent man. It was only by photos that she learned about him, his family, his every move, she even learned by heart his routine, the same one he had given in his interviews. Days, months, years that went that way, the lawyer for his part doing everything so that she could change everything she was, starting with her name. Eight years that were soon reduced to five. FIVE YEARS LATER “Inmate Isela Velar, having served her sentence reduced to five years for good behavior, is now free.” And just like that, the prison doors were opened only for her, who carried a suitcase in hand, ready to take on a new life as she had promised her lawyer and her best friend Adamaris, who in less than four months would also be released from prison. A smile came to her face the moment she saw the sunlight
THREE DAYS LATER ‘All you have to do is behave like a woman of class, a simple woman, a woman who knows what she wants, a woman who is confident in her knowledge because if there is one thing I am sure of is that there is no chef like you, no matter what your studies are, you are better than them.’ Remembering those words, Maria Fernanda got out of the car that had taken her to that company. Immediately hatred came to her, her eyes were filled with so many negative feelings the moment she knew that in that den must be the person who made her so unhappy. Maria Fernanda's plan was simple, she was not going to present herself as the woman with a lot of money who came to make alliances with a man like him, she was going to start very slowly her revenge, she would be close to him, she would gain his trust by being a simple girl to in the end, give the most painful final he could have ever felt in life. With papers in hand, Maria Fernanda in her white coat, her hair tied in a low ponyta
In the apartment that Antonio, Maria Fernanda's lawyer and the same one who had a surprise for her just that day when she arrived, could be heard the loud singing of someone who could not be any happier to take a bath in a decent house.Wrapped in a bathrobe, Adamaris went out without caring that Antonio was there. Adamaris was like that, she liked not to worry about life, she liked the world to go by, she didn't care about anything while the world outside was going crazy for wanting to change it.“Shouldn't you go and change first?” Antonio asked.“What? Does it make you nervous that I only have a robe on?” Adamaris laughed.“No, the truth is that it doesn't make me nervous at all, it's just that if Isela arrives she will think otherwise.”Adamaris didn't avoid going with him and sitting next to him in one of the armchairs. She was not the kind of woman everyone thought she was, she was simply someone who didn't care about life.“Antonio, you don't have to explain to me why you're ne
Getting back from the world where he’d always found his best memories, not letting himself get carried away again as if he was at home, Stefan stood up while wiping away his tears. Despite the years that had gone by without her, he still loved the woman who never reached to be his wife, but he felt like, and when they were ready to show off to the world their love, life took her away.Maria Fernanda watched his actions. She also saw him wiping away her tears discreetly, and all that his pain represented to her was happiness in her heart. Stefan was suffering and that was exactly what she wanted him to feel. She just loved the fact of Stefan suffering for the rest of his days because in that way, he may feel the pain she felt every single day she spent behind bars while begging for a miracle that happened to take her out of there because she was innocent, she never killed anyone. She wouldn’t have.“You know what? You make me sick!” said Stefan walking up the door. “Go with Ricardo and
On a hospital bed, being taken care of by the same doctor who’d been the family doctor for years, Stefan de la Barrera started to wake up. He didn’t remember so much, all he remembered was feeling the cold ground on his back and a person who begged him to stay awake. “Finally, you wake up,” said that well-known voice. Stefan looked around. The only one he knew and was by his side was, again, his friend Ricardo.“What happened?” Asked Stefan right away.“You fainted in the same place where you planned on punishing another person just for being right.”“I don’t understand.” “I thought you’d gotten over your fears of enclosed places.”Little by little Stefan leaded on his elbows, and then sat up. His head hurt, he felt out of himself.“You should be a little more grateful.” “I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Ricardo.”“Well, happened that the same woman you took with you to the food room and punished in front of all people just for having said the truth was the same one w
As soon as Ricardo was seen by the guards outside the company, they ran to open the door for him just for being the best friend of Stefan de la Barrera. It just took a couple of hours to find out where the woman Stefan had talked about was.The truth was that Ricardo had hope in that woman as the one who could change his grumpy friend, the kinda man he’d become after Eliza’s death, Ricardo just wanted Stefan to come back to the person he was now that he’d crashed into his rival -a woman with no fears as Maria Fernanda had shown herself to be.“Good job! Send me the address of the woman and I’ll visit her myself,” said Ricardo to the man who’d gotten that information.“Here, sir, don’t you want us to accompany you?” “No, just two guards are coming with me. Thank you so much, and tell Mr. de la Barrera that the woman will be here any minute.” Without further ado, Ricardo went out with two more men, getting into one of the most luxury cars that Stefan had made available for him wheneve